Compare And Contrast Johnson And Richard Nixon

Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon were both two very important presidents of the United States. Combined they were in the White House for 10 years and I think domestically they could be considered as good presidents. The thing that I think hurt their image the most was their foreign policies and in case of Nixon the Watergate scandal. Firstly, I will talk about Lyndon Johnson. He came in power after the assassination of John Kennedy in 1963. In contrast to Kennedy that came from a new "kind" of politicians which were young and from a good rich family, Johnson grew up in modest circumstances. Johnson was a liberal like Roosevelt and like FDR's "New Deal", Johnson called his vision "The Great Society". The main points of "The Great Society"

Johnson used these stats to show the Americans that they were in a great condition with him as president. But Johnson's support of the civil rights lost him the Deep South that always supported Democrats. After the win Johnson launched The Great Society. Johnson administration also tried to improved the quality of American life. The most different point in The Great Society was the war on poverty and Johnson believed that now that America was in a great economic state he could do something to fight poverty and he managed to do it to a certain level. However in the later years of his presidency he faced some problems domestically. With the war on Vietnam continuing there were a lot of protests by students on favor of ending the war in Vietnam. This wasn't his only problem. By 1968 a lot of race riots had taken place because of the civil rights movement. In 1968, America was falling apart over the war in Vietnam and the racial violence that wrecked American cities. Johnson's biggest successes domestically were : Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, Medicare, Immigration and Nationality Act and Economic Opportunity Act. The reason why Johnson was considered a "tragic" president was his

In 1969 he administration implemented the affirmative-action program to promote equality by increasing minority employment and education but there was a lot of disagreement about this program. The most common was that this attempted to discriminate individuals that never caused discrimination at the first place. The most affected class of people by this program was the white working-class and they heavily opposed it. Nonetheless the program passed and is still on power nowadays. However Nixon's domestic policy was very confusing. On one hand he worked to improve the society and he managed it by expanding federal programs to improve society. He also tried to improve the economy using deficit spending and also proposed a minimum income for every American. On the other hand Nixon was very paranoiac and often used the government agencies to spy on the people who he thought were his enemies. The biggest scandal that ended his political career was the Watergate Cover-up. Although he wasn't directly involved, he didn't distance himself but he chose to cover it up. 5 men were caught breaking into the Democratic National Committee's offices at the Watergate apartment in D.C just four months before the election. The investigations that were made led directly to the White House and against Nixon on October 1973 started