Lyndon B. Johnson's Analysis

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Lyndon B. Johnson was the most consequential president after Franklin D. Roosevelt because of his pluralistic domestic policies and his involvement in the Vietnam War, which both “marked the historical height of ‘presidential government’” (Milkis & Nelson 2016, 363). Because Johnson has previously been the Vice President, a United States Representative, a United States Senator, and even the Senate Majority Leader, he was able to use personal persuasion on both houses of Congress to endorse his bills and join his cause. After Johnson succeeded to the presidency, he used the country’s grief to fuel his moral crusade to be “the greatest [president] of them all, the whole bunch of them” (Milkis & Nelson 2016, 360). Johnson’s new “Great Society” …show more content…

Johnson initially listed eleven possible ideas in his State of the Union speech, but when it came time to draft the legislation, he only had one main component and had to quickly add five other programs to make the initiative seem sufficient to battle a “war”. In addition to the domestic war, President Johnson also made significant improvements in the power of the presidency during the Vietnam War. Johnson believed that the Constitution gave him the authority to commit troops to the war, but thought it was desirable to gain Congress’ approval so he would have their support throughout the length of the conflict (Milkis & Nelson 2016, 365). Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964, which gave Lyndon B. Johnson the power “to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression” during the Vietnam War (Milkis & Nelson 2016, 365). The additional authority to make any and all military decisions without requiring additional approval from Congress gave the U.S. presidency more power than it ever had before. It wasn’t really until the presidency of Johnson that progressivism could rise because he managed to lead a democratic Congress to implement the new socioeconomic programs. Johnson 's presidency marked the peak of modern liberalism in the United States after the New Deal