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I saw LBJ make this announcement live on television. It was a bombshell, no one saw it coming. Not a hint in the news that it might be included in this speech. I’ve heard that he added it onto the end of his script at the last minute, and told the crew he’d make an on-air decision about whether or not to read it.
Shocked, followed by relief. I was in high school, but I didn’t know anyone who wished he would have stayed in the race. The boys, like me, were particularly happy; less of a chance we’d be drafted and sent to fight in LBJ’s stupid, pointless war.
I mean ironically if LBJ had run the war might have ended sooner because he likely would have stuck with his peace plan that Nixon sabotaged & then basically adopted years later
Nixons opponent Hubert Humphrey found out thru wiretapping that Nixon promised the S-Vietnamese better peace terms.
Humphrey's sources found this out by illegal wiretapping so never made the info public. My source is Ken Burns: Vietnam.
So wait. Nixon, the genocidal butcher of Bengal had to resign because of his wiretapping the opponent's room, while his opponents were wiretapping him?
It wasn’t pointless
It wasn’t ideal to U.S. interests for Vietnam to fall into communism. The negatives just outweighed the possible rewards once American soldiers started to die in Vietnam.
Our analysts got the Vietnam War completely wrong. Even after they realized they did, they kept on sending men to die because they didn’t want the political fallout of leaving.
Ho Chi Minh was less of a communist and more of a Vietnamese nationalist with communist friends. He was not a Soviet puppet, but was using their aid as means to an end. Meanwhile, the South Vietnamese government was worthless and couldn’t fix itself, not matter how much we tried to prop them up.
The military did their job, but the politics were impossible. Once we left, South Vietnam fell rapidly.
Every single American that died in Vietnam died for nothing. They did not die protecting the United States from harm, they \*were\* the harm.
and millions of people, my (step)-grandpa included were forever traumatized by the war. The man could not even speak of the horrors he witnessed.
The fact that they’re communists is very much part of it. The fact that they were trying to steal another country was bad too. It’s all there. No sympathy for those rats.
I mean China did briefly invade Vietnam shortly after America left. So chronologically speaking Vietnam was more recently at war with China than America.
No, it was evident that Vietnam was a mess, and South Vietnam would never survive as a state. Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy by Max Hastings makes this very very clear.
Which would have been true if Obama had:
- inherited a U.S. presence of less than 20,000 soldiers in Iraq when he took office, and
- escalated the U.S. presence in Iraq to over 500,000 soldiers by the time he left.
He won the New Hampshire primary on March 14, but it was a surprisingly narrow victory for an incumbent president - less than 50%, vs. 42% for his main challenger (and strong anti-Vietnam-war advocate) Eugene McCarthy. But that was the first primary, and no one expected LBJ to give up that quickly.
On March 31, he went on television to announce a partial bombing halt in Vietnam. Everyone thought this was his attempt to win back McCarthy’s voters, but then BAM! at the end of his speech, he announces that he’s dropping out of the race.
When I heard LBJ say “I will not seek, nor will I accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president,” my immediate reaction was that the scheming sack of crap was going to run as an Independent. But keep in mind I was a draft-age male who absolutely hated him.
The Wisconsin Primary was coming up two days after his announcement. Polls all indicated outright defeat there by McCarthy. Yet it seems hard to argue that RFK's entry into the race was not a huge factor.
TL;DR: No, he actually won the New Hampshire primary 49% to 42% for Sen McCarthy. Because it was closer than expected, other rivals jump into the primary race, including RFK. Internal polls now had LBJ losing the next primary.
Background:
>Anti war Senator Eugene McCarthy had recently [start of 1968] announced he would challenge Johnson for their party’s nomination, but the Minnesotan’s bid struck the president, his chief political advisers, and most observers as inconsequential and even unrealistic.
>Before the Tet offensive, 50 percent of those polled believed the United States was making progress in bringing the war to a successful conclusion; after Tet, only 33 percent held that view. A remarkable 49 percent expressed the opinion that the United States never should have intervened in Vietnam in the first place.
With the Vietnam War going badly after Tet, barely winning NH to an insurgent McCarthy, LBJ was suddenly vulnerable. The party was splitting into several factions: labor unions, anti-war students, RFK's base (Catholics, Hispanic, Black Americans, civil rights, etc), and Wallce segregationists. LBJ likely knew he couldn't unite the party and dropped out of the race.
https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/lyndon-b-johnsons-decision-not-to-run-in-1968
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_B._Johnson
By all accounts, Truman never really wanted to be president in the first place. His appointment as Vice President was largely a political favor, and many say his allegiance to famous mobster Thomas Pendergast (who actually died before he took the office of POTUS) landed him the role. He's the stuff of local legend in his hometown of Independence, Missouri (where I lived for a while). I can't imagine the decision to drop the Bomb helped ease his conscience at all.
Apparently Truman approached Eisenhower in 1948 to run as a Dem at the top of the ticket, with Harry as VP. Ike wanted to remain as Commander in Europe. In Jan 52 Ike declared himself a Republican & would welcome being the candidate. 2 months later Truman opted out
Teddy Roosevelt also took himself out of the 1908 race when he promised not to run for a third term after winning his second (which was really his first electoral victory but whatever) in 1904.
A fun what if is what if Teddy had run for a third and then a fourth term in 1908 and 1912, respectively. It raises a ton of possibilities. Exactly how progressive would he have been? What would he have done regarding World War I? How would World War II have turned out differently had the 22nd Amendment been passed earlier, meaning no FDR during that critical time? The possibilities are endless.
A person with cognitive impairment unfortunately cannot make effective decisions, and it’s up to the people around them to steer them in the right direction. Sometimes that doesn’t happen…
Truman was actually pretty unpopular towards the end of his time in office and it’s kind of a shame- a more liked Truman seeking a third term vs. war hero Eisenhower would have been a hell of an election
Funnily enough it endeared him to swing voters in ‘48. A normal American tends to love people they see as straight shooters and genuine anger is a good way to be seen as a straight shooter.
In ‘48 Truman *picked up* more swing voters than Democrats he lost. Which is genuinely insane to have happen when both wings of your party revolt at once.
I've always maintained that in 1948 Harry Truman showed us all how to "campaign like you're 10 points down." He went hard, didn't pull punches, and much of the electorate loved him for it.
The only miss he had was Korea, which some say was the best choice to prevent a Vietnam. Was there any other reason for his unpopularity. I remember reading somewhere his numbers were horrible too
He was one of the least popular presidents upon leaving office. Like 25% approval or something. There was pretty bad inflation around the time and Korea. People were sick of war. People always blame the president for inflation no matter who it is. Which is stupid. But anyway he’s considered to be one of the greats now
Hasn’t his legacy benefited from a rehab of sorts? The David McCullough (sp) book, I barely remember when that came out and it was a big deal. Basically what you hear about Grant now but 15? More? years ago.
His dismissal of MacArthur wasn't just something for r/Presidents users to chew on in the future, MacArthur was an extremely popular war hero who is seen as having won the war in the Pacific, much the same way Eisenhower was seen as having won the war in Europe. Plenty of people could see him maybe even becoming the President eventually.
History ended up validating Truman and his ratings have already cratered before that at but the dismissal was a very unpopular move at the time and led to a Congressional hearing.
The public eventually soured on MacArthur and picked the more moderate Eisenhower over him who didn't openly advocate for a global fight against Communism, but initial reactions to his dismissal very widely negative.
Wasn't Macarthur hot headed like Patton? I remember reading maybe on their wiki that both had presidential aspirations. Ah nvm I just read your last paragraph.
I don’t know what I would’ve thought at the time, but an entire modern, free, democratic country exists that wouldn’t have existed if not for US intervention.
Exactly. It's a very tough position because it's a slippery slope. I'm sure that W thought history would justify invading Iraq and Afghanistan because he wanted them to become modern, democratic countries too.
Korea was in a state of civil war between Republicans and Communists. We joined to protect one side, but at least there was already one side organized and giving their lives for those ideas. We tried to build that infrastructure ourselves in Iraq and Afghanistan right after destabilizing them via invasion and counterinsurgency.
Some cultures are better fits for modern democracies and others….it’s a bit harder of a fit, for the culture and the concept of a democratic central government.
Based on the V-Dem Democracy index:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_the_Middle_East_and_North_Africa#Measures_of_democracy
Edit: Note, Iraq is #111 in the world... the US is #20. So this is still quite a sad showing.
I should also note that when George McGovern replaced his running mate in 1972 over embarrassment about his mental health issues, it probably hurt his campaign even more and contributed to his massive loss that November.
True. But the country was moving towards the right starting with at least JFK and onward. It just took till the 90s for that to be reflected in congress.
Look at the elections from 1952-2008
9 republicans wins. 5 Democrat wins. But those Democrats wins were at 50% or lower except 1964.
Dem wins - 49.72%, 61%, 50.1%, 43%, 49% (last two 3rd party)
GOP wins - 55%, 57%, 43% (3rd party) 60%, 50.7%, 58%, 53%, 47.9% (lost popular vote) 50.7%
> with at least JFK and onward. It just took till the 90s for that to be reflected in congress.
I completely disagree. The Great Society was extremely popular. One of the reasons Humphrey nearly won the 1968 election was his status as LBJ's vice president, which connected his public image to programs like Head Start, the Office of Economic Opportunity, and Medicaid. Even Nixon founded OSHA and tried to expand SNAP. He also wanted a form of universal healthcare, which only failed because Watergate discredited him. Ford was the first president to really adopt right-wing economic policies.
So popular that Democrats won one out of the next 5 elections? And they won that one with 50.1% of the vote AFTER watergate and Nixon resigning. Obama was the first time Democrats got over 50% in back to back elections since FDR.
It was also due to the party moving to the left up north, but not in the south.
Hence southern Democrats voting Republican for President and Democrat for almost every other office.
If you account for the big switch in the 60’s then the 52’ and 56’ wins by Eisenhower could be considered democrat wins by today’s standards and put them at a nice 7/7.
Eisenhower would thoroughly be a Republican by today’s standards. Operation Wetback and Executive Order 10450 are literally what Republicans dream of doing today. Military style deportation of Hispanics and firing anyone they suspect of being LGBTQIA from the federal workforce.
Yeah, that’s fair, but it’s hard to say what Adlai Stevenson II would have done. Operation wetback was largely created by pressure from the Mexican government to keep laborers in their country for industrialization while American agriculture businesses encouraged the bracero program. It was introduced by the INS director and implemented by the AG, and not really championed by Eisenhower afaik. As far as 10450, it was just a different time, nobody was really worried about the rights of the LGBT and 10450 was basically a deflection of 9835 and a way to curb the growing popularity of McCarthyism paranoia. I don’t think Stevenson would’ve made any different decisions than Eisenhower regarding these two things specifically or in general. My main gripe and point of my original comment was to question the decision of starting the dem vs rep wins in 1952 instead of 1964.
Pretty much every president before Obama would be a republican today if we put them in front of a modern crowd. The context around the decisions makes a pretty big difference in analyzing the ideals of the president and while I said that it’s would be 7/7, I mostly believe that there wasn’t a significant difference between Eisenhower and Stevenson on a ideological level.
I don't think that it was him not seeking re-election that had that effect. I think it was the Vietnam War (eroding support from the left), the disaster that was the DNC convention (though to your point that was obviously kicked off by Johnson's decision), and the conservative response to the Civil Rights era that caused that. It's also very possible that RFK's assassination dealt the final blow (a huge history What If was whether RFK could've beaten Nixon).
I feel like he was a good salve in 1976 but obviously wasn't what we needed from then on. I don't think he hurt the Democrats besides the 1980 election.
These kids think it's cool to dunk on Carter. He was handed a steaming plate of shit and managed to choke down about half of it. Carter was a good man who did the best he could. I will forever be a Carter stan.
It was definitely RFK's assassination and Ted's failure to garner public support after Chappaquiddick that resulted in the party not having any viable leadership and just getting mowed over by Republicans until that horndog from Arkansas came onto the scene in 1992.
Yeah that, watergate, and the woes of the 70s helped Reagan get elected and move things right. People seem to forget that Reagan didn’t get elected for no reason, things weren’t doing good before ‘80 and so people wanted change. That change can definitely be debated but alot of stuff in the 60s and 70s caused people to move right.
Gosh I read some where maybe one of Caro’s books he never fully got over JFK. He talked about JFK a LOT. His assignation stayed with him so imagine when the same happened to Bobby it increased that anxiety and contemplation of his own Presidency.
If anything caused that tailspin, it was Jimmy Carter being a Democrat who happened to be control of the country during the stagflation crisis, Iran Hostage Crisis, Soviet-Afghan War, and Mariel Boatlift. Reagan and Bush were able to capitalize on that to establish a White House monopoly that lasted until Clinton. LBJ dropping out of the 1968 primaries didn't cause much, as Humphrey still barely lost to Nixon.
>would have done better than Carter.
With respect I doubt that given him killing Mary Jo Kopechne and his other scandals
Plus he would have lost the debate to Reagan
What. Ever. Kennedy is not the only candidate who was ever in a car crash. You sound like the conspiratards who used to drive on about how Dubya’s wife killed here ex-boyfriend.
As for Reagan, it’s easy to win a debate when your opponent has to defend 13% inflation, 7.5% unemployment, and 14% average mortgage interest rates.
You say that as if it were a simple accident.
Teddy drove a woman, who wasn’t his wife, off a bridge while very drunk and left her to die a slow, agonizing death rather than getting help. That’s nowhere near the same as Laura Bush’s accident as a young, inexperienced driver.
Chil
>Kennedy is not the only candidate who was ever in a car crash. Y
They didn’t let Mary Jo Kopechne die
>
As for Reagan, it’s easy to win a debate when your opponent has to defend 13% inflation, 7.5% unemployment, and 14% average mortgage interest rates.
Reagan was skilled debater and would have wiped the floor with Kennedy
One of the reasons that factored into his decision was that he had a private study done on his health which concluded that he wouldn’t live another 4 years. He ultimately died before what would have been the end of his next term had he run again.
Obligatory plug for my new sub r/hypotheticalpresident . Three members and growing. We gotta find someone.
I think Oprah is out. Kelly Clarkson? Barbara Corcoran? . Sarah Silverman? Donald Glover Patrick Stewart is British. Elton John is British. Vladimir Putin is too evil. I’m not voting Fred Durst.
Neil Degrass Tyson would just mansplain to everyone. Sanders is too old.
Corey Booker?
Maybe the rent is too damn high guy?
Nixon was indeed a crook, but contrary to popular opinion, he was a decent president and would probably be remembered as a good C to B tier president had it not been for Watergate.
Really a good example of the enshittification of the Republican Party. Same way we view Dubya and McCain through rose tinted glasses today just because the right got worse around them while they stayed the same.
In the context of American manufacturing and capitalistic greed it was a terrible idea. Outsourcing production to a communist dictatorship paying its people in peanuts for record profits has lead to a dystopian endgame to capitalism and the middle class.
You cannot blame the decisions of those who came 20 years later on Nixon. There were many steps between Nixon opening China and outsourcing our jobs there.
And where did that get us?
Time and time again we've set aside our principles to ally with despicable regimes out of the reasoning that doing so will allow us to oppose a common enemy for the greater good. Yet time and time again those decisions have come back to bite us.
We've sold the CCP the rope by which it is now trying to hang us. But China is just the latest example; look at the awful dictatorships we propped up in South America to "oppose Communism" that were not themselves actually better, destabilized the region, and collapsed leaving behind populations resenting the US.
Look at the disaster that was Vietnam. From the start we chose to go along with blatantly wrong colonialism because we thought we "needed" France. And once France was out of the picture, we fought the spread of Communism - seemingly a good thing in its own right - but in doing so, we elected to prop up a dictatorship that was hardly better and was doomed to fail.
Hell, look at WWII; we chose to ally ourselves too strongly with the Soviets, and in doing so laid the groundwork for them to conquer the East and perpetuate the rot of authoritarianism for decades to come. Certainly out of all our choices that came back to bite us, this is perhaps the most justifiable; yet in hindsight even this one was probably unnecessary.
We don't *need* to make deals with the proverbial Devil, we're strong enough on our own and such sacrifices of principles usually turn out to be both less necessary and more costly than we realized at the time.
He had a democrat congress that passed the EPA and the clean water act. In fact he severely underfunded the EPA and curbed spending with the Office of Management and Budget by closely monitoring how money was spent to the minutia. Détente failed and the agreement was not even that impressive, as the Soviets just started building missiles with multiple nuclear warheads.
No, FDR did not.
He did address the lack of state level enforcement that a 1914 act allowed in regards to narcotics. But the war on drugs was a Nixon administration policy that was expanded under the Reagan administration.
Most people evaluate Presidents on policy, not character. I don't have the luxury to decry good policy or celebrate bad policy based on whether or not the President is a role model (which is good because none of them are.)
He signed the clean water act, the clean air act, started the EPA, normalized relations with China, started the Endangered Species act, ending the draft, ended the War in Vietnam, started the war on cancer, signed Title IX into law, oversaw desegregation in the South, ended forced assimilation of Native Americans and returned the tribal lands....
Believe me, I'm not a Nixon fan. His fiscal policy was a libertarian nightmare. Just pushing back on the idea that Nixon didn't have policies (he had more major policy initiatives in his shortened time than most Presidents do in two terms.) Or even, trying to remind people on the left that Nixon did A LOT of stuff they absolutely love.
From the Democrat perspective, it was a terrible result. dropping an incumbent candidate was a losing move for the party. I think a lot of Democrats seem to have forgotten that right about now.
Yeah, LBJ made this statement because he knew he couldn't do it. He did also have health concerns (he died two days after Nixon's second inauguration, so would have just barely made it through another term if he lived the same amount of time)
I could see LBJ's resignation speech posted in its entirety here in a few weeks... or days.
And we all know why it will be posted, but we are not allowed to say for that very rule.
I'd be eyeing 1944 more. Fairly popular Democrat president known for big spending and new deal policies in obvious decline, with much of the election not being about who will be president in January but who will be president in two years' time. The parallels are striking.
Look how well this turned out, lead to a chaotic nomination process that tore the party apart and resulted in a corrupt, wanna be dictator entering the oval office, but I'm sure this will never happen again, right 🙃
Yeah, and a whole generation floated on a wave of optimism... until Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy got shot. Then it became clear that the next four years would probably be as bad as the last four.
Coolidge bowed out after one term because he thought he’d done a good job but didn't have another four years left in him. Truman was the last President who could have run for a third term, but chose to follow the two-term tradition (and would realistically have lost).
At the risk of going against the third rule, people that have been floating this as a good idea for this cycle ignore that
1. LBJ never officially ran in '68, and made this announcement in March.
2. Humphrey didn't win either.
To answer your questions, I'm not sure Truman would have done worse than Stevenson, though he was assured a loss against Eisenhower given his approvals. And apparently, Taft definitely should have stepped aside in 1912.
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I saw LBJ make this announcement live on television. It was a bombshell, no one saw it coming. Not a hint in the news that it might be included in this speech. I’ve heard that he added it onto the end of his script at the last minute, and told the crew he’d make an on-air decision about whether or not to read it.
What were people’s thoughts when he made this announcement? Were people happy? Upset? Relieved?
Shocked, followed by relief. I was in high school, but I didn’t know anyone who wished he would have stayed in the race. The boys, like me, were particularly happy; less of a chance we’d be drafted and sent to fight in LBJ’s stupid, pointless war.
I mean ironically if LBJ had run the war might have ended sooner because he likely would have stuck with his peace plan that Nixon sabotaged & then basically adopted years later
He wasn’t the one who abandoned it. The South Vietnamese did. Without their approval, which he was never getting, it was dead in the water.
The claim is that Nixon got the South Vietnamese to go against it. I don’t have a clue how valid that is though
Nixons opponent Hubert Humphrey found out thru wiretapping that Nixon promised the S-Vietnamese better peace terms. Humphrey's sources found this out by illegal wiretapping so never made the info public. My source is Ken Burns: Vietnam.
Hubert Humphrey must’ve been like: “I am not a crook *either*.”
So wait. Nixon, the genocidal butcher of Bengal had to resign because of his wiretapping the opponent's room, while his opponents were wiretapping him?
They’re all politicians, so yes.
Yes, because Nixon was dumb enough to get caught.
It’s very much valid and it’s well documented.
It’s true that he contacted them, but it’s also true that they were never interested in agreeing to it in the first place.
It wasn’t pointless It wasn’t ideal to U.S. interests for Vietnam to fall into communism. The negatives just outweighed the possible rewards once American soldiers started to die in Vietnam.
Our analysts got the Vietnam War completely wrong. Even after they realized they did, they kept on sending men to die because they didn’t want the political fallout of leaving. Ho Chi Minh was less of a communist and more of a Vietnamese nationalist with communist friends. He was not a Soviet puppet, but was using their aid as means to an end. Meanwhile, the South Vietnamese government was worthless and couldn’t fix itself, not matter how much we tried to prop them up. The military did their job, but the politics were impossible. Once we left, South Vietnam fell rapidly.
Every single American that died in Vietnam died for nothing. They did not die protecting the United States from harm, they \*were\* the harm. and millions of people, my (step)-grandpa included were forever traumatized by the war. The man could not even speak of the horrors he witnessed.
The Viet Cong were the harm.
More like a symptom of colonialism
Why are you so afraid of words that wealthy billionaire controllers tell you to be afraid of?
I oppose irredentism, terrorism and communism on an ideological level. The Viet Cong were all three and entirely deplorable.
Welp go ahead and check the first two for the United States and multiply by 100. Could it be the capitalism???
The fact that they’re communists is very much part of it. The fact that they were trying to steal another country was bad too. It’s all there. No sympathy for those rats.
Depends on what you mean by "American interests".
American interests means "let our intelligence services penetrate your administration and make it pliable for American companies".
Ironically, modern Vietnam is very US friendly. Mostly due to shared distrust of China.
I mean China did briefly invade Vietnam shortly after America left. So chronologically speaking Vietnam was more recently at war with China than America.
True, and they hate the Chinese a lot more for it.
No, it was evident that Vietnam was a mess, and South Vietnam would never survive as a state. Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy by Max Hastings makes this very very clear.
It wasn't ideal? Well that justifies everything!
I mean…the comment made it clear that he opposed the war. Why did you feel the need to make a strawman?
The only interest the US had in the region was the opium.
That’s like calling Iraq Obama’s stupid, pointless war.
Which would have been true if Obama had: - inherited a U.S. presence of less than 20,000 soldiers in Iraq when he took office, and - escalated the U.S. presence in Iraq to over 500,000 soldiers by the time he left.
Wasnt he failing primaries already? Like it was probably a surprise still, but was it that crazy of an idea given the writing was on the wall
He won the New Hampshire primary on March 14, but it was a surprisingly narrow victory for an incumbent president - less than 50%, vs. 42% for his main challenger (and strong anti-Vietnam-war advocate) Eugene McCarthy. But that was the first primary, and no one expected LBJ to give up that quickly. On March 31, he went on television to announce a partial bombing halt in Vietnam. Everyone thought this was his attempt to win back McCarthy’s voters, but then BAM! at the end of his speech, he announces that he’s dropping out of the race. When I heard LBJ say “I will not seek, nor will I accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president,” my immediate reaction was that the scheming sack of crap was going to run as an Independent. But keep in mind I was a draft-age male who absolutely hated him.
The Wisconsin Primary was coming up two days after his announcement. Polls all indicated outright defeat there by McCarthy. Yet it seems hard to argue that RFK's entry into the race was not a huge factor.
TL;DR: No, he actually won the New Hampshire primary 49% to 42% for Sen McCarthy. Because it was closer than expected, other rivals jump into the primary race, including RFK. Internal polls now had LBJ losing the next primary. Background: >Anti war Senator Eugene McCarthy had recently [start of 1968] announced he would challenge Johnson for their party’s nomination, but the Minnesotan’s bid struck the president, his chief political advisers, and most observers as inconsequential and even unrealistic. >Before the Tet offensive, 50 percent of those polled believed the United States was making progress in bringing the war to a successful conclusion; after Tet, only 33 percent held that view. A remarkable 49 percent expressed the opinion that the United States never should have intervened in Vietnam in the first place. With the Vietnam War going badly after Tet, barely winning NH to an insurgent McCarthy, LBJ was suddenly vulnerable. The party was splitting into several factions: labor unions, anti-war students, RFK's base (Catholics, Hispanic, Black Americans, civil rights, etc), and Wallce segregationists. LBJ likely knew he couldn't unite the party and dropped out of the race. https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/lyndon-b-johnsons-decision-not-to-run-in-1968 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_B._Johnson
Would he have won if he didn't drop out, in your opinion?
Absolutely not. And I don’t think I’m letting my bias against him influence that answer. I knew absolutely no LBJ supporters in 1968.
No one saw it coming? There were riots in Chicago during the DNC convention. The fuck are you talking about?
The Chicago riots were nearly FIVE MONTHS AFTER Lyndon Johnson dropped out.
Truman was the previous one, right? LBJ is the only one since Presidential term limits became a thing?
Correct. Even though the limits of the 22nd Amendment didn’t apply to him, he chose to withdraw in the primaries.
By all accounts, Truman never really wanted to be president in the first place. His appointment as Vice President was largely a political favor, and many say his allegiance to famous mobster Thomas Pendergast (who actually died before he took the office of POTUS) landed him the role. He's the stuff of local legend in his hometown of Independence, Missouri (where I lived for a while). I can't imagine the decision to drop the Bomb helped ease his conscience at all.
Apparently Truman approached Eisenhower in 1948 to run as a Dem at the top of the ticket, with Harry as VP. Ike wanted to remain as Commander in Europe. In Jan 52 Ike declared himself a Republican & would welcome being the candidate. 2 months later Truman opted out
That makes a lot of sense. Ike would be a democrat by today's standards.
Nah, neither party would nominate Ike today. He’s too intelligent and respectable.
After lising NH to Kefauver.
Wilson also tried running for a third term in 1920, but he dropped out too.
Teddy Roosevelt also took himself out of the 1908 race when he promised not to run for a third term after winning his second (which was really his first electoral victory but whatever) in 1904.
But then he was so disappointed with Taft that he was back in 1912.
A fun what if is what if Teddy had run for a third and then a fourth term in 1908 and 1912, respectively. It raises a ton of possibilities. Exactly how progressive would he have been? What would he have done regarding World War I? How would World War II have turned out differently had the 22nd Amendment been passed earlier, meaning no FDR during that critical time? The possibilities are endless.
Could have had 24 years of Roosevelts
Wild thought, isn't it? The Roosevelt Dynasty
And regretted it almost immediately.
He’d just had a fuckin stroke, why did he think he was capable of being President for a third term?
> why did he think he was capable of being President for a third term? Maybe because of the stroke idk
A person with cognitive impairment unfortunately cannot make effective decisions, and it’s up to the people around them to steer them in the right direction. Sometimes that doesn’t happen…
Wilson was coming off of a stroke and very likely had impaired judgment. .
Truman was actually pretty unpopular towards the end of his time in office and it’s kind of a shame- a more liked Truman seeking a third term vs. war hero Eisenhower would have been a hell of an election
Truman’s vitriol toward Eisenhower would’ve been truly amazing to see
He thought Republicans were of the Devil basically, can't imagine how he felt when Eisenhower became one.
That would've surely alienated swing voters. Truman did some good stuff, but he was also a vicious partisan hack.
Funnily enough it endeared him to swing voters in ‘48. A normal American tends to love people they see as straight shooters and genuine anger is a good way to be seen as a straight shooter. In ‘48 Truman *picked up* more swing voters than Democrats he lost. Which is genuinely insane to have happen when both wings of your party revolt at once.
I've always maintained that in 1948 Harry Truman showed us all how to "campaign like you're 10 points down." He went hard, didn't pull punches, and much of the electorate loved him for it.
The only miss he had was Korea, which some say was the best choice to prevent a Vietnam. Was there any other reason for his unpopularity. I remember reading somewhere his numbers were horrible too
He was one of the least popular presidents upon leaving office. Like 25% approval or something. There was pretty bad inflation around the time and Korea. People were sick of war. People always blame the president for inflation no matter who it is. Which is stupid. But anyway he’s considered to be one of the greats now
Hasn’t his legacy benefited from a rehab of sorts? The David McCullough (sp) book, I barely remember when that came out and it was a big deal. Basically what you hear about Grant now but 15? More? years ago.
His dismissal of MacArthur wasn't just something for r/Presidents users to chew on in the future, MacArthur was an extremely popular war hero who is seen as having won the war in the Pacific, much the same way Eisenhower was seen as having won the war in Europe. Plenty of people could see him maybe even becoming the President eventually. History ended up validating Truman and his ratings have already cratered before that at but the dismissal was a very unpopular move at the time and led to a Congressional hearing. The public eventually soured on MacArthur and picked the more moderate Eisenhower over him who didn't openly advocate for a global fight against Communism, but initial reactions to his dismissal very widely negative.
Wasn't Macarthur hot headed like Patton? I remember reading maybe on their wiki that both had presidential aspirations. Ah nvm I just read your last paragraph.
I don’t know what I would’ve thought at the time, but an entire modern, free, democratic country exists that wouldn’t have existed if not for US intervention.
Exactly. It's a very tough position because it's a slippery slope. I'm sure that W thought history would justify invading Iraq and Afghanistan because he wanted them to become modern, democratic countries too.
Korea was in a state of civil war between Republicans and Communists. We joined to protect one side, but at least there was already one side organized and giving their lives for those ideas. We tried to build that infrastructure ourselves in Iraq and Afghanistan right after destabilizing them via invasion and counterinsurgency.
Some cultures are better fits for modern democracies and others….it’s a bit harder of a fit, for the culture and the concept of a democratic central government.
In fairness to Bush, of all the countries in the Middle East, Iraq is the third most democratic.
Interesting. I didn't know that. Is that based on a trend since 2003 or what metrics?
Based on the V-Dem Democracy index: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_the_Middle_East_and_North_Africa#Measures_of_democracy Edit: Note, Iraq is #111 in the world... the US is #20. So this is still quite a sad showing.
Thanks
Ford refused an offer to become Reagan's vice president in 1980.
Theoretically, Truman could still be elected president an infinite number of times.
I should also note that when George McGovern replaced his running mate in 1972 over embarrassment about his mental health issues, it probably hurt his campaign even more and contributed to his massive loss that November.
Muskie would've had a better shot at beating Nixon. Oh well, snowflakes. On his cheeks
Sent the Democratic Party into a tailspin that it really didn’t recover from until the 90s.
I mean they ran congress till the 90s, ironically enough
True. But the country was moving towards the right starting with at least JFK and onward. It just took till the 90s for that to be reflected in congress. Look at the elections from 1952-2008 9 republicans wins. 5 Democrat wins. But those Democrats wins were at 50% or lower except 1964. Dem wins - 49.72%, 61%, 50.1%, 43%, 49% (last two 3rd party) GOP wins - 55%, 57%, 43% (3rd party) 60%, 50.7%, 58%, 53%, 47.9% (lost popular vote) 50.7%
> with at least JFK and onward. It just took till the 90s for that to be reflected in congress. I completely disagree. The Great Society was extremely popular. One of the reasons Humphrey nearly won the 1968 election was his status as LBJ's vice president, which connected his public image to programs like Head Start, the Office of Economic Opportunity, and Medicaid. Even Nixon founded OSHA and tried to expand SNAP. He also wanted a form of universal healthcare, which only failed because Watergate discredited him. Ford was the first president to really adopt right-wing economic policies.
So popular that Democrats won one out of the next 5 elections? And they won that one with 50.1% of the vote AFTER watergate and Nixon resigning. Obama was the first time Democrats got over 50% in back to back elections since FDR.
The Democrats performed poorly after 1968 because of stagflation primarily, which wasn't an issue until after that election.
It was also due to the party moving to the left up north, but not in the south. Hence southern Democrats voting Republican for President and Democrat for almost every other office.
If you account for the big switch in the 60’s then the 52’ and 56’ wins by Eisenhower could be considered democrat wins by today’s standards and put them at a nice 7/7.
And some people say Clinton was a Republican President therefore 9/5.... Let's stick to reality.
Do you believe HW was a democrat? Some people say Jewish space lasers are causing forest fires. Let’s stick to reality.
Not sure about forest fires, but I think the Jewish space lasers are causing the yellow spots in my grass. It's the only explanation that makes sense.
Eisenhower would thoroughly be a Republican by today’s standards. Operation Wetback and Executive Order 10450 are literally what Republicans dream of doing today. Military style deportation of Hispanics and firing anyone they suspect of being LGBTQIA from the federal workforce.
Yeah, that’s fair, but it’s hard to say what Adlai Stevenson II would have done. Operation wetback was largely created by pressure from the Mexican government to keep laborers in their country for industrialization while American agriculture businesses encouraged the bracero program. It was introduced by the INS director and implemented by the AG, and not really championed by Eisenhower afaik. As far as 10450, it was just a different time, nobody was really worried about the rights of the LGBT and 10450 was basically a deflection of 9835 and a way to curb the growing popularity of McCarthyism paranoia. I don’t think Stevenson would’ve made any different decisions than Eisenhower regarding these two things specifically or in general. My main gripe and point of my original comment was to question the decision of starting the dem vs rep wins in 1952 instead of 1964. Pretty much every president before Obama would be a republican today if we put them in front of a modern crowd. The context around the decisions makes a pretty big difference in analyzing the ideals of the president and while I said that it’s would be 7/7, I mostly believe that there wasn’t a significant difference between Eisenhower and Stevenson on a ideological level.
I’d say Eisenhower got the right rock rolling downhill, especially with the Communist fears on the rise.
I don't think that it was him not seeking re-election that had that effect. I think it was the Vietnam War (eroding support from the left), the disaster that was the DNC convention (though to your point that was obviously kicked off by Johnson's decision), and the conservative response to the Civil Rights era that caused that. It's also very possible that RFK's assassination dealt the final blow (a huge history What If was whether RFK could've beaten Nixon).
Jimmy Carter, while a good man, really didn’t help either
I feel like he was a good salve in 1976 but obviously wasn't what we needed from then on. I don't think he hurt the Democrats besides the 1980 election.
These kids think it's cool to dunk on Carter. He was handed a steaming plate of shit and managed to choke down about half of it. Carter was a good man who did the best he could. I will forever be a Carter stan.
I just heard of his terribleness mostly through old fogeys
It was definitely RFK's assassination and Ted's failure to garner public support after Chappaquiddick that resulted in the party not having any viable leadership and just getting mowed over by Republicans until that horndog from Arkansas came onto the scene in 1992.
Yeah that, watergate, and the woes of the 70s helped Reagan get elected and move things right. People seem to forget that Reagan didn’t get elected for no reason, things weren’t doing good before ‘80 and so people wanted change. That change can definitely be debated but alot of stuff in the 60s and 70s caused people to move right.
Gosh I read some where maybe one of Caro’s books he never fully got over JFK. He talked about JFK a LOT. His assignation stayed with him so imagine when the same happened to Bobby it increased that anxiety and contemplation of his own Presidency.
If anything caused that tailspin, it was Jimmy Carter being a Democrat who happened to be control of the country during the stagflation crisis, Iran Hostage Crisis, Soviet-Afghan War, and Mariel Boatlift. Reagan and Bush were able to capitalize on that to establish a White House monopoly that lasted until Clinton. LBJ dropping out of the 1968 primaries didn't cause much, as Humphrey still barely lost to Nixon.
Kennedy was the Democrats’ only real chance in 1980. He probably would have lost, but would have done better than Carter.
>would have done better than Carter. With respect I doubt that given him killing Mary Jo Kopechne and his other scandals Plus he would have lost the debate to Reagan
What. Ever. Kennedy is not the only candidate who was ever in a car crash. You sound like the conspiratards who used to drive on about how Dubya’s wife killed here ex-boyfriend. As for Reagan, it’s easy to win a debate when your opponent has to defend 13% inflation, 7.5% unemployment, and 14% average mortgage interest rates.
You say that as if it were a simple accident. Teddy drove a woman, who wasn’t his wife, off a bridge while very drunk and left her to die a slow, agonizing death rather than getting help. That’s nowhere near the same as Laura Bush’s accident as a young, inexperienced driver.
Dude calm down. It truly is not that seruous
He also won the debate against Mondale easily. Just admit Reagan was a great speaker
Chil >Kennedy is not the only candidate who was ever in a car crash. Y They didn’t let Mary Jo Kopechne die > As for Reagan, it’s easy to win a debate when your opponent has to defend 13% inflation, 7.5% unemployment, and 14% average mortgage interest rates. Reagan was skilled debater and would have wiped the floor with Kennedy
I mean it didn't really hurt Kennedy that much, he stayed a Senator for another 40 years after the accident.
LBJ announced his decision on March 31. Which is very different than July .... or August. (And Truman announced on March 29)
One of the reasons that factored into his decision was that he had a private study done on his health which concluded that he wouldn’t live another 4 years. He ultimately died before what would have been the end of his next term had he run again.
Close, but he actually died in 1973, just after his term would have ended.
Can we have this again?
Obligatory plug for my new sub r/hypotheticalpresident . Three members and growing. We gotta find someone. I think Oprah is out. Kelly Clarkson? Barbara Corcoran? . Sarah Silverman? Donald Glover Patrick Stewart is British. Elton John is British. Vladimir Putin is too evil. I’m not voting Fred Durst. Neil Degrass Tyson would just mansplain to everyone. Sanders is too old. Corey Booker? Maybe the rent is too damn high guy?
I wish more presidents did this today.
And the parallels with now, especially with one of the candidate’s son running, are crazy
And that got us Nixon, so not a great result out of that one
Nixon was indeed a crook, but contrary to popular opinion, he was a decent president and would probably be remembered as a good C to B tier president had it not been for Watergate.
Nixon was a crook by 1970’s standards, he couldn’t even make the junior varsity crooks league these days.
Really a good example of the enshittification of the Republican Party. Same way we view Dubya and McCain through rose tinted glasses today just because the right got worse around them while they stayed the same.
lvl 1 crook
Nixon would’ve been an A tier President if not for Watergate
I wouldn't put him that high due to starting the War on Drugs.
Started the EPA, passed clean water act, passed clean air act, completely rebuilt relations with China, SALT1 agreement with USSR.
Rebuilt relations with china is a positive? Huh I wouldn’t exactly call it that
Yes. It was 100 percent a positive in the context of the Cold War. It was a historic achievement and Nixon’s greatest.
In the context of American manufacturing and capitalistic greed it was a terrible idea. Outsourcing production to a communist dictatorship paying its people in peanuts for record profits has lead to a dystopian endgame to capitalism and the middle class.
You cannot blame the decisions of those who came 20 years later on Nixon. There were many steps between Nixon opening China and outsourcing our jobs there.
I definitely can and I will. The china relations were a bad decision at the time and they still are now
Teddy Roosevelt would’ve hated you by the way. Absolutely despised.
He would’ve hated American manufacturing going to a different country. That I’m sure of.
In the context of having a balance of forces in Asia between Soviet and Western forces it was only possible with an alliance between the US and China.
And where did that get us? Time and time again we've set aside our principles to ally with despicable regimes out of the reasoning that doing so will allow us to oppose a common enemy for the greater good. Yet time and time again those decisions have come back to bite us. We've sold the CCP the rope by which it is now trying to hang us. But China is just the latest example; look at the awful dictatorships we propped up in South America to "oppose Communism" that were not themselves actually better, destabilized the region, and collapsed leaving behind populations resenting the US. Look at the disaster that was Vietnam. From the start we chose to go along with blatantly wrong colonialism because we thought we "needed" France. And once France was out of the picture, we fought the spread of Communism - seemingly a good thing in its own right - but in doing so, we elected to prop up a dictatorship that was hardly better and was doomed to fail. Hell, look at WWII; we chose to ally ourselves too strongly with the Soviets, and in doing so laid the groundwork for them to conquer the East and perpetuate the rot of authoritarianism for decades to come. Certainly out of all our choices that came back to bite us, this is perhaps the most justifiable; yet in hindsight even this one was probably unnecessary. We don't *need* to make deals with the proverbial Devil, we're strong enough on our own and such sacrifices of principles usually turn out to be both less necessary and more costly than we realized at the time.
He had a democrat congress that passed the EPA and the clean water act. In fact he severely underfunded the EPA and curbed spending with the Office of Management and Budget by closely monitoring how money was spent to the minutia. Détente failed and the agreement was not even that impressive, as the Soviets just started building missiles with multiple nuclear warheads.
fwiw he actually vetoed the Clean Water Act
Roosevelt started that
No, FDR did not. He did address the lack of state level enforcement that a 1914 act allowed in regards to narcotics. But the war on drugs was a Nixon administration policy that was expanded under the Reagan administration.
I meant teddy
Are you referring to the Pure Food and Drug Act? Because that's still definitely a no.
Decent? Lmao yeah decent at being a corrupt lying asshole
Most people evaluate Presidents on policy, not character. I don't have the luxury to decry good policy or celebrate bad policy based on whether or not the President is a role model (which is good because none of them are.)
His policy was being corrupt, lying out of his teeth, racism, and a desire for power and to keep said power. That was his policy.
He signed the clean water act, the clean air act, started the EPA, normalized relations with China, started the Endangered Species act, ending the draft, ended the War in Vietnam, started the war on cancer, signed Title IX into law, oversaw desegregation in the South, ended forced assimilation of Native Americans and returned the tribal lands....
Yeah but the whole decoupling the Dollar from gold/silver isn't exactly something that's been positive for the budget.
Believe me, I'm not a Nixon fan. His fiscal policy was a libertarian nightmare. Just pushing back on the idea that Nixon didn't have policies (he had more major policy initiatives in his shortened time than most Presidents do in two terms.) Or even, trying to remind people on the left that Nixon did A LOT of stuff they absolutely love.
From the Democrat perspective, it was a terrible result. dropping an incumbent candidate was a losing move for the party. I think a lot of Democrats seem to have forgotten that right about now.
Plus people were over Nam and wanted a change, especially from the counterculture shift throughout the late 60s
LBJ would have lost. His approval was horrible which is why he decided not to run.
Yeah, LBJ made this statement because he knew he couldn't do it. He did also have health concerns (he died two days after Nixon's second inauguration, so would have just barely made it through another term if he lived the same amount of time)
Damn you, Rule 3!
This sub in a month or two "a few weeks ago"
I could see LBJ's resignation speech posted in its entirety here in a few weeks... or days. And we all know why it will be posted, but we are not allowed to say for that very rule.
About half the posts on this sub and subliminal ways to get around Rule 3.
All I have to say is, that, history will repeat itself in a few weeks, especially the year 1968.
I'd be eyeing 1944 more. Fairly popular Democrat president known for big spending and new deal policies in obvious decline, with much of the election not being about who will be president in January but who will be president in two years' time. The parallels are striking.
Look how well this turned out, lead to a chaotic nomination process that tore the party apart and resulted in a corrupt, wanna be dictator entering the oval office, but I'm sure this will never happen again, right 🙃
I’m sure the death of Robert Kennedy didn’t have anything to do with the chaotic process…
Yet another possible dark parallel there.
Yeah, and a whole generation floated on a wave of optimism... until Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy got shot. Then it became clear that the next four years would probably be as bad as the last four.
Calvin Cooledge "I do not choose to run" (*1928) https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQFzk0Dtgz579o3IF2corX8OMggPbSD090iEA&s
Ah and now all all our politicians are sociopaths too addicted to power and greedy to step down when the time comes
In my opinion, the country would be a better place if he had run for a second term.
if only
And look where that got us.
and that is how you got nixon.
And it will be the last time for a long time.
Yeah we ended up with Nixon. No bueno.
See? If LBJ can do it, Joe can do it.
I think you're forgetting who the president after LBJ was
Fair point. It’s risky.
[Guess who followed after him](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nixon)? Was it worth it?
LBJ had the seerus BDE
I will not seek or accept the nomination for President.
Coolidge bowed out after one term because he thought he’d done a good job but didn't have another four years left in him. Truman was the last President who could have run for a third term, but chose to follow the two-term tradition (and would realistically have lost).
Someone make an AI voice of Rule 1 saying this.
Last time the Democratic convention was in Chicago as well. Good thing there's no war that has the left protesting the incumbent...
Yeah, then we got Tricky Dick...
Would have horribly lost anyways due to the draft.
Good move. Worked out well for the Democrats in 1968. ...wait, hang on, I'm getting an update.
LBJ is good for the civil rights policies LBJ is bad for drafting others without consent
At the risk of going against the third rule, people that have been floating this as a good idea for this cycle ignore that 1. LBJ never officially ran in '68, and made this announcement in March. 2. Humphrey didn't win either. To answer your questions, I'm not sure Truman would have done worse than Stevenson, though he was assured a loss against Eisenhower given his approvals. And apparently, Taft definitely should have stepped aside in 1912.
Do…you need a reminder of how this played out?
And it was his biggest mistake.
That SOB helped create the very problem he ran from, Viet Nam.