Lyndon B. Johnson

Johnson’s new policies were the ultimate invasion of private rights. After his landslide election in 1964, which he won mostly because of the aftermath of Kennedy’s fame, Johnson became the butt-end of many political critics and voters. The passing of the Civil Rights act of 1964 banned racial discrimination in privately owned public places. This placed more power in Federal hands to instill the act, while limiting free speech and rights of owners. It also paved way for the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which had the effect of limiting discrimination in job hiring through the tactic of Affirmative action. In 1965, Johnson made an executive order enforcing affirmative action in all federal contracting—meeting quotas became mandatory.

Although in the election of 1964 Lyndon won a landslide (mostly due to a warmongering portrayal of opposition Goldwater), Johnson himself ended up to be a butcher of young American boys, prompting anti-war cries of “LBJ, LBJ, how many boys did you kill today?” Johnson used the Gulf of Tonkin incident to send air raids over the North Vietnamese and promote further deployment of troops to Vietnam. Johnson’s political ideals could easily be summed up in the following: Limiting State rights and promoting the growth of Federal government, Great Society, Civil Rights, and greater military involvement. By the next election in 1968, Johnson had managed to decimate all political support he had—Johnson was not even in the running for the Democratic primary.