The Great Society
The Great Society
Having grown up in the remote Texas Hill Country, Lyndon B. Johnson understood the "Other America" – places like Appalachia where poverty persisted. Having seen electricity come to the Hill Country, Johnson felt government could do great things.
A die-hard New Deal Democrat who had idolized FDR, LBJ wanted to make a similar mark. Taking many initiatives started under Kennedy, Johnson created a program dubbed the "Great Society." Central to the program was a "War on Poverty."
Although Edwin Witte was able to devise Social Security in a matter of months, speed worked against the War on Poverty. The crisis mentality of War meant many programs were poorly conceived and badly administered.
Meanwhile, another war, a real one in Vietnam, consumed more of Johnson's attention. Protests against the war and urban rioting showed that Johnson was ineffective at providing either guns or butter. His effort to fight Communism overseas divided the country. A riotous underclass destroyed the image of a prosperous, united nation. Government seemed impotent at quelling rebellion, on one extreme, and a failure at providing economic justice for the largely minority underclass, on the other extreme.
While there were some Great Society successes like Head Start and adding two-parent families to AFDC, Johnson Era programs would become the prototype of the "Big Government" approach neoconservatives would fight against for years to come.
