Who is impact johnson

President Johnson's administration also extended the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt, including aid to education, Headstart, Medicare, and Medicaid—programs that are still significant today and that command bipartisan support for their effectiveness.

But many of his initiatives for the arts, for the environment, for poverty, for racial justice, and for workplace safety angered many economic and social conservatives and became the targets of alienated white voters and tax revolters. The reaction to his Great Society and to broader trends helped spawn a dramatic political polarization in the United States that some historians have labeled a conservative counterrevolution.

Further clouding Johnson's legacy was the devastating outcome of the Vietnam War. While his programs kept untold numbers of Americans out of poverty, gave others basic health care, and ensured the fundamental rights of citizenship for minorities, in Southeast Asia, millions of Vietnamese lost their lives and homes, more than 58, American military personnel lost their lives, and hundreds of thousands more would have their lives permanently altered.

At a time when Americans were reshaping the locus of power at home, events in Vietnam were raising serious questions about how America should use its clout abroad. The legacies of death, renewal, and opportunity attached to the Johnson administration are ironic, confusing, and uncertain.

They will likely remain that way. Grant Rutherford B. Hayes James A. Garfield Chester A. Roosevelt Harry S. Truman Dwight D. Eisenhower John F. Kennedy Lyndon B. Bush Bill Clinton George W. Help inform the discussion Support the Miller Center. University of Virginia Miller Center. Lyndon B. Johnson: Impact and Legacy. Breadcrumb U. Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon B. More Resources Lyndon B. Would Lincoln have better completed what one historian calls the "unfinished revolution" in racial justice and equality begun by the Civil War?

Almost all historians believe that the outcome would have been far different under Lincoln's leadership. Among historians, supporters of Johnson are few in recent years. However, from the s to around the time of World War II, Johnson enjoyed high regard as a strong-willed President who took the courageous high ground in challenging Congress's unconstitutional usurpation of presidential authority.

In this view, much out of vogue today, Johnson is seen to have been motivated by a strict constructionist interpretation of the Constitution and by a firm belief in the separation of powers. This perspective reflected a generation of historians who were critical of Republican policy and skeptical of the viability of racial equality as a national policy.

Even here, however, apologists for Johnson acknowledge his inability to effectively deal with congressional challenges due to his personal limitations as a leader. Grant Rutherford B. Hayes James A. Garfield Chester A. Roosevelt Harry S.

Truman Dwight D. Eisenhower John F. Kennedy Lyndon B. Bush Bill Clinton George W. Help inform the discussion Support the Miller Center. University of Virginia Miller Center. Andrew Johnson: Impact and Legacy. Breadcrumb U. Elizabeth R.