Democrat · 1963–1969
Lyndon B. Johnson
Great Society and the Civil Rights Act. Medicare, Medicaid, and the escalation in Vietnam.
Lyndon B. Johnson was president 1963–1969. The party color on the chart is Democrat. Early presidents are not forced into today’s party names. The placement note is: Great Society and the Civil Rights Act. Medicare, Medicaid, and the escalation in Vietnam.
The dot is economics -48 and authority +30. That is left of center on economics. The other axis sits toward authority. Color and place are allowed to disagree. Theodore Roosevelt sits left of Grover Cleveland on economics.
What was said, and what the administration did, are filed separately. Said: A Great Society and a war on poverty, and that he sought no wider war. Done: Medicare, Medicaid, and the Civil Rights Act. Vietnam was widened anyway. Where those two sentences pull apart, the dot follows the governing record, not the slogan.
The nearest other presidents on these two numbers are Harry S. Truman (1945–1953, -32 / +28) and Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933–1945, -58 / +48). A small distance can join people who would have disliked each other. The chart is a compression, not a claim that they were alike.
Presidents are not placed with the Voteview roll-call score used for the current Congress. Two axes cannot carry a war, a court, a tariff, and a civil-rights record as separate facts.