LBJ and the 89th....
Lemme see, couldn't have been the Boomers. They were too young.
Couldn't have been my Silent Generation. Whether old enough or not, we didn't have the numbers.
That leaves the Greatest Generation.
Not a put down. Just a fact.
Though without McGovern (only possible because LBJ didn’t run)...
Because of RFK's assassination, HHH took LBJ's place in '68. McGovern was in '72
I’m a Boomer and my first vote was for Carter. So I’m not responsible for the Great Society. However, my parents lived through the Great Depression and WWII. I’m thinking that when JFK got shot and LBJ got the job, the Greatest Generation were looking for some guarantees. So they fell for socialism. They probably regret it now. So do we.
I know. But had LBJ run again and won the DNC would be the party of the Vietnam War. McGovern might have tried for the nomination but I don’t think radical Republicans would have been as eager to jump ship for the Democrats as a consequence.
PS: it was the generation that in many cases cheered as FDR kicked the Constitution to the curb.
Valor on the battlefield is no cover or excuse for embracing lawlessness at home.
Just as there's a distinction between early boomers and late boomers, the early wave of the GI generation that came of age well before the war was different from the later members of the generation who were just finishing up high school when the war started.
Johnson and others had the experience of finishing school during the Great Depression when jobs were hard to find and many people were dependent on the government so they were inclined to look to the government for solutions.
The younger members of the generation certainly benefitted from the GI Bill, but they were further from power during the Johnson years, I think. Johnson got along so well with Richard Russell and others from the earlier Lost Generation, that it's hard to think of him as an archetypal member of the "Greatest Generation."