Astral Codex Ten

LBJ

4 min read

LBJ

Article

LBJ is a recurring person in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 5 times across 5 issues between May 07, 2021 and October 23, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as ""LBJ’s guide to amassing power""; “When LBJ’s back was to the wall, it’s much easier to sympathize with him”; “LBJ had lost the 1941 Senate election because Pappy O’Daniel had cheated better than he did”. It most often appears alongside Congress, Nixon, Reagan.

Metadata

  • Category: People
  • Mention count: 5
  • Issue count: 5
  • First seen: May 07, 2021
  • Last seen: October 23, 2024

Appears In

None.

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Your Book Review: The Years Of Lyndon Johnson
May 07, 2021 · Original source
"To [LBJ], every man was a tool, and in difficulty he reached unerringly for the right tool. Now, facing a Gordian knot of seemingly insoluble legal complications, Lyndon Johnson reached for his sharpest tool of all...he asked Alvin Wirtz: 'Where's Abe?'"
When LBJ's back was to the wall, it's much easier to sympathize with him. He transformed from a horrible orator to a persuasive speaker. He barely slept. He ran to work every morning. He even treated his staff well, serving them breakfast.
But Stevenson was a storybook character, so money couldn't defeat him. He simply told the people of Texas that he would continue to do the right thing, and they believed him. LBJ had lost the 1941 Senate election because Pappy O'Daniel had cheated better than he did. Now LBJ would cheat, and he would cheat big.
Dictator Book Club: Orban
November 04, 2021 · Original source
No direct inline source block was recovered for this mention.
Your Book Review: The Outlier
July 08, 2022 · Original source
John Adams became an HBO miniseries. Hamilton became a Broadway show. The Power Broker and The Years of Lyndon Johnson became such status symbols that there was a whole pandemic meme about people ostentatiously displaying them in their Zoom backgrounds. But you never hear anyone bragging about their extensive knowledge of the Carter administration.
Inline links: pandemic meme
I also don’t think this book succeeds purely as a biographical portrait of its subject. After I finished Robert Caro’s The Years of Lyndon Johnson, I felt like I really knew LBJ. But even after finishing all 628 pages of this book, Carter remains a mystery to me. I can tell you everything he did during his presidency, but I still don’t feel like I really understand him. What motivated Jimmy Carter? How did he develop his seemingly unshakeable confidence? Why did he even want to be president in the first place? (Ted Kennedy’s high-profile fumble of this question famously contributed to his primary loss, but Carter never really answers it either.)
Inline links: high-profile fumble
In the author’s defense, some of this may be because he has chosen an impossible subject. Throughout his time in office, Carter was widely considered to be an enigma by a press and public that were obsessed with psychoanalyzing him. Unlike the voluble Lyndon Johnson, whose loquaciousness left behind a vast group of people who could later report back on what he’d thought and said, Carter rarely socialized and had almost no friends. He was, in the words of the author, “probably the most private and socially reticent individual ever to occupy the White House,” a difficult trait for a biographer’s subject to have.
Your Book Review: Public Citizens
June 23, 2023 · Original source
No direct inline source block was recovered for this mention.
Secrets Of The Median Voter Theorem
October 23, 2024 · Original source
No direct inline source block was recovered for this mention.