It sometimes seems that what most people know about John Kennedy has to do with conspiracy theories around his assassination or fantastic stories about his love life. But polls for years have ranked him with Abraham Lincoln as the greatest American President.
It seems all out of proportion. Abraham Lincoln saved the Union, freed the slaves and saved American democracy by waging what could accurately be described as a revolutionary war. JFK was President less than three years, and died with much of his legislative program still pending.
But the continued popularity of imaginative tales about his sex life is probably connected to the high opinion of him as a President. Because what he did and what he represented in both words and actions have contributed to making him a legendary figure. And I think a big part of that is that the image people have of Kennedy is what they would like to think America is and how they would like America to be seen in the world.
His accomplishments in themselves were impressive. His tax reform made the tax system at the time more progressive, eliminating or reducing some tax giveaways to corporations and the wealthy while providing tax refief for working families. And combined with a deliberate program to stimulate the economy, it laid the groundwork for a period of solid prosperity rivaled in US history only by the expansion of the 1990s.
His stand in favor of civil rights was a critical factor in restoring democracy to the Deep South states. African-American citizens were flat-out being denied the right to vote in much of the South, and were subjected to a crassly discriminatory system of segregation in schooling, housing, public facilities and public accomodations that affected every aspect of life. Lyndon Johnson unquestionably did more to achieve that goal than Kennedy did. But Kennedy's stand on issues like the integration of Southern state universities and his personal leadership on the issue made Johnson's civil rights program possible.
(Cont. in Part 2)
2 comments:
I think a lot of Kennedy's continued popularity is a wistful dream of what might have been. What would the country be like if he had lived and Johnson had never become president? What if Robert Kennedy were still alive? What about Vietnam and civil rights?
I'm sure that's true. It's kind of like when a husband and father is killed in a war, the survivors have a tendency to idolize him. Kennedy had an heroic atmosphere about him, and it's tempting to project grand wishes onto what might have been with him. - Bruce
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