I have a fondness for books that take a deeper dive into a particular period in American history, the kind of tome that looks beneath the surface and attempts to explain why things happened the way they did, and shine a spotlight on events which were not apparent to those living through that piece of history day by day. In his book LANDLSLIDE: LBJ AND RONALD REAGAN AT THE DAWN OF A NEW AMERICA, author Jonathan Darman recounts the thousand days between the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November of 1963, which catapulted Lyndon Johnson to the Presidency, to the midterm elections in November of 1966, which saw the election of the former B movie actor as Governor of California by a margin of a million votes. The theme of Darman’s book is that during this three year interval, the governing consensus in America which had held at least since Franklin Roosevelt introduced the New Deal came apart, as stark divisions between the races, generations, and classes upended all that came before it. Darman further asserts that the main reason why this happened rests on the shoulders of Johnson and Reagan, two leaders with radically opposite political philosophies, but both offering heroic versions of themselves as men on horseback capable of solving difficult problems and tackling intractable issues, and leading the way to a Utopian future that was just around the corner.

I think Darman’s assertion is something of a stretch, as both Johnson and Reagan really belonged to very different political eras, and whose political styles couldn’t have been more different. LBJ could be brooding and insecure, possessing a bad temper which he inflicted on all those close to him. He was also a master legislative tactician, and a true workhorse who knew how to attend to detail and get an impossible job done. Reagan was genial and relaxed, a good actor who mastered the art of communication early and put it to use when the movie roles dried up. He could deliver an inspirational speech, but did not sweat the details. Yet as Darman shows, both of them had something in common in November 1963: impending middle age failure. Johnson was Kennedy’s Vice President, a job he hated because of its limited power, a position where he was constantly disparaged by JFK’s inner circle, especially the President’s brother, Bobby, the Attorney General, and shut out of the decision making process. Reagan had taken the job playing the villain in THE KILLERS, a violent gangster film opposite Lee Marvin and Angie Dickinson. It was the only acting job he could get and he hated the role. Then an assassin’s bullet makes Johnson President, and he quickly moved to make his own mark, winning a landslide election over Barry Goldwater in 1964, while enacting landmark civil and voting rights legislation; ushering in his Great Society program, while backing the country into a war in Southeast Asia. Reagan finds a new career for himself during the campaign in ’64 by making a highly effective televised speech on behalf of Goldwater, as Reagan is a far more effective communicator of the conservative viewpoint than the Republican candidate. This is a skill he had honed for years by making speeches for General Electric touting the virtues of the free enterprise system and denouncing the evils of communism. After Goldwater went down in flames, the men who could stroke the big checks to candidates began looking at Reagan as the next Republican to run for Governor in California, and after that, possibly the Presidency.

Where Darman is on his most solid ground is when he is writing about LBJ, who grabs the reins of power in the wake of Dallas, and runs with them. Johnson is determined to finish the work of the New Deal, and surpass his idol FDR in accomplishment. There is grandiose rhetoric claiming that the scourges of poverty and racism will be banished forever by his Great Society, not to mention a generation of peace, a claim he makes to visiting high school kids at the White House on the day he signs orders escalating the country’s involvement in the Vietnam War. The summer of ’65 brings riots by Blacks in the Watts neighborhood in Los Angeles, as America’s cities begin to burn with racial unrest. The President’s words and reality rapidly diverge as the nation’s mood turns darker as the casualties mount in Vietnam. Race and poverty prove to tougher to solve than the Great Depression, the Great Society is no New Deal, and the Republicans sweep the midterm elections in ’66, ending LBJ’s ambitious agenda. Darman is good at detailing the behind the scenes tensions between Johnson and the Kennedy family, along with JFK’s holdovers in the administration, and how both sides attempted to manipulate the press to their advantage. LBJ was a supremely difficult man, and it can be hard to make him likable, but I think Darman does a good job of portraying a man of great accomplishments whose pride was wounded often, and who often responded poorly. One person whom I came away from this book admiring more is Lady Bird Johnson, who stands up to her husband and his advisors, and insists they do right by Walter Jenkins, a close aide to the President who was arrested for committing a homosexual act in the middle of the ’64 campaign. The problem with the sections on Reagan is that they simply lack the drama of LBJ, as Reagan moves from the host of DEATH VALLEY DAYS to becoming a full time candidate for Governor of California. His message was the reverse of Johnson’s: that the Great Society made nothing great, and the great big taxes that came with it only made problems worse. Big Government was the enemy, and only freedom from it, along with a fierce individualism, would bring about a better America. It’s a message which resonated with California voters in the fall of ’66, as Reagan trounced the two term incumbent Democrat, Pat Brown, who had been close to both the Kennedys and Johnson. But this was only the beginning of Reagan’s political career, the bigger and fuller story is yet to come, and it pales compared to the rise and fall of LBJ.

Darman makes a point of admiring JFK’s pragmatism and realism, stating that he, and the men who sat in the Oval Office before him, believed that change came slowly, and that it required as much patience as effort, and blames Johnson and Reagan for breaking with this tradition by making themselves the heroes of their stories, and saviors who would put things right in short order, by raising expectations that could never be met, thus insuring failure and disillusionment. In the end, neither massive spending on the part of government, nor equally huge tax cuts, could insure permanent prosperity. The dramatic loss of trust in public institutions that followed the thousand days covered in this book is much their fault. That may be true to a point, but in the long decades since, few candidates for President of either party have offered JFK’s approach to governing, and those who did, were seldom successful, and for that, blame ultimately lies with the voters, not two Presidents whose tenures have long since come and gone. Still, I enjoyed Darman’s book, at 376 pages it is a relatively short read, and he does sum things up nicely in the afterward. Most of this material has been covered in greater depth by other authors. I would recommend NIXONLAND by Rick Perlstein, and the multi volume biography of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro. The book’s biggest fault is that it came out in 2015, and I wonder how Darman would interpret all this history in the aftermath of the Trump years, which surely sheds a different light on all that came before it. ( )

In 1964, the Republican Party nominated Barry Goldwater, a candidate who said whatever wacky thing popped into his mind with complete disregard to the political fallout, much to the horror of mainstream Republicans. This book was published in 2014 before the emergence of Donald Trump, but one can’t escape the obvious parallels.

Darman takes us step by step from Lyndon Johnson’s landslide 1964 presidential victory to the emergence and landslide 1966 gubernatorial victory by Goldwater’s most promising protégé, Ronald Reagan.

The relevance of history to modern politics fills the book in other ways as well: racial riots, white backlash, unfulfilled political promises, and the catastrophic entanglement into an unwinnable civil war.

To say this book is gripping was literally true for me. I listened to the book on audio with both hands clutching the wheel. Spectacularly, I managed not to drive into a ditch. We shall see if the country fairs as well. ( )