Reflection on The Years of Lyndon Johnson Volume 2: Means of Ascent by Robert Caro

               I would say the first book is better but this one has a really good finish. It is a lot of time, especially at the beginning, of building up. This book covers the seven years from Johnson’s 1941 loss in the Texas Senate special election to his victory in 1948, when he committed fraud to steal the election from “Mr. Texas,” Coke Stevenson. It starts slow. Until 1947, not much happens. Johnson does very little in Congress and is depressed. He eventually gets FDR to appoint him to be an observer in the Pacific (a short service with the Navy that he would later exaggerate to credulous crowds in the 1948 campaign) but returns depressed. Seeing that he had no future in the House, Johnson staked his entire political career on getting into the Senate in 1948. It would be one of the most famous elections of the century and also one of the most controversial.

               In Congress, Johnson had no power left. He was uninfluential and needed to leave. The war couldn’t have come sooner. Unlike some congressmen, who joined to fight at the front lines, Johnson became an observer, which meant several months partying on the west coast and then a short tour of the Pacific Theater. He flew in one mission and got very lucky not to be killed. He was originally slated to go in one plane but went to the bathroom. When he returned, that bomber was filled, and he went to another. The original was shot down and all the men aboard died. Returning to DC, he was unhappy, would yell at his wife in public, and fell into a depression. He spent seven years “in the wilderness,” and it was a rough time for him.

               Johnson was to create in 1948 a completely different type of political campaign never seen before in Texas. While in the past, candidates had commissioned polls sparingly, Johnson would do them weekly. While in the past, candidates had driven from town to town, giving speeches, Johnson would take a helicopter, the first political candidate in history to ever do so. While radio had been used before to deliver speeches, Johnson used his radio network and those of his allies to deliver complete shows and programs advocating for his candidacy. While most candidates raised small amounts of cash from loyal allies, Johnson pumped more money into the campaign than had ever been seen before.

               Despite these dramatic changes, Johnson had a long lead to catch up to. Coke Stevenson was the most popular politician in Texas history and Johnson started off very far behind. Things got worse when kidney stones hospitalized him after he had refused to see a doctor for weeks. In one dramatic moment, his assistant, Woodward, saves his entire political career when Johnson tells him, delirious, to call the media and tell them he’s dropping out. Woodward asks him to wait for his wife to arrive and orders the doctors to allow no media members in to see him. If Woodward had not done so, you have to imagine the United States without Vietnam, without the Civil Rights Act, and without the Great Society.

               In the last weeks of the campaign, Johnson realized he was going to lose. They had made up serious ground on Coke, but they had hit a wall. Despite wiretapping their opponents, using a helicopter, and injecting tons of cash into the election, Coke Stevenson was simply too popular. There was one last thing to try.

               The politics of the border had always been corrupt throughout Texas’ history. It was often delivered to candidates by “block voting,” where one candidate would win 95% of the border counties’ votes. In 1948, the Johnson campaign, in coordination with Judge/Boss George Parr and his deputy Luis Salas were going to bring the corruption to a never-before-seen level. They bought tons and tons of votes, spending more money than ever to have local sheriffs deliver their counties’ votes to Johnson in a bold show of amorality. However it still wasn’t enough. The day of the election showed that Johnson was still losing, though by margins of under 500 or even 100 votes in an election of over one million votes. At that point something mysterious happened. A ballot box (number 13) was found in Jim Wells county that had 200 more votes for Johnson after the election had ended. The votes were counted and Johnson won—by 87 votes.

               It wasn’t so suspicious. Upon further inspection by Coke Stevenson, those 200 votes were listed by voters in alphabetical order, with many by people who were not in the county that day, or others who were dead. By a 4-3 vote, the county Democratic Party voted to disqualify them, but by a 29-28 vote the state party allowed them. Then, one of the 29 decided to abstain, tying the vote! Johnson was in a panic. At that moment, one of his assistants found in the bathroom one of the voters, who had hid there to avoid voting. He dragged him out, where he voted for Johnson, delivering the position in the Senate to him. Stevenson would appeal in court, but Johnson, with the help of genius lawyer Abe Fortas would re-appeal, win the appeal, and enter the Senate. He stole the election. Years later, Luis Salas would reveal what had really happened, which was as many had suspected, that Johnson had stolen the election. But by that time, Johnson was dead and nothing could be changed. By the end of 1948, Johnson had stolen elections in San Mateo Teaching College, The Little Congress of congressional aides, and now the Senate. Once in the Senate, Johnson would begin a rise to power that can surely be counted as one of the most rapid of all-time in American politics.

               Caro is a great author and this book really confirmed it for me. Robert Caro is able to make the drama feel so important and the characters so real that you feel like this could be a great TV show or novel. I think that as a writer he is so good at making you wonder “How is it gonna happen?” when you already know that the ending will be Johnson’s victory. He also brings side characters and rivals to life with long chapters devoted to their life stories and personalities. In this book, Johnson’s antagonist is Coke Stevenson, also known as “Mr. Texas.” A true cowboy, Coke was famous around the state for being a true idealist and lover of democracy. He never ran for office so much as he was drafted and made to stand for office due to recognition of his honor. In Volume 1, Caro makes Sam Rayburn into the secondary figure of the book and in this one it’s Coke. The chapters that focus on him are incredible and portray him as the perfect foil to LBJ.

               I want to end with the last paragraph of the book, which sets up the next one and sounds pretty exciting:

“Within just two years, in January, 1951, Lyndon Johnson would be a leader, his party’s whip—an assistant floor leader who, moreover, very quickly began to invest that hitherto largely titular role with new significance. Just two years later, in January, 1953, he would be the Leader of his party, only Minority Leader since the Democrats had lost control of the Senate, but nonetheless the youngest floor leader in the history of the Senate. From that seat in the back row he had moved in only four years to the Democratic Leader’s front-row, center-aisle seat, sitting at the head of men who had served as many terms in that body as he had years there. And within weeks of his election as Leader, he would begin to revolutionize some of the Senate’s most sacrosanct traditions in order to concentrate the barons’ prerogatives in his own hands. By 1955, with the barons’ power broken and the Democrats back in the majority, Lyndon Johnson was the most powerful Majority Leader in history.”

Miscellaneous Facts:

• Politicians use two hands to shake hands because if they don’t, multiple people will try to shake their hands at the same time.

Reflection on Columbine by Dave Cullen

               This is a really well-written book written in the “true crime” style of In Cold Blood. It details the massacre at Columbine High School in Jefferson County, Colorado. The author does an excellent job weaving together the stories of the perpetrators, victims, bystanders, and first responders to cover the most important events before, after, and during the massacre.

               Before the Columbine massacre, school shootings had already happened several times. What was different about Columbine’s tragedy is that it went on long enough for news cameras and the media to arrive, as people could watch the events unfold in real time on CNN. Another important difference is that it wasn’t a hostage crisis. While it was treated as one, with many living people in the building with the shooters, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris had no interest in hostages- they were killing for fun, indiscriminately. That would have changed the police response, but they didn’t know until after. In a hostage crisis, it is advised to set up a perimeter and wait outside. In a mass shooting, police should enter as soon as possible. While SWAT teams would not enter the building until four hours after the standoff began at 3:15, the killers had already committed suicide at 12:08, costing precious time for those survivors who were shot.

               One misconception I had was that the shooting was two nerds who targeted jocks, but that wasn’t so. In fact, Eric and Dylan had many friends and could hardly be called nerds. Rather, that was a media myth created after the fact, along with many others. So why did they do it? Eric and Dylan could be classified as a “dyad: murderous pairs who feed off each other.” Prominent examples include Bonnie and Clyde and the Beltway snipers. In Eric and Dylan’s case, it was a psychopath (Eric) and a depressed person (Dylan). Pairs like this are never mirror images, usually one follows the other while subtly egging him on, as Dylan followed Eric. Both had superiority complexes, but Eric was much more violent. Dylan hardly shot his gun at all during the half-hour they spent on the rampage.

               Something huge that I had no idea about was the extent of the cover-up after the tragedy of the fact that there were active warrants out for Eric’s arrest that the police had ignored. Eric and Dylan had been committing petty crimes and managed to get out of a diversion program and go free, but when Eric was reported to the police for extremely violent and threatening posts on his website, they failed to report that to the DA. In the summer after Columbine, the police destroyed all the relevant files but were caught years later for it, though no one went to jail.

Miscellaneous Facts:

• Over 80% of psychopaths are male and almost 100% of school shooters are male.
• Originally, the plan was to explode several bombs inside the school and their town, but Eric had not wired them correctly and they failed, leading to the decision to just go in shooting.
• Colorado closed the gun show loophole (how the boys got the guns) after the shooting but the federal government failed to do so.

Reflection on The World Without Us by Alen Weisman

               The World Without Us discusses a hypothetical future in which all humans either die or disappear from Earth, asking questions about what would happen to our fellow plants and animals, monuments, and buildings. It uses science to tell us which things will biodegrade and how long it will take, versus other things, like bronze and vulcanized rubber tires, that will remain forever. I learned some random things. For example, while some assert that humans may have arrived from Polynesia by boat to the Americas, it must be that either that did not happen (with Homo Sapiens arriving by foot) or at some point they forgot their boating skills, because it took humans 5,000 years after arriving in the Americas to settle the Caribbean. I also learned that humans settled the Americas before Cyprus. Also, vulcanization is a process that ties long polymer chains together with sulfur atoms, turning them into one giant molecule. This means that anything made of vulcanized rubber, like tires, is actually one giant molecule. Therefore, tires in landfills develop donut-shaped bubbles, and with humans gone will slowly work their way to the tops of landfills, fill with water, and breed mosquitoes (unless they are burnt or physically shredded). Also, Mount Rushmore’s granite is so tough that, eroding only one inch every 10,000 years, it will be around for the next 7.2 million years, barring some kind of earthquake or asteroid collision. So that’s what I got out of this book.

Reflection on The Myth of Millionaire Tax Flight: How Place Still Matters for the Rich by Cristobal Young

              This book reminds me of Elizabeth Warren’s book, The Two Income Trap, as both are short (under 200 pages) and make one coherent argument about economics that I am predisposed to agree with. I should probably be more skeptical of this book as I went in looking for evidence of something that I already believed (that the government should return taxes on millionaires to older, higher levels) and that is a recipe for uncritical analysis. But whatever, I liked the book a lot and I found the arguments put forth to be very compelling

               The critical point of the book is that place is more important than ever for millionaires. Although many on both ends of the argument for higher taxes on the rich seem to believe that the rich are extremely mobile and can move wherever they want, that is a misconception. The extremely wealthy can certainly travel wherever they want, and they do so. Bill Gates may go to Switzerland, Swaziland, and Seattle all in a month. However, he chooses to live in Seattle. This is because he is what Young calls an “embedded elite.” If Gates leaves Seattle, he leaves the headquarters of his business. If he leaves the United States, he leaves the country where most of his connections and clients are. If he leaves the Western and English-speaking world, he loses most of his ability to communicate with and be understood by others. He is an embedded elite. In fact, those who are most likely to migrate to another state or country are those who are poorer, or at the beginning of their careers. The poor move across borders to gain access to better jobs, as a fry cook at McDonald’s in the USA can make six times more doing the same job as a fry cook in an Indian McDonald’s. Younger people also tend to move as they are less tied down to family obligations with a spouse and children. Millionaires are also more likely to be married (90% of millionaires vs 58% of general tax filers) so that adds yet another barrier to moving, as one now needs the approval of a spouse to migrate.

               In his statistical analysis, the author finds that the very wealthy in the United States are no more likely to live in a low-tax state than a high-tax state. Think of it this way- California and New York are very high tax states. If you are rich, it would make sense to move to a low-tax state- however, if you’re an actor, you probably need to live in Los Angeles. If you’re a Wall Street banker, you probably need to live in New York. Telecommuting just isn’t the same, and it’s likely that the connections you have in your social and professional life are concentrated in one city. When they author did an analysis of where the rich are likely to live in the United States, there was absolutely no correlation between wealthy population and a low state income tax.

               The overall millionaire migration rate is very low at just 2.4 percent and of these moves, just 15 percent achieve a tax advantage. That means that just “0.3 percent of millionaires, on balance, shifted to a lower tax state.” More than all of this is accounted for by Florida, where 20% of top income earners are moving to, with about 10% leaving. Florida may be attractive for its low income taxes, but is also very attractive due to its beaches, climate, and amenities (air conditioning included). Because of its low tax levels, Floridian poor pay about 12 percent of their income in taxes while the rich pay only 2 percent. Generally, when a millionaire or a billionaire lives in a place that is not of their birth, it is also not of their choice. They relocated by decision of their parents when they were a child or to pursue a career when they were young enough not to be tied down to social obligations. When it comes to billionaires, slightly more move at 5%, however 7% also die in the same time period, meaning that a billionaire is more likely to die than to change his or her place of residence.

               The author also addresses offshoring of money, meaning that the ultra-wealthy would not change their primary address but would rather change the primary address of their money using accounting and legal tricks. This is apparently not as advantageous as it would seem. It does a lot for secrecy, however, moving money through a shell corporation does little for wealthy people unless they’re trying to avoid a wealth tax. When it comes to income taxes, usually that wealth has already been taxed before they have hidden it. 8% of global wealth is hidden offshore, which seems alike a lot and a little at the same time to me.

               To conclude, I’m very glad to have read this book because it’s given me empirical backing for an argument I find to be true, which is that the rich are paying historically low taxes and that it is Bad. The author writes that “The central finding of this book is that while millionaire migration and millionaire tax flight certainly occur, they are happening at the margins of social and economic significance.” The idea that we can’t raise taxes on the rich because they’ll just leave the country is based on anecdotal evidence and not on fact. The main reason we don’t do it is because of cowardly politicians who are often in the pocket of those very same extremely wealthy people. I think that the very wealthy are bluffing when they say that they would leave the countries that made them rich and that the American people should call their bluff.

Reflection on Leisureville: Adventures in a World Without Children by Andrew D. Blechman

               While they may not seem significant, age-restricted living spaces are a brand-new utopian idea sold to senior citizens. Some are just an apartment building but others, especially in the South (the most famous is the Villages in Florida) are massive complexes of tens of thousands of people living in a perfectly designed paradise for the old. These places are growing and attract more and more older people to live in a world with no children, and where they can only visit for about a month a year.

               The author makes the argument that these are terrible for our greater society because they draw out our elderly population, that is a community’s memory of its history and a source of volunteerism and social good. It disrupts the links between generations and also takes major amounts of tax money out of government revenues, especially the education system. I am inclined to agree with the author. As a young person, it’s disturbing to see that I pay social security taxes into a fund that is used so that old people can go on 20-30 year vacations, paying no taxes to local communities and cutting themselves off from reality. Because of school funding limitations, more communities are building adults-only zoning areas and that means less housing for people with children, driving the birthrate even further down as parents realize how expensive it will be to have children.  I think these things have a major effect on the political polarization of the country and lead to a lack of understanding between people. Age segregation is segregation plain and simple.

               I will acknowledge, however, why people choose to go to these places. We now live in a society that causes people to move long distances more and more. Adult sons and daughters cannot be expected to live near their parents, and often live in different states. When a job comes calling, it can be hard to stay. Because of that, seniors lose the connections they once had to their old communities and often choose to go to another.

Reflection on Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit

               This is a book that seemed really good at first and then wasn’t as good. I thought it was gonna be great stories about her telling men that the stuff they’re explaining to her was something she knew or even wrote, but that’s only the first essay. The rest of the essays in the book are very theoretical and abstract, artsy stuff that I didn’t like as much. I learned two good facts though: nearly two-thirds of all women killed by guns are killed by their partner or ex-partner and that murder is a crime committed by men 90% of the time.

Reflection on The Years of Lyndon Johnson Volume I: The Path to Power

               This is the most thorough book I’ve ever read. That’s probably because it’s a 1,000 page biography that is just the first in a series of five books (still unfinished) on Lyndon Johnson’s life. It is a really deep dive and at some point I’ll try to read the second book. It’s written like a novel and I found it really captivating, though (obviously) a little long at times.

               The book starts with hill country, a land that was found lush and beautiful by the pioneers. It was where Lyndon Johnson would be born. However, by the time of his birth, in 1908, the land was ruined, overfarmed and without much rain. When it did rain, it wiped the earth clean off the limestone leaving only rock. The people who farmed it became very poor, like Lyndon’s family. Lyndon as a child was very bossy and used to getting his way. For example, when his cousin Ava would swing by on her donkey to take him to school, he would, even though he was younger, insist on sitting in front. He also liked getting the pity of others and would often lie and tell people his parents weren’t feeding him. He would also scream and holler extremely loud whenever he got beat or hit. He tended to be very unpopular in high school and college. And was known as a manipulator, especially with women, only ever dating the daughters of rich men.

               LBJ was really good at turning non-political or powerless institutions into powerful, political institutions. He did it with a social club (The White Stars) on his college campus, a debating society of assistants to Congressmen in the Capitol (The Little Congress), the National Youth Administration, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. He was always focused more on tactics and policy and found that through valueless pragmatism he could go far.

               When elected to congress as a long-shot underdog, Johnson spent his first term working on building a dam, paying back a major favor to its contractor, who funded his political aspirations. He also set about putting the New Deal to work for him, paying farmers to clear brush and leave land fallow, which did wonders to improve the land. He got serious money for his district. Otherwise, Johnson did little. Since he had no real political beliefs, except for a mild but very secret conservatism, he gave only ten speeches in eleven years in congress. He worked behind the scenes to cause a break between his mentor Sam Rayburn and FDR so that he could be FDR’s number one guy in Texas, showing that Johnson was always willing to betray those who helped him. He also slept with the wife of an influential newspaperman who backed his career.

               1940 through 1942 were critical years for Johnson. In 1940, he saved the day, taking over the Democratic fundraising effort and saving the congressional elections that looked like they would deliver the House to the Republicans. Even though he was unpopular, after 1940 everyone knew they owed him. His role in that election would transform electoral politics forever, revolutionizing and drastically increasing the role of money in politics. In 1941, Johnson ran for Senate, but (to make a long story short) was overconfident and just barely lost the election. In 1942, Johnson decided to join the Navy, fulfilling an old campaign promise, and pausing his political career.

               I came out of this book not liking Johnson at all. While I gained respect for his ability to get ahead in the world of democracy and politics, he is truly the wrong type of person to represent others. He was very manipulative and the “end” was not to help others, but to gain power for himself. He also built his early career through the patronship and mentorship of both Sam Rayburn and FDR, both of whom he would not hesitate to betray later on. The book is fantastic and I’m looking forward toreading the others.

Miscellaneous Facts:

• The Comanches were a feared menace to settlers in Texas in the early 19^th century until the Texas Rangers were equipped with revolvers. Until then, a Comanche could shoot twenty arrows in the time it took to reload a single-shot rifle.
• On their first date LBJ asked Lady Bird to marry him.
• Texas is big enough to cover all of New England plus New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia combined.

Reflection on Finding Florida: The True History of the Sunshine State by T.D. Allman

             This is a book about the history of Florida, mostly in the last 500 years or so since writing was introduced to the modern-day state. The history of Florida since 1500 can be summed up by 200 years of influence from the Caribbean, 250 years of influence from North America, and then 50 years (until modern day) of equilibrium from both. Florida has never really been a major influencer of other places, largely due to its isolation and historically low population. However, that population has boomed in the last 100 years and the isolation is gone. With almost 20 million people now, Florida may soon begin to emit an influence of its own.

               A very positive aspect of this book is that the author has a really good long-term perspective. For example, Allman writes of British victory in the Seven Years’ War, “In 1763, the British were all-triumphant. By 1783 they had lost most of their American colonies.” I think this is a really critical way to see developments in the Americas at the time, as within 20 years, the biggest winner in the region was a loser and in another 20 years, France would lose all her colonies in North America and the Caribbean. In 20 more years, Britain would lose everything it had in the continental interior outside of Canada and the Spanish colonies would declare independence. It was a rapid political change. Allman also has interesting perspective when discussing the Louisiana Purchase. He writes that no such power existed and that Jefferson even drafted a constitutional amendment but never submitted it. He just bought the land without any real power to do so, therefore disregarding the original intent of the document. It’s ironic that even the founders were not originalists. Another interesting point the author makes is that Florida, even North Florida has always been very different from the South because it was a federal government creation, receiving lots of national funds, unlike any other Southern state.

               An interesting part of the book was the Second Seminole War, which ended in 1842 with the deaths of thousands and with thousands more of Seminoles fleeing to Oklahoma in the west. A Third Seminole War was fought from 1855-8 and led to more expulsions. These wars were very bloody, and just counting US federal troops, 1,500 died in the war. That’s several times the number in the Spanish-American War and just 300 short of the Mexican-American War. “Nearly twice as many soldiers died in Florida as were killed subjugating the entire vast area west of the Mississippi,” writes the author.

               A negative feature of the book is the author’s voice. By that I mean the tone he takes often made me feel like he doesn’t like Florida at all and looks down on the state. He also obsessively returns to these tiny battles fought a hundred and fifty years ago by less than a hundred and fifty people to relitigate who lied about what. It really seemed “pedantic.”

               In all, this is a great history of Florida, though I really want to read more about the 20^th century more than anything and will look for more books about Florida during that time in the future.

Miscellaneous Facts:

• The feral pig population of the United States originated in Florida from the herd of explorer Hernando De Soto.
• In Florida, homesteading was illegal, leading to a very unequal society even among the whites.
• Florida was always very unequal. For example: a misdemeanor like brawling meant a 50 cent fine for a rich man’s son and a 100 dollar fine for a countryman.
• Noticing the correlation between heat and Yellow Fever, Dr. John Gorrie invented refrigeration, though he never lived to see it fulfill its true use as making Florida livable. While cooler air didn’t cure Yellow Fever, it made people stay inside more and avoid mosquitos.
• When the state of Florida graduated its first doctor, John F. Kennedy was president…
• The red “X” on the state flag of Florida symbolizes the Confederacy.
• There were three Henrys who were key to the development of Florida: Henry Flagler on the Atlantic Coast, Henry Sanford in Central Florida, and Henry Plant on the Gulf Coast. They all lost money.
• In 1907, Governor Napoleon Bonaparte Broward (of Broward County’s name) proposed to remove every black person from the state.
• Florida is ideal for American space travel because it is the state closest to the equator, where the escape velocity is diminished.
• Florida’s Disneyland is 150 times the size of Disney World in California.
• Disney built two cities so that it could rule itself without taxes, called Bay lake (pop. 47) and Lake Buena Vista (pop. 10). They are considered to be “drainage districts.” Celebration, Florida, where there is an actual Disney-operated city, is unincorporated and the city officials are appointed by Disney, not elected.
• In less than two lifetimes, Florida went from next to nothing to the most densely populate state outside of the BOSNYWASH area.