LBJ’s Personality

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Lyndon Baines Johnson, otherwise known as LBJ, was an egotistical senator, president, and life long politician. LBJ was born in Stonewall, Texas to a family where he felt neglected for most of his childhood. That shaped LBJ into the man he was. Always in need of fellowship, LBJ found himself working hard, trying to be the best at everything. As a result, he wanted to outdo every politician America had ever seen. It did not stop there, LBJ also wanted to be known as the greatest politician in the history of the United States. Throughout LBJ’s career, he did have many successes, but also many failures, which mostly stemmed from his outlandish personality.
LBJ’s strive to be a world class politician had to start somewhere. After serving in the House of Representatives for a full six-year term, he went on to the next step, becoming a senator. On a highly debatable victory, LBJ found himself a United States Senator for the state of Texas in 1949. The senate complimented LBJ’s personality because it was based off of personal relationships, something he excelled at. LBJ was a people’s person; he liked to please people, but if someone tried to go against him, he would slam them to the ground. It was a form of passive aggressive political hardball that LBJ was famous for. He took advantage of it all, which steered him to become the Majority Leader in 1955. A few months after assuming the position of Majority Leader, LBJ’s personality and habits affected him fatally; he suffered a severe heart attack. Many believe his heart attack was due to the amount of stress he was under, along with his tobacco addiction. One of LBJ’s major problems was that he could never relax and could never stop thinking about politics. It essentially was his entir...

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... LBJ’s career, his egotistical personality caused his successes and his failures. Because LBJ always wanted to be the best, he would not accept failure, which lead to the Americans hating him during the Vietnam War because they also did not want to accept failure. He did not want to be the first president to lose a war, especially a war that he did not start. Overall, LBJ was not given a fair hand inheriting a war he did not start, a war that was sure to cause the downfall of anyone. Although his personality failed him in that aspect of his career, it helped him earlier on in becoming a successful Senator, creating a promising civil rights bill, and everything else leading up until his re-election and Vietnam. LBJ was solid throughout his career, but when it came down to the pressure situation, he struck out, and unfortunately, he will mostly be remembered for that.

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