Neera Tanden

Opinion contributor

He was a vice president of a charismatic president adored by liberals. He had a long record in the Senate, with a history of savvy deal-making that was seen as an asset to a less experienced younger president, a newcomer to Washington. And as he ran for the presidency in his own right, he was distrusted by a left newly ascendant in their party. That distrust was born of a record on race that seemed anachronistic to a younger generation.

That description of Lyndon Johnson could easily be used for Joe Biden. And in that symmetry is a lesson for liberals. Because as president, Johnson would have the most effective progressive record on race and class of any Democratic president in the past 80 years. The foundational principles of modern liberalism — civil rights and greater economic equality — took further strides during Johnson’s presidency than any since the New Deal. But ironically enough, as he assumed power and ran on his own for the presidency, his presidency was feared by liberals.

Johnson's landslide victory

When President John Kennedy died, civil rights leaders like Roger Wilkins and James Farmer openly fretted that a Southern senator with a questionable record would be a step back in civil rights. Instead, much to the surprise of liberals of his day, Johnson used his unrivaled experience in Congress to shape and ultimately pass liberal touchstones like the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a bill that had festered in the Kennedy administration. A centrist, if not conservative for his day, Johnson had the sway and power to push conservative Democrats in his own party to accede to it.

It was during his campaign for the presidency that Johnson developed the ideas behind the Great Society — legislation that would fuel the war on poverty. Universal programs like Medicare and anti-poverty programs like Medicaid and support for poor schools, through the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, were all passed after Johnson was reelected.

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How exactly was Johnson able to pass the Great Society legislation and the Voting Rights Act? Of course, he was a savvy deal-maker. But the key to these legislative victories was the size of his election victory. Johnson beat Barry Goldwater by 61% to 39% with 486 electoral votes to Goldwater’s 52. One of the greatest landslide victories in American history. He had the mandate to pass his agenda because of the nature of his victory. It was a mandate that led to the most significant expansion of health care in our country’s history. The second-largest expansion was the Affordable Care Act.

Of course, Johnson’s mandate was driven not just by the death of Kennedy but also by the extreme nature of Goldwater’s campaign. Goldwater wanted Social Security to be optional, but Goldwater, like Donald Trump, stood firmly against the country’s forward movement on race, opposing the Civil Rights Act that Johnson just had passed in 1964. And Johnson campaigned hard against Goldwater’s extremism and successfully argued he was the mainstream candidate.

Biden's progressive positions

The leftward lean of the Democratic primary has perhaps obscured how progressive Biden’s agenda is when matched against recent nominees. On issue after issue, Biden's positions are more liberal and expansive than any previous Democratic nominee. Take just two issues — political reform and climate change.

Biden’s commitment to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and trillions in added investments in renewable energy would transform our economy and are far more expansive than anything proposed by Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.

Biden’s support of political reform — including automatic voter registration, public financing, anti-corruption measures and all the reform of H.R. 1, the expansive democracy bill passed in the House — could dramatically expand participatory power of our elections and reshape our democracy.

And he has set up a process with Bernie Sanders where he may develop an even more progressive agenda on many issues.

Johnson was a candidate characterized as moderate who defeated an extreme Republican and thereby created a large scale governing mandate to pass popular, large scale structural changes to redress inequality and racism. There are lessons here for today’s liberals. It is to concentrate on and work toward the margin victory. A moderate president with strong margins in the House and Senate can achieve many more liberal goals than a liberal without the Senate.

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We live in a time of extreme polarization, so a Johnson-like landslide may not be possible. But if there’s an event that can scramble that kind of polarization, it is a global pandemic that an incumbent president badly mismanages. This could well be a very close race for the presidency in 2020, but it could also break open. As an incumbent president, Trump’s polling average in a matchup against Biden is at 42% and has been there for months. That is a precarious position for an incumbent.

In the 2008 election, the financial crisis solidified the public’s antipathy toward conservative policies after eight years of George W. Bush. Obama beat John McCain by 53% to 46%, a margin that swept in a Democratic-majority Senate. Could a badly mishandled pandemic reshape American politics this November? It well could.

The lesson for liberals is that they should help make that happen. Rather than fret, focus on the vote share and help build a mandate. Because a Biden presidency with a large electoral mandate is more capable of making the structural change on a host of issues they have been arguing for than perhaps any event in a very long time.

Neera Tanden is president and CEO of the Center for American Progress. Follow her on Twitter: @neeratanden