Lyndon B. Johnson became President of the United States, after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Unfortunately, for President Johnson, who accomplished many meaningful things, especially his civil rights legislation, that still resonates today, he also inherited the Vietnam War which was passed by the Eisenhower Republican Administration to the Democratic Kennedy administration and then onto Johnson. While President Johnson as Commander-in-Chief had many choices available to him in regards to the Vietnam war, his conscious decision to escalate the Vietnam war, to escalate the personnel and monies needed to engage in this protracted war, and to utilize the draft to conscript young men into fighting in the Vietnam war had unintended consequences.
While the American people in its history, of fighting wars, had previously demonstrated its patriotic spirit and determination to serve their nation in a time of need, with minimal degrees of protest by pacifists, and other objectors on numerous other grounds, the Vietnam War ultimately touched a nerve within the American public, previously not displayed which became a very public debate. There were, for instance, many factors working against Johnson, such as television and its broadcast of the Vietnam War and the many tragic deaths of young United States soldiers, the pictures and videos of Vietnam civilians having suffered through American napalm bombings, the fact that America was not achieving the results so desired or promised, the lack of spirit and drive of the South Vietnamese regime and its soldiers, and the draft that seem inherently unfair by allowing those that were married or attending college to defer their enlistment, while sticking those of the lower socio-economic levels with conscription.
The fact that thousands and thousands of soldiers were either dying or being severely wounded in a country, that many Americans would have difficulty locating on a map, for what appeared to be nebulous and inchoate reasons, and the sheer length of the war, which seemed each year to be escalating to involving more men, more personnel, and more war material, began to grate on the nerves of many Americans. So too the 60s were a decade of real protests, of a public, that no longer was willing to buy the mainstream line, which lead to nationwide protests and the devastating slogan of: "Hey, Hey, LBJ! How Many Kids Did You Kill Today? "
LBJ didn't run for re-election in 1968, for many reasons, such as his popularity within his own party was waning, he was tired and frustrated, and all this grief from a war that he inherited. Yet, if we fast forward to the 21st century, America still has its wars, which are passed from one President to another, one party to another, and these wars, against nation-states such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, as well as organizations such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda, are still protested for the most part but that protest playing field has definitely changed. Nowadays, the protests and media emphasis are party-centric, that is to say, if the President is Republican, for example, Bush, the press and street protests are visible and active, but if the President is Democratic, for example, Obama, the press and street protests are muted and quiescent.
This would imply strongly that the 60s was an era of more integrity, that saw wrong, and wanted to correct it, whereas the 21st century, is an era of disingenuous politics, because if all our foreign war excursions are wrong under Bush, they sure the heck are just as wrong under Obama, inherited or not, escalated or not. A country that changes its opinion based on the prevailing winds of the present time is a nation that has no core integrity, and will inevitably collapse upon its own lies and hubris.