Means of Ascent - Robert Caro
This is the second volume in Robert Caro’s epic biography of Lyndon B. Johnson. Similar to the first one, it is jaw dropping on so many levels. On one level, the biography is an incredible feat of journalist. Reading Caro’s book, Working, provided a lot of insight into this. With so many biographies, we tend to think that the information is out there in other books and whatnot, and then the new biographer just goes and compiles it in different ways for a different angle. Caro’s books are so obviously a different level. There enormous elements of Johnson’ character that we wouldn’t know about if it weren’t for Caro. In the first book, A Path to Power, Caro interviewed every person possible from Johnson’ childhood to better understand his psyche. Johnson was careful to control his own narrative about how beloved it was in his hometown. Caro’ research showed a much different image. And this perspective would not have been shown without Caro’s research. That simple fact - that there is a whole level of truth that would not exist without one person - is so inspiring for me.
Caro’s meticulous research for this book shed unique light on Johnson’s military career. Similar to his upbringing, Johnson made broad claims about how involved he was in the military. He made it seem like it was “fighting alongside all of the other boys” when really, he was extremely strategic about how he got involved in the military. He had made major claims that, if the Senate is going to send people to war, he will be one of the first people to be out there with them. But of course, he wasn’t. He went on one flight on a fighter plane, and not even as a soldier! He went as a politician to make the claim that he knew what the soldiers were going through. Once he was armed with this experience, he made sure to reference it constantly. To the point where, Caro makes the claim, that he probably started to believe that he was there as an actual soldier.
Also similar to the first volume, Caro has profiled an antithetical character to Johnson. In the first book, the “hero” is Samual Rayburn. Unlike Johnson, Rayburn was the ultimately principled person. He was extremely intense and had an unwavering idea of what is right. In this book, the hero is Coke Stevenson. He was the ultimate self-made man. He taught himself finance and finance while working as a rancher and would out-cowboy cowboys on his campaign trail. Unlike Johnson, all of his decisions as a politician were based on principles rather than politics. He read political philosophy and studied municipal budgets. He didn’t even get into politics as a politician - he got into it as a citizen who could help the government run more efficiently. His nickname, Mr. Texas, was entirely deserved.
There are common threads from the first book though too.
- Johnson’s unbelievable campaigning: In the first book, Johnson drove all over the entire state to convince people to vote for him as a congressman. This time, he took a HELICOPTER! He worked himself into illness to shake every hand possible while on the campaign trail.
- Johnson’s unprecedented spending: Before Johnson, Texas campaigning was a personal affair. Politicians went throughout the state to shake a couple of hands and talk to old men in the barbershop. Johnson brought modern campaigning to the state - from a money perspective and from a slander perspective.
- Johnson’s similarities to Trump: Similar to Trump, Johnson seems to lack any moral compass. Instead, his entire compass is based on enhancing himself. Similarly, Johnson was also a propagated of literal “fake news”. While campaigning in the 1948 Senate campaign, he published the Johnson Gazette that looked like a legitimate publication but was actually just Johnson propaganda. History repeats itself.
- His willingness to steal elections. Caro makes the point that, really, his cheating on the 1948 Senate election was just a continuation of his previous practices at the Teacher’s College, in the Little Congress, and during his first campaign to be a Senator.
As much as I love anything that Caro writes, the last fourth of the book about the last days of the Senate race dragged a little. I’d imagine that Caro was demonstrating just how close and monumental of a race this was - but still - I found myself skimming parts.
After Johnson was sworn in as Senator, he continued previous tendencies of bragging about his essentially criminal exploits. He would make jokes about the people that “came back from the dead” to vote in his election at dinner parties! Of course, once he started to seriously think about his campaigns for president, he distanced himself from the stories and realities of the election. He’s so much like Trump in this way - he didn’t have any sense of an actual truth. He would just change his story by 180 degrees and do it with such conviction that he would end up believing it. It kind of reminds me of a scene in Succession where Logan Roy comments that he’s never been much for memory lane because anything in the past is just made up based on how someone tells it. This philosophy is more or less the antithesis of Caro’s I’d imagine.
Ultimately, Caro makes the claim that Johnson’s psyche can be drawn back to his father. His father had the reputation of being an idealist and wasn’t pragmatic enough to actually get things done. Ultimately, this cost him his career to the point that he ended his life working as a manual laborer. Johnson was so desperate to avoid this fate that he explicitly made sure people know that he was NOT this kind of idealist. He cared about the result and morals wouldn’t be factored in. He obviously had the superhuman drive to acquire power, but the fact that he would brag about his exploits after he made it out on top points to some kind of deeper need for people to know that he is capable of doing such amoral (maybe in him mind, simply pragmatic) things!