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With Democrats increasingly attacking each other with a vitriol they once reserved for President Trump, an anecdote involving President Lyndon Johnson fits the moment. As recounted in the riveting memoir of Joseph Califano, Johnson’s top domestic adviser, the president was meeting with civil rights leaders in the hot racial summer of 1967.
Dems were sharply divided over several issues, including how to respond to riots in Detroit and Newark, and LBJ hoped to corral NAACP leader Roy Wilkins and Urban League Executive Director Whitney Young into his corner.
At a White House meeting, Johnson recited his Great Society accomplishments but Wilkins and Young appeared numb and in despair, saying they couldn’t control the young rioters, Califano writes in “The Tragedy and Triumph of Lyndon Johnson.”
KLOBUCHAR REFUSES TO TAKE SIDES ON SEGREGATIONIST SPAT BETWEEN BIDEN AND HARRIS
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It was then that Johnson attacked the left wing of his own party. “A liberal is intolerant of other views. He wants to control your thoughts and actions,” Johnson declared. Califano then describes the president moving forward in his chair to deliver his punch line. “You know the difference between cannibals and liberals? Cannibals eat only their enemies.”
Five decades later, only the labels have changed.
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