Social problems and attempts to tackle them - OCR AOpposition to the Great Society

Opposition from politicians and campaigners

• Republican politicians still believed in rugged individualism, arguing that people needed to do more to lift themselves out of poverty. They said that Johnson was proposing to spend too much money on welfare improvements.
• Southern politicians did not trust his support for civil rights and resisted implementing new laws. Civil rights campaigners criticised him for not doing more to tackle the problems in America’s cities, especially after the widespread race riots of 1967.

The impact of the Vietnam War

Johnson’s decision to increase US involvement in the war in Vietnam resulted in the greatest opposition and criticism of him. The Vietnam War was costing billions of dollars and many Americans felt that spending on the war was at the expense of spending on Johnson’s Great Society programme. As a result, many Americans were happy when Johnson announced that he would not run for re-election in 1968 and would retire from politics altogether.