James Talarico on Lyndon Johsnon

 James Talarico - As I walked the halls of the United States Senate during our orientation earlier this week, Lyndon B. Johnson was everywhere — busts, portraits, plaques. It felt like he was speaking to me as I prepared to take back his Senate seat.

I think LBJ has something to say to all of us in this moment.

LBJ married two things that are at odds in the modern Democratic Party: the practical politics of coalition-building and a bold moral imagination.

LBJ’s Great Society was not just a legislative agenda; it was a vision. It was a dream. An America where everyone can fulfill their God-given potential. A beloved community. A more perfect union.

And he passed an agenda worthy of that dream: Head Start, Title 1, Medicare, Medicaid, public television, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, fair housing, space exploration, the War on Poverty, the National Endowment for the Arts, highway beautification.

Everything is bigger in Texas — including our policy ambitions. In Texas, we go big, or we go home.

So here’s what I told Democrats gathered for a post-midterm debrief about we need to do with our Texas-sized mandate:

• We must get Big Money out of our politics so no billionaire — or trillionaire — can buy our elections.
• We must ban gerrymandering nationwide — in red states and blue states alike.
• We must unrig this economic system that only benefits the top 1%.
• We must pass universal healthcare so no one goes bankrupt just because they get sick.
• We must invest in our teachers and our students and build an American public education system that is the envy of the world.
• We must overhaul this broken immigration system and build a pathway to citizenship for our neighbors who have been here for years.
• We must cut red tape and build millions of new homes so every American can realize the dream of homeownership.
• We must regulate artificial intelligence, crack down on data centers, and pass an AI Dividend so every American has a share in this AI future.
• We must end these forever wars that are driving up prices and champion a new, values-based foreign policy.

.... In the words of Thomas Paine: “We have it in our power to begin the world over again." We can write the next chapter of our history. We can remake our country. We can build a new Great Society.