Goldwater’s crash-and-burn in 1964 meant that Lyndon Johnson had a supermajority of Congress to support what he dubbed a “War on Poverty.” In 1965, Democratic-led coalitions passed federal aid to education, housing legislation, anti-poverty laws, rural development aid, and Medicare/Medicaid. Crucially, Republicans joined Democrats to pass the Voting Rights Act, designed to protect minority voting, especially in the South, where black voters had been kept from the polls for almost a century.
