Johnson left office in 1969 , the victim of selfinflicted political wounds over Vietnam . But in the halfcentury since his presidency , much of his Great Society remains intact . Health care for the elderly and poor . Categorical aid to primary and secondary education . Civil rights and voting rights . Nutritional assistance for hungry children . These programs not only survived successive Republican administrations . They thrived , and in some cases , grew under presidents Richard Nixon , Gerald Ford , Ronald Reagan , George H . W . Bush and George W . Bush . Until now . With majorities in both houses , congressional Republicans under the leadership of House Speaker Paul Ryan have signaled their plans to disassemble not just the Affordable Care Act , but also Medicaid and Medicare to steer federal education policy away from public schools and toward charters and vouchers to roll back voting rights and civil rights enforcement and to make steep cuts to nutritional programs . And , despite the fact that many of these changes could have negative consequences for Trump ' s base , the presidentelect hasn ' t signaled any resistance . But before the GOP sets about the work of dismantling Lyndon Johnson ' s legacy , it ' s helpful to look back 50 years and consider what America looked like before the Great Society . Spoiler alert Much of it wasn ' t great . More people should read this .