MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Let's consider a scenario in which Americans are deeply at odds with each other. There are sharp partisan divisions. There are tensions over social values, racial attitudes, crime, economic inequality and America's involvement in a foreign war. The president endures a cascade of criticism and calls from within his own party to do something. And in a stunning development, he does.
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LYNDON B JOHNSON: I shall not seek, and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president.
MARTIN: That was in 1968, and that president was Lyndon Baines Johnson. So how does that historic moment compare to what happened yesterday, when President Joe Biden announced that he would bow out of the 2024 presidential race? Jill Lepore is a professor of history and law at Harvard University and a staff writer at The New Yorker, and she's with us now to talk about all this. Good morning, Professor.
JILL LEPORE: Good morning.
MARTIN: So we've pointed out some similarities between now and 1968, but there are also real differences, too. How do you compare these two eras?
LEPORE: Gosh. You know, it's entirely understandable to look to 1968, the - it's really the birthing moment of our modern era of polarization. There was a tremendous amount of political violence in 1968, much more than today, before Johnson's announcement. But I think that we could - we'd really disserve the present moment to look to any moment in the past to understand this moment. There are just times in history when the past is not really much of a guide, and I think we kind of need to confront the moment itself.
I mean, it is a close moment in the sense that Johnson voluntarily stepped down. He was ill. He knew he was ill. He was unpopular. He didn't think he would necessarily win reelection, and he really wanted to end the war in Vietnam. It was a very different moment for a few reasons. One is Johnson bowed out much earlier in the process, in early March. This is very late in the process. And Biden, you know, is stepping down kicking and screaming. As wise as it is, ultimately, for him to have made this decision, it would have been quite a bit better for him to have made it Johnson-style, quite a lot earlier.
MARTIN: And also, too, the process is so front-loaded now. I mean, people forget, I mean, primaries were going on well into June back then, so the process has been sort of much accelerated. So you said you really want to focus on the present moment, so let's do that. How do you think this decision will resonate with the public?
LEPORE: I think people are really happy. I think Democrats are relieved. I think Democrats were extremely angry over the - you know, since the days of the debate. I think it's been a fraught and unsettled moment in American political history. In the midst of this, there was an attempted assassination of a former president of the United States. You know, this is a very intense moment in American history, but these questions of presidential succession have troubled American politics for quite a long time.
I mean, the 20th century, when American presidents assumed a global role for the first time, brought a lot of pressure to the pffice of the president. So when FDR decided to abandon the precedent set by George Washington, which was to sort of voluntarily not run for a third term, and ran for a third term and then a fourth, it was on the back of the argument that the world order needed a stable American president during the Second World War - you know, during the Depression and the Second World War, and that was immensely unpopular and much regretted by people who - when FDR went to Yalta, seemed to be, and was, in fact, we now know, incredibly sick, and not capable of performing the role that he had, this really important task.
When - and so that leads to the 22nd Amendment in 1951, limiting presidents to two terms. It's just a really big deal. You have to have this constitutional amendment to deal with that. And after Kennedy's assassination in 1963, the 25th Amendment is passed, to deal with these matters of presidential succession in the wake of an assassination or presidential debility because of the great prominence and importance of the American presidency.
MARTIN: You know, you mentioned FDR at Yalta. That was a moment in which most of us didn't have access to those - that information until much later, OK? We all saw the debate - or at least, everybody who wanted to...
LEPORE: Correct.
MARTIN: ...See it saw it, and even if you didn't, you heard about it, OK?
LEPORE: And even if you didn't want to see it, you saw it.
MARTIN: Even - OK. So what is your sense of how history will regard this whole episode of how we, as a country, dealt with this particular president and his perceived frailty at this particular time? I mean, obviously, this is early days, and we're still just sort of processing all this, but what do you think?
LEPORE: Yeah, I think there's going to be a, when did they know, and when did they know it? - looking back. I mean, there was a little bit of that even with Reagan and the question of his memory loss and the onset of dementia in his second term. How much did his staff know? How much were they hiding? I don't know that we even really know now. Those things can take quite a long time to come out, but I think that it won't look good in hindsight, and I think one of the things that I think Americans have not enjoyed about this administration, for all the good that Joseph Biden has done as president, is the kind of Kremlinology of it all. You know, we're asked to think about how Biden feels all the time.
You know, this has been hard for him emotionally. He's a good man going through a lot. It's very painful to watch people that you admire suffer with struggles in old age, but it is not a private office. It is a public office. And the press corps, sort of trying to figure out what's going on, maybe being accused of not figuring out - you know, not working hard enough to do that - this is - these dimensions of trying to second guess a White House - those just aren't good for politics, right? People need to have a better sense of what is actually going on, and I think it opens up more doubt about institutions that we need to have more confidence in.
MARTIN: Very briefly - we only have about 20 seconds - do you think that the - what do you think the big takeaways of Biden's term will be?
LEPORE: I think Biden will be remembered for having been a quite successful president who didn't hang up his hat quite in time but did the right thing in the end.
MARTIN: That's Jill Lepore. She's a professor of history and law at Harvard University and a staff writer for The New Yorker. Professor Lepore, thank you so much.
LEPORE: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SEB WILDBLOOD'S "MOODLIGHT") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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