Biden, Trump glided to 2024 nominations. Here’s why they can thank LBJ

WASHINGTON Some voters probably still hope Joe Biden or Donald Trump – or both – will do what Lyndon Baines Johnson did nearly 56 years ago: Pull out of the presidential race under public pressure.

After all, Biden has heard widespread concerns about his age, and Trump faces four separate criminal trials. The dynamics have led political observers on both sides of the aisle to ask: Should Trump and Biden step aside, or be pushed away?

It almost surely won’t happen, barring death or a medical emergency. And it was never going to happen, thanks in large part to political changes that followed Johnson’s surprise decision to retire.

In the decades to come, LBJ’s stunning announcement on March 31, 1968 led to full-time reliance on primaries and caucuses to pick presidential nominees, a system that tends to benefit incumbent presidents and well-heeled candidates. That includes Biden and Trump this time around.

The political parties “established new rules that basically created the primary-and-caucus system,” said presidential historian Joshua Zeitz.

via www.usatoday.com

Not as bad as destroying the Black family with the “Great Society,” but still bad.