July 15, 2024 | Read Online

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"In time of crisis, the pull of myth increases tenfold."

— William Manchester, The Death of a President

Memes matter

In 1841, William Henry Harrison caught a cold during his inauguration. Harrison became the first US president to die in office one month later.

His vice president, John Tyler, immediately assumed the office of president, although it wasn't at all clear that he was entitled to do so.

Former President Quincy Adams remarked disapprovingly in a letter that Tyler "styles himself as President, not Vice President acting as President."

Over the next century, six more US presidents would die while in office, and in each instance, their vice presidents (Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Chester Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge and Harry Truman) immediately "styled" themselves president.

In doing so, the precedent set by John Tyler acquired the force of law: "Succession," according to the historian William Manchester, "had, in effect, become automatic."

In the process, however, President Tyler set an additional, contradictory precedent.

Article II, Section 1, Clause 8 of the US Constitution requires that presidents "solemnly swear" to defend the Constitution.

So that is what Tyler chose to do upon assuming the office — despite having already sworn to do so when he took the oath as vice president.

In an affidavit confirming the event, the US chief justice noted that the second oath was entirely unnecessary.

But the superfluous oath became tradition, too.

So, when President Kennedy was shot and killed in 1963, Vice President Johnson seemed to know that he had become president with immediate effect — no additional oath-taking required.

Bobby Kennedy, the slain president's brother and attorney general, agreed; as did Former President Eisenhowser who later said Johnson was entitled to sign legislation from the moment of Kennedy's death.

Why take the oath in that case?

When a president swears allegiance to the US Constitution, "he puts on the cloak of office," Hubert Humphrey (LBJ's VP) explained — "but that act is purely symbolic."

In November 1963, however, hardly anyone was entirely sure on this point.

The vast majority of Americans thought the oath was required and in that misunderstanding, Johnson saw opportunity.

While everyone around him was still paralyzed with shock, Johnson carefully sought the advice of legal authorities he knew would tell him he should take the oath immediately.

He seemed to understand it wasn't required (he began exercising presidential power immediately) but he wanted to take the oath — specifically, he wanted to take the oath there, on Air Force One, still on the tarmac in Dallas.

That's because he knew that waiting until they had arrived back to DC would make it too late for the photo of his swearing-in to be on the front page of the next day's papers — the first to report JFK's assassination.

Johnson, in short, was staging a meme.

The oath-taking ceremony had become "folklore," according to Manchester, with the very bibles they were sworn on (not mentioned in the Constitution) becoming "integrated into the myth."

But LBJ kept that knowledge to himself so that he could craft the oath-swearing meme to his maximum benefit.

As soon as he boarded Air Force One (the president's plane, not the nearly identical vice president's plane that was right next to it), he sent for a Dallas judge, a photographer and "the newspaper people."

The wait would be over an hour, with Kennedy's grieving staff sweltering in the stifling heat of an overfilled, un-airconditioned Boeing 707 idling on Texas asphalt.

This was no small thing to ask.

The driver of the hearse carrying President Kennedy's casket (now in the back of the plane after enough seats had been ripped out to make space for it) had raced to the airport at full speed fearing that Dallas police would attempt to prevent their departure.

For reasons that will have to wait until another newsletter (maybe tomorrow's!), Kennedy's staff felt they were in enemy territory and were therefore eager to escape.

"The possibility that the slain president's body might be kidnapped seemed very real," according to Manchester.

So, Kennedy's men, including his security detail and military aides, were nonplussed when Johnson countermanded their orders to fire up the engines and depart for DC forthwith.

Could he countermand their orders, they wondered?

He could. He was president — and the point of taking the oath in Dallas, not DC, was to make sure everyone knew it.

"The oath was [intended] to dramatize the stability of the American system of government," Manchester explains, "both for Americans and for allies and antagonists abroad."

Kennedy was assassinated at the height of the Cold War (just a year after the Cuban Missile Crisis), so the photo was a time-sensitive message to the world that the US still had a commander in chief.

The message to Americans was more subtle.

By putting Jackie Kennedy at his side, Johnson used the photo to signal that it wasn't just JFK's duties that had devolved to Johnson, but his political power, as well.

"It was her presence that the man about to be sworn in coveted most," according to Manchester.

Many Kennedy loyalists felt that Johnson was taking advantage of the shell-shocked widow (still in the blood-caked clothing she wore in the motorcade) by cajoling her into his photo-op — but the former first lady was perhaps the only person as aware of the moment as Johnson was.

She was a willing participant in Johnson's power play.

"She understood the symbols of authority," Manchester wrote, "the need for some semblance of national majesty after the disaster."

Jackie may have been the only one to understand at just that moment — all of Kennedy's people on the plane were invited to join the photo, but she was the only one who did.

In her incomprehensible moment of grief, she had the presence of mind to serve her country.

Johnson's staged photo offered her that opportunity.

Where LBJ and DJT agree

This past weekend, a new meme was born — a meme that, for better or worse (depending on your political point of view), seems likely to join the photo of Jackie and LBJ as one of the most significant in US history.

(Seventy-one percent likely, according to Polymarket.)

Appropriately, memecoins (including the original one, bitcoin) rose sharply as the photo rocketed around the internet.

The logical reason for that price action is that the photo makes it more likely that the next US administration will be less hostile to crypto than the current one.

But how often is crypto logical?

Crypto tokens might also be rallying because this weekend's events demonstrate that memes (be they coins or otherwise) can be a vital source of both financial and political power.

Like President Johnson in 1963, Former President Trump, in a moment of crisis, had the presence of mind to pause for a photo-op in the immediate aftermath of a shooting.

If nothing else, I think that's evidence there's at least one thing that he, LBJ and Jackie Kennedy would all agree on:

Memes matter.

— Byron Gilliam

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