re: History buffs, how different would the world be today if Kennedy was never assassinated?

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Civil Rights still occurs as is, thus political parties will still reverse themselves

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Not "as is"; it happens quite a bit later than 1964 (civil rights act) and 1965 (voting rights act).

Number one, Kennedy as a "Yankee northerner" advocating for a civil rights bill gets even more pushback by his southern Democrat colleagues, more than it did for Texan Lyndon B. Johnson (who did get a lot of pushback from those Democrats anyway). He likely would not have introduced it until his second "lame duck" term.

Number two, Kennedy's assassination created a "martyrdom" which enabled Johnson to pass that bill in Kennedy's name not even a year after Kennedy's death. Without that death and martyrdom, opponents fight a lot harder and the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act are passed much later, and probably not in the same language that they are today.

I would hope that the Voting Rights Act in particular is not written and and interpreted in such a way to DICTATE the gerrymandering of "majority minority" districts to the degree that it is now.

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The higher likelihood is that JFK escalates Vietnam, esp since he was the one who already escalated it to begin with. Domestic policies would be similar to LBJ, just with a nicer smile attached.

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I don’t know about … LBJ personally escalated the Vietnam War… that was his decision… their policies domestically don’t mirror each other at all… LBJ really drove home the Civil Rights Act… JFK made NO attempt to address the situation …

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You get out of Cuba, we'll get out of Turkey.

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Really not that simple…
Did we leave Turkey???

I believe the intelligence agencies would have remained our eyes and ears, instead of dictating policy, for a much longer period of time.
That in and of itself dramatically changes the political landscape reaching perhaps even modern day.
I wonder how different the 90's would have been. Without the CIA's heavy influence, Bush senior certainly never becomes president.
Couple that with never having a Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter or Reagan Presidency's.
How much better of a country do we have without Vietnam, the War on Drugs, Trickle Down Economics, The Neo-con resurgence, etc ?

Pulled our nukes out if Russia removed theirs from Cuber*.





*Using the JFK pronunciation

The Rolling Stones would have performed in Cuba a lot sooner than they did.

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We had a string of terrible presidents. LBJ, Nixon and then the ineffective Ford and Carter. Reagan REALLY flipped that script.

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Pretty much the answer I was about to give.

Would Lyndon Johnson, one of the worst Presidents we’ve ever had, and one of the worst human being to have held that office, become President.

What follows Kennedy is Johnson, Nixon, Ford (who probably wasn’t bad but had Watergate thrown around his neck), and Jimmy Carter.

By the time we were into the 1980 Election season, their was a real feeling of despair amongst America. Ronald Reagan changed that, bringing renewed hope to the country, and in the meantime gave that real finish push towards the falling apart of the Soviet Union.

Does a Reagan Presidency happen if JFK serves his full two terms? Is there a need for a Ronald Reagan if Lyndon Johnson never happens? He and the Peanut Farmer, along with Nixon’s shadiness, really set a need for renewed confidence in America, with Reagan delivered (sorry, Obama, his Hope and Change was actually real).

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Camelot sycophants to mythologize what was a fairly non-descript and lackluster presidency into this legend that doesn't really stand up to scrutiny. JFK was not this hugely popular leader most of the media and historians would have you believe.

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You are correct - Camelot was indeed a myth. There are several accounts that JFK never even saw Camelot, much less sang and danced to the recording weekly when he was in the White House.
I read an article a while back that polled people after the assasination (I can’t remember how far the poll was removed from his death) asking who they voted for in ‘60 and JFK won by a landslide. He was way more popular dead than alive.
He went to Dallas to shore up support among Southeners bc his chances of re-election were slim.
At the Trademart luncheon he was given a cowboy hat and refused to put it on. The astute political animal in him knew he would look like an arse in that hat and that the photos could torpedo his re-election. Think Dukakis in the army tank.
Anyway. To answer the OP, The Great Society measures would not have passed under Kennedy; they only passed bc LBJ used the Kennedy myth to get them through. “It’s what Kennedy” wanted was LBJ’s mantra and with the nation’s intense mourning and the creation of the Kennedy aura Congressmen weren’t willing to vote against anything that Kennedy would have wanted.

Oh, funny thing about the hat is he said he would wear it when he got back to Washington.

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I don't think Vietnam happens. Kennedy was pretty clear on his reservations regarding the S.Viet gov't

Civil Rights still occurs as is, thus political parties will still reverse themselves

Medicare, wellfare, and the Great Society initiatives are significantly reduced perhaps lessening their impact today. Kennedy DID however support Medicare

I believe NASA still goes to the moon in the time prescribed by Kennedy. Dude put his d*ck on the table and was not gonna be made a fool.

I also believe our military would be significantly altered during Kennedy's second term. He had come to distrust and often loathe the entrenched brass

Nixon never gets elected with Bobby taking the helm in '68-'76. Perhaps the war on drugs doesn't occur possibly changing the cycle of violence we see today. That's a big whatif though

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Those are a bunch of hippy pipe dreams that have no relation to Kennedy's actual policies and their consistencies with previous and future administrations.