How Did Lyndon Johnson Take Control of the Senate?

Dwarkesh Patel argues, drawing on Robert Caro's Master of the Senate, that Lyndon Johnson took control of the Senate by turning a job almost nobody wanted into a hold on favors, the floor, and the deals.

The Senate had been set up not to be led. The Library of Congress told Johnson the majority leader had one formal power, the right to be recognized first. The two leaders before him both lost their own seats. He got the job at 44, in a body whose average age was around 60, because others did not want it.

He then collected what senators needed. He could schedule a bill, move it out of committee, call Speaker Sam Rayburn about the House, and mention a colleague to a Texas oilman who gave campaign money. Seats that had followed seniority for about a century moved to a steering committee he controlled. In 1957 S.S. Kefauver voted against him, and the same week the Foreign Relations seat Kefauver expected went to John F. Kennedy, a far more junior senator. Johnson would not bring a bill to the floor until a unanimous consent agreement limited debate and amendments, so a speech or a surprise change could not undo a private deal. Staffers reported what committees were drafting, aides tracked the senators, and he worked the cloakroom until he knew what each man would trade. He brokered the swaps himself.