How would America be different today if John F. Kennedy had not been assassinated?
JFK would almost certainly have beaten Goldwater (who was already the likely GOP nominee when Kennedy was shot). So it is inevitable that JFK would have lost support in his second term (every president does). Chances are JFK would be viewed by history as a better-than-average president, but nowhere near the top of the list. The Civil Rights Movement was already underway in 1963 and would have continued much as it did w/ JFK’s support. Vietnam is trickier to predict if Kennedy had remained in the White House through 1968. Rusk and McNamara continued at State and Defense through much of LBJ’s time, so it is possible that Vietnam would have unfolded much as it did. I like to think, though, that Kennedy would have seen the developing quagmire and acted to change course more quickly than Johnson did. A lot of what happened in the late 60s and 70s was fueled by anti-war resistance so a chance in the trajectory of the Vietnam War would have resulted in a drastically different America.
