"There are no problems we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve by ourselves"
About this Quote
Johnson’s line sells teamwork, but it’s really an argument for power: problems yield not to lone heroes, but to coordinated institutions that can marshal money, laws, and legitimacy. Coming from a president who treated Congress like a second home and persuasion like a contact sport, the quote doubles as a quiet flex. It’s not just “let’s work together”; it’s “the only way anything serious gets done is through the machinery I’m built to run.”
The rhetoric is deceptively plain. The first clause is expansive to the point of audacity: “no problems” sounds like moral confidence, even destiny. Then Johnson tightens the claim with a shrewd qualifier: “very few” that we can solve alone. That small hedge makes the statement feel pragmatic rather than utopian, leaving room for personal responsibility while still steering the listener toward collective solutions. It’s consensus language with a steering wheel.
Context matters. Johnson’s presidency is synonymous with the Great Society and landmark civil rights legislation: projects that required federal coordination, coalition-building, and a belief that government could be an engine of improvement. Read against the era’s turbulence - the Cold War, urban unrest, Vietnam - the line also functions as reassurance: the chaos has a counterweight, and it’s “togetherness” shaped into policy.
The subtext is a rebuttal to American individualism without insulting it. Johnson doesn’t sneer at self-reliance; he reframes it as insufficient for modern-scale problems. In that move, solidarity becomes not a sentiment, but a strategy.
The rhetoric is deceptively plain. The first clause is expansive to the point of audacity: “no problems” sounds like moral confidence, even destiny. Then Johnson tightens the claim with a shrewd qualifier: “very few” that we can solve alone. That small hedge makes the statement feel pragmatic rather than utopian, leaving room for personal responsibility while still steering the listener toward collective solutions. It’s consensus language with a steering wheel.
Context matters. Johnson’s presidency is synonymous with the Great Society and landmark civil rights legislation: projects that required federal coordination, coalition-building, and a belief that government could be an engine of improvement. Read against the era’s turbulence - the Cold War, urban unrest, Vietnam - the line also functions as reassurance: the chaos has a counterweight, and it’s “togetherness” shaped into policy.
The subtext is a rebuttal to American individualism without insulting it. Johnson doesn’t sneer at self-reliance; he reframes it as insufficient for modern-scale problems. In that move, solidarity becomes not a sentiment, but a strategy.
Quote Details
| Topic | Teamwork |
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