[sneak]

It’s common in many internet circles to refer to prominent people by their initials. Hackerdom has a long tradition of this: rms gls esr jwz et al. It also tends to happen in US federal politics for some reason (jfk rfk gwb fdr et al) but not to everyone.

[woodruffw]

There's a little bit of cargo-culting with the practice: I thought CZ was short for the Czech Republic. The only reason I know "SBF" is because the New Yorker obliged him in that William MacAskill piece.

[bombcar]

At least the political ones (some) came about for clarification (JFK and RFK are both Kennedies, GWB is to distinguish from "Bush"). Others come from their names being long or hard to remember/pronounce/spell (I suspect this is what happened with AOC).

[pitt1980]

The Robert Caro books about Lyndon B Johnson detail his effort to force meme “LBJ” as a reference to him.

(Mostly in terms of insisting various communications employees use it in press releases and what not).

It seems he liked the iconography of it, especially in putting himself in similar company to FDR.

Both his daughters have the LBJ initials, his wife is mostly known as Lady Bird Johnson (a nickname that predates their relationship, but is not her given name)

[cossatot]

OT: Are those books worth reading? I loved the Power Broker but the LBJ books are a whole lot to get through.

[pitt1980]

Short answer, yes.

Longer answer - from my prospective - I enjoyed the first book Path to Power the most, which revolves around LBJs early life up to becoming a US Representative. I thought it was very on par with the Power Broker. That an the Power Broker would probably be my first recommendation to an ambitious college kid who wants to know the real Politik of how the world works.

The next book Means of Assent was my least favorite of Caro’s books, but still highly enjoyable.

Master of the Senate and Passage of Power are both great. But sort of specific to LBJs spot in life. Great, but I’m not sure they sparked my thinking quite the way the Power Broker and Path to Power did.

[sbierwagen]

Maybe.

The books are designed to be standalone-ish, so later volumes spend a fair bit of time repeating things from earlier books. Caro goes deep, deep into various shady acts and new scandals which were probably shocking and relevant in 1982 but less so four decades later.

Caro also touches on a lot of the same topics as The Power Broker, and the picture he paints of LBJ ends up sounding quite a lot like Robert Moses. Is it because all powerful men inevitably end up as bullying psychopaths, or does Caro have something of an axe to grind? 50/50, maybe.

[throwaway81523]

FDR went by FDR because those were his initials and ehh, people do that sometimes. Have enough presidents and sooner or later you'll get a president who does it. JFK and LBJ did it as conscious homages to FDR. There is a book "In The Shadow of FDR" about post-WW2 US politics that mentions this.

[wbl]

Fun crossover: IKE, internet key exchange had a proposed successor JFK

[rswail]

Who are "et" and "al"? /s

[Taek]

Can't forget pg and sama