On March 21, 2021, ReformTheKakistocracy.com was the first to raise the question – Will Joe Biden be the 21st-century James Buchanan?
After only two and a quarter years in office, Joe Biden has trounced James Buchanan in his quest to secure the title “Worst U.S. President in history.” Biden’s incompetence, his obsession with undoing Trump’s major accomplishments such as energy independence and a secure southern border, his groveling to China, the creation of a two-tier system of justice, and his encouraging political prosecutions, has done more to fester hostility between Americans of different beliefs, than any U.S. president, including Buchanan who laid the foundation for the Civil War.
It took Buchanan four years to set brother against brother in this nation. Biden started dividing Americans from the day he was sworn into office by issuing numerous Executive Orders on divisive issues. Biden is laying the foundation for an authoritarian state in which the federal government targets disfavored individuals and groups.
Buchanan’s background.
For those unfamiliar with the name James Buchanan, he was the nation’s 15th president. Most historians consider Buchanan the nation’s most inept and worst president. His term of office was 1857 – 1861, the years before the Civil War when our nation was deeply divided over the issue of slavery. Instead of working to bridge the divide, Buchanan not only allowed regional tensions to fester, he lobbied the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold slavery and advocated for Kansas to join the union as a slave state. Within months after the end of his presidency, the Civil War ignited.
The philosopher George Santayana wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The campaigns and governing styles of Buchanan and Biden are similar. Both campaigns intentionally avoided any discussion of the extraordinary tensions in the nation. Both presidents governed by stroking division. While these points alone should clearly put the U.S. on notice that the past is about to repeat itself, there are many more similarities.
Biden and Buchanan: both lifetime politicians.
Buchanan and Biden both spent their entire lives in politics before assuming the presidency. Buchanan was a member of the Pennsylvania legislature, a Congressman and Senator from Pennsylvania, Secretary of State, and an Ambassador to Great Britain and Russia. Buchanan was first elected to political office (Pennsylvania House of Representatives) at age 23. Biden was first elected to political office as a member of the New Castle County Council at age 27. He then served for almost five decades as a Senator from Delaware and vice president of the U.S.
Biden and Buchanan sought the presidency for decades.
Buchanan and Biden were regular contenders for the Democrat party nomination throughout their careers. Buchanan sought the presidency in 1844, 1848, and 1852 and finally secured the nomination in 1856. Biden unsuccessfully sought the Democrat nomination for over thirty years, pitifully losing primaries in 1988 and 2008. Finally, in 2020 he secured the nomination.
Biden and Buchanan won by avoiding campaigning.
Buchanan and Biden found excuses to avoid discussing the divisive issues facing the nation during their presidential campaigns. During the 1856 campaign, Buchanan was serving as Ambassador to Great Britain and could not actively campaign for president. His campaigning was limited to writing letters pledging to uphold the Democrat platform. He rarely mentioned the biggest issue of the day, the riots over the Kansas-Nebraska Act concerning slavery.
Like Buchanan, Biden was out of sight most of the campaign. Biden used the pandemic as an excuse to run a “bunker strategy” from the basement of his home. He made very few statements on issues and few public appearances.
In the year they were nominated the actions of others put them in the White House.
An even more odd similarity, neither man strenuously sought the presidency in the year they secured their nominations. Rather both relied on others to make them look acceptable. Simply, by avoiding active campaigns and any discussion of the issues, Buchanan and Biden secured the Democrat nominations in troubled times.
Buchanan’s two primary opponents were harmed by taking strong positions on the slavery issue. President Franklin Pierce held pro-slavery views, and Senator Stephen Douglas was the primary sponsor of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, a law allowing for popular sovereignty over the slavery issue in the new territories. Its passage resulted in violent uprisings causing Pierce and Douglas to lose large numbers of convention delegates from the North and West. Additionally, Buchanan promised to only run for one term, allowing his supporters to tell Douglas that support for Buchanan would help him secure the nomination in 1860.
Biden also had strong primary opponents in his rocky path to the 2020 nomination. He finished poorly in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada to Bernie Sanders, an articulate, energetic, seventy-nine-year-old socialist. Biden’s candidacy was in “roadkill” and “also ran” status until Congressman James Clyburn (D-SC) endorsed him in the South Carolina primary. Clyburn’s endorsement gave him huge support from the black community and delivered Biden’s first-ever primary win in thirty years of running. In fact, it was the first time Biden had ever received more than 1¼ % of the vote, his high in 2008.
The deal sealing the Clyburn endorsement, however, was Biden’s willingness to follow Clyburn’s instructions and publicly announce in the South Carolina presidential primary debate that he would nominate a black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court. With that promise, Biden collected on Clyburn’s offer and won South Carolina with 49% of the vote. From that time forward, the Democrat Party lined up behind Biden, whose competitors, except Sanders, dropped out almost immediately.
Both were considered dull candidates.
Buchanan was perfectly positioned to take advantage of the chaos. The prominent historian William Cooper described Buchanan as a “[A] smooth, pleasantly dull [northern] conservative,” having “ideological ties to the South.”
Biden, like Buchanan, was far from exciting. His personality is described as driven to seek approval, wanting others to view him as a friend, and often praising and flattered others as an image of goodwill.
Buchanan and Biden, seemingly “nice guys,” achieved victory based on the actions of others and avoidance of the issues.
Biden wins the worst U.S. President in history contest by dividing Americans on many issues, while Buchanan only divided Americans on the slavery issue.
If Buchanan’s actions helped ignite a civil war by further dividing the nation over one issue, what might four years of a Biden presidency do as it divides the nation on almost every issue.
Biden, from day one of his presidency, bypassed Congress to open the southern border to drug smugglers, limited energy production, promoted preferential rights for transgender people over others, imposed diversity, equity, and inclusion on the entire federal government, forced the financial community into financing ESG, and signed onto the Paris Climate Accord which gives China a competitive advantage over the U.S.
Biden also weaponized the FBI against political opponents by intimidating parents at school board meetings, characterized Catholics as terrorists, and allowed the FBI to participate in Big Tech’s censorship of conservative media and speech, to name only a fraction of his actions.
Biden uses the tactics of an authoritarian state ruler, not a president elected to serve the nation. Until the Biden administration, it was inconceivable that any modern president would allow such massive corruption in our political system. Unfortunately, Biden wanted the presidency for personal power and to secure his place in history, not to serve the nation. Biden has succeeded, his is now secured the title “The Worst President in U.S. History.”
Meta: Historians rank James Buchanan as the worst U.S. president. Biden however, has so sought to divide the nation from his first day in office, secures that title.
