How Our Worst Presidents Were Similar

Lyndon Baines Johnson and Joe Biden

It is a matter of opinion as to who the two worst presidents in the United States are. My opinion is that they are (in order of appearance) Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) and Joe Biden. Our 36^th and 46^th Presidents share some similarities beyond just being not very good in the White House.

1. Both LBJ and Biden started their Washington political careers in the Senate where both were eventually known as highly connected, influential “old-timers.” Both could wheel and deal with the best of them. And both were relatively young when they got their Senate seat—LBJ was 40 and Biden was almost 30.

2. Both LBJ and Biden ascended to the vice presidency, serving under a younger, better-looking, and more charismatic President. Both were thought to be vastly overshadowed by that President.

3. Despite serving under a charismatic president, both LBJ and Biden had far more legislative and government experience than their respective Presidents. This is speculation, but LBJ and Biden were likely resentful of the man in the White House.

4. LBJ and Biden both had potentially life-threatening health crises while relatively young. LBJ suffered a heart attack in 1955 at age 49; Biden had a brain aneurysm in 1967 at age 45.

5. Neither LBJ nor Biden were ever expected by political insiders to become President on their own. LBJ ascended to the Presidency upon the death of the incumbent, ran and won the next year against conservative Barry Goldwater, but declined a second term. Biden, on the other hand, took three runs at the high office before finally getting to the White House and he allegedly prevailed over conservative Donald Trump.

6. Both were unlikely picks for Vice President and political gossip maintains that the Presidents who picked them actually couldn’t stand them. Now for some gossip. It has been said that LBJ blackmailed John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK) into picking him for the Vice Presidency because LBJ had the inside scoop on an affair JFK had with a Soviet lady spy. The word is that Obama picked Biden as a quid pro quo for a Biden favor: Beau Biden locked up Larry Sinclair, an alleged homosexual contact of Obama, so he could not go public with his story (as he wanted to) during the Presidential primaries. Those are allegations, of course, but it is pretty well accepted that JFK liked LBJ about as much as Obama liked Biden.

7. LBJ and Biden were well known for inappropriate behaviors. LBJ held meetings in the bathroom while he was on the toilet and having a bowel movement. LBJ was also notorious for sometimes demanding a cabinet member or other person in his office get down on all fours to serve as his footstool. Biden is known for pawing and slobbering over small children after sniffing them. Biden does this in the presence of their parents and while on camera; it is not known what Biden does if he ever gets alone with these children.

8. LBJ and Biden often exposed themselves to female staffers and security personnel. Actually, LBJ exposed himself to men and women and had a nickname for his private part: “Jumbo.” Biden was so famous for running around in the nude around female security staff that the Secret Service had a code name for it: “cobra, cobra, cobra.”

9. LBJ and Biden invaded the personal space of others in an effort to intimidate them or do something inappropriate. With LBJ, his nose-to-nose leaning in technique even got a nickname; it was called “the Johnson treatment.” Johnson used it because he found people were more agreeable when he invaded their space. Biden is known for groping, grabbing, pinching, and crowding small children. In Finland, Biden was caught on camera nibbling at a baby in his mother’s arms. Snopes even had to concede: the video was not altered. Biden really did play-bite at some baby.

   

10. LBJ experienced a profound depression during his second year in the White House, and his wife Lady Bird recorded in her diariy that she helped coach him through his despair and not resign. (According to his wife, LBJ even said he hoped he could get impeached so he could go back to his ranch.) Biden experienced a marked cognitive decline and other health problems in the White House and it appears that Jill Biden did all she could logistically to help him stay in office despite these deficits.

11. Both men married women who wanted to be called by things other than their first name. Lady Bird’s real name was Claudia. Jill prefers to be called “Dr. Biden,” although very few people with an Ed.D. degree demand such honorifics.

12. Neither LBJ nor Biden were much for election integrity. LBJ was famous for rigging elections; in fact, the first election he is known to have messed with in Texas earned him the lifelong nickname of “Landslide Lyndon.” He rigged the election so ineffectively, he barely won with a razor-thin margin of 87 votes. Biden put together the most effective election fraud effort in history; he’s on the record saying that.

13. LBJ and Biden were cognitively impaired, but in different ways. LBJ was in the late stages of lifelong alcoholism while he arrived in the White House; his drinking was legendary and he did not try to hide it. Biden has some form of dementia, and it is speculated he may have Parkinson Disease which is associated with Lewy body dementia.

14. LBJ and Biden saw themselves as transformative presidents who wanted to make sweeping changes to America but ultimately caused great damage. With LBJ it was “the Great Society” which initiated an era of fatherless homes and cycles of generational poverty. Biden wanted to “Build Back Better” which ran up an unprecedented national debt and drove a nation-wide rampant inflation, while doing very little good.

15. LBJ and Biden poured a lot of money into wars they did not understand, could not win, and could not effectively end. With LBJ, the debacle was Vietnam. With Biden, it was the proxy war with Russia in Ukraine.

16. LBJ and Biden worked very closely with the FBI. A little too closely, I might add. LBJ had resided near J. Edgar Hoover for a time in Washington and knew him socially quite well. In fact, LBJ learned a lot from Hoover about blackmail, and there are allegations he practiced what Hoover taught him. Biden worked with a weaponized Department of Justice (DOJ) and was possibly behind (or at least did not prevent) numerous lawfare suits against his political opponent. Nathan Wade is before Congress right now saying that he met with the White House more than once regarding the RICO case he was involved with against Trump in Georgia. Just the other day, Biden suggested that Trump be locked up but without specifying any reason.

17. LBJ and Biden did not run for a second term although they were eligible. LBJ stepped back in 1968 of his own volition. Despite the fact that back in 1963, LBJ would have killed to get into the White House, he did not like being President once he got there. In 2024, Biden allegedly dropped out of the Democrat primary, but it is more likely that internal Democrat party machinations pushed him out. It was also thought that neither LBJ nor Biden could have won the second term.

18. LBJ and Biden were reportedly quite racist. Both men had use racial slurs in Congress and put them “on the record.” LBJ was a member of the KKK in his youth. Biden described Sen. Robert Byrd, a high-ranking KKK official, as his “dear friend” and “mentor.” Biden gave Byrd’s eulogy in 2010—while a sitting Vice President. LBJ took more pains to hide his KKK-adjacent status than Biden ever did. As for Byrd, some are quick to point out that Byrd was a “former KKK member” when Biden eulogized him, but is anyone ever really “former” KKK?

19. LBJ and Biden were cozy with segregationists during their time in the Senate.

20. LBJ and Biden switched ideological sides when it suited them politically. LBJ was a segregationist at heart but he realized Democrats needed the Black vote. He got on board with civil rights, but his motives were political rather than humanitarian and patriotic. Biden initially opposed abortion (he even voted in 1977 against allow Medicaid to fund abortions even for rape victims, incest survivors, and in cases where the mother’s life was at risk). However, Biden realized later on that he needed the votes of liberal women and he became a radical advocate for abortion without restrictions, even in the 9^th month. Again, his motives were purely political.

21. LBJ and Biden were war-time presidents, in that large foreign wars were going on while they were in the White House. In this regard, LBJ was the more honest man. He was recorded once in a private conversation with McGeorge Bundy, his National Security Advisor, admitting that when it came to Vietnam, he did not know what to do. Biden, on the other hand, has given no sign of having a diplomatic or other solution to Ukraine, other than offering them huge amounts of taxpayer dollars and cheering the war on from the sidelines.

22. Four days after LBJ announced he would not run for re-election, Martin Luther King was assassinated. Seven days before Biden dropped out of the election, an assassination attempt was made on Trump.

23. Both LBJ and Biden presided over violent regimes scarred by assassinations. In LBJ’s case, his predecessor was shot, much to LBJ’s political advantage. Over the entire time that LBJ was in the executive roles (1963 to 1969), Malcolm X, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King were assassinated. In Biden’s case, attempts were made on Trump’s life but they failed and Biden did not benefit.

24. LBJ and Biden were known for corruption and were under investigation while in the White House. LBJ evaded penalty for his various bribery scams by not running for office and retreating to his Texas ranch to die in relative obscurity. (LBJ only lived four years after leaving the White House and he was not in good health during this time.) Biden was also investgiated but he got a freebie from Robert Hur who said that while Biden guilty of mishandling of classified materials (which he got while he was in the Senate so they were stolen to boot), he was too diminished cognitively to appreciate that he had committed a crime and, thus, should not be tried. Both LBJ and Biden were caught red-handed but skated!

25. Both took their middle names from a grandparent—Johnson was named for George Baines, a Baptist preacher and his great grandfather while Biden took the surname Robinette from his paternal grandmother.

26. LBJ and Biden came to the White House with a mulit-year reputation of being a moderate Democrat while in the Senate. Both men turned out to advance extremely leftist policies while in office. LBJ promoted the Great Society and the welfare state, while Biden advanced the Green New Deal (Inflation Reduction Act) and Build Back Better.

27. Neither LBJ nor Biden went to Ivy League schools although both managed to earn degrees. Neither man had a reputation for scholarship or being intellectual. LBJ got a teaching degree, while Biden managed to get through law school. LBJ wanted to go to law school but never managed; he blamed his courtship of Lady Bird on his failure to complete law school but it was likely his poor grades.

28. LBJ and Biden may have had dyslexia. LBJ was never diagnosed but it was said that he preferred having important documents read to him rather than reading them himself. Biden was never diagnosed with dyslexia, either, but he was a notoriously poor speller (all of the classified notes in his Delaware home about Afghanistan written in his own hand spell the country’s name Afganistan) and rarely read books. While dyslexia requires an actual diagnosis, neither man was particularly well read or well lettered although they held positions which required a great deal of reading.

29. LBJ and Biden were known more for their ambition than their academics and were often mocked by the people around them. In the JFK administration, LBJ was called variations of the name Cornpone, including Uncle Cornpone, Rufus Cornpone, and Cornpone and his Pork Chop (Pork Chop was Lady Bird). History and insiders are mum as far as I can see as to Biden’s nicknames in the Obama administration, although Biden gave himself the nickname Dark Brandon, a way of turning the tables on the insulting phrase “Let’s go, Brandon” which was conferred on Biden by a less-than-adoring public. (Actually, the less-than-adoring public said something else, which Biden misheard as “Let’s go, Brandon,” whereupon he assumed the name Brandon and then Dark Brandon. As with all things Biden, the story is more complicated than it’s worth.)

30. LBJ and Biden were both lifelong Democrats and both pushed Democrat ideals and goals rather than focusing on policies that Americans cared about. For LBJ, these were the “Great Society” welfare state goals, and for Biden, it was abortion, climate change, and transsexuality. Both Presidents did not respond or seem much interested in the concerns or predicaments of ordinary American people. Biden thought he was the Franklin Delano Roosevelt of this generation, but he was not. LBJ thought he could fill Kennedy’s shoes. He could not.