The recent revelations in Ethics Villain Jake Tapper’s “Original Sin” exposé of how Joe Biden’s Presidency was a deceptive charade, with a POTUS how frequently and increasingly “had moments of incoherence, of a stark inability to communicate or recognize people or recall important facts.” I found myself wondering if the final installment of the long Ethics Alarms series “The Worst President Ever” needed an major update. After all, the last chapter, #7, declared Joe Biden the upset winner over Woodrow Wilson on January 12, 2025, before Donald Trump took office, before “Biden’s” series of last minute attempts to throw obstacles in the new President’s path, the prospective pardons, and the revelation that Biden was not only keeping his dementia secret (well, as secret as possible…) but was also deceiving the public regarding his physical health, having been diagnosed at some point—a year before he left office? Two years?—with prostate cancer.
I was surprised to see that even with the growing realization that Biden’s Presidency was even worse that we thought, the EA assessment from six months ago still holds up. See? I’m smart! I’m not dumb like everybody says! For example, I didn’t need Jake’s book to conclude, “Biden was definitely complicit in his outrageous and unconstitutional deception…I have real doubts whether Joe Biden was really President for any of his four. As a matter of fealty to democratic principles, that we have gone through four years without knowing who was really running the country is frightening.”
My over-all conclusion is also still airtight. I wrote, “Under Biden and because of Biden’s limitations, the United States government has come closer to totalitarianism than ever before in its history. The Presidency has been diminished; public trust in our system of government is at low tide.”
If I were inclined to add anything to that post, it would be to include a Category Six. Presidents are automatically the leaders of their parties, so they are also judged on how they strengthened their parties and enhanced the public’s support of the philosophy and principles their party represents. It can be argued—and I might argue it—that no President in history so diminished the party that put him in the White House as Joe Biden. His main competition for Worst Category Six President Ever would be James Buchanan, the last Democrat to be elected President for almost 30 years, and Herbert Hoover, who made the Republicans a permanent minority party for almost 40. Great Presidents strengthen their party’s brand, crummy ones ruin it. We don’t know yet how bad the crash of the Democratic Party will prove to be, but it is in as bad shape as the Whigs were before they evaporated in the 1850s. Biden is at fault for most of that. Despite his stated mission of being a “transition” to younger leadership, he developed none: he appointed a Cabinet marked by foolish DEI calculations and incompetence, and his Vice-President was a four-year long bad joke. Biden’s Presidency lost support for the Democrats in nearly every demographic category, and the party’s free-fall shows no sign of slowing down. Good job, Joe!
Yes, we are learning that the Biden term was even worse than we thought, but on balance, I think I’ll let my assessment from January stand.
Ethics Alarms 
in fairness (?) to Joe, there seems to be a consensus that Obama is pulling the strings in the party. Between that, and the prior manipulation by the Clintons, the Democratic Party is an authoritarian basket-case.
Complain all you want about Trump, but he is proof that the Republican Party is not a top-down political party; it reflects the will of its members (negative spin: the Republican Party has no coherent identity or control of its brand).
-Jut
With respect to the pardons, did Biden issue those personally or were they autopenned by someone and then reported to have been issued by him?
In all fairness to Buchanan and Hoover, both were followed by 2 of the greatest presidents of all from the other side in Lincoln and FDR. Some say that Clinton and both Bushes also tanked their respective parties’ brand, but in all three cases the party always bounced back. A lot of folks said in the buildup to 2016 that Trump was going to crash the Republican brand in a disastrous loss to Hillary, and it would cost the GOP the senate and possibly the house as well. It didn’t do any of those things then. Others said that Trump lost the GOP both houses of Congress in 2018 and 2020 and the White House in 2020, so he was toast politically. Last year proved otherwise, although it was good to have Mike Johnson to hold the line until the Republican cavalry arrived. It’s become increasingly hard for presidents to strengthen the brand to the point of guaranteeing a like-minded successor or pushing the other party into a long-term minority.
In fact, I think Reagan was the last one to do it, and Bush the elder lost his bid for reelection because he really wasn’t that interested in it himself. Clinton couldn’t strengthen the brand because he carried on like a frat boy and lied about it and his chosen successor wasn’t up to the job (GWB beat him in all three debates). Bush the younger couldn’t strengthen the brand because his attempt to remake the world in his image went at least partially bad and the economy tanked on his watch. Obama SHOULD have been able to strengthen the brand, but he picked or (more likely) was pushed into picking the worst possible heiress, who wasn’t anywhere near as well-liked as she thought she was.
That said, none of these folks were anywhere near the complete disaster that Biden was. I think I can safely say that Biden was a reverse Midas. Everything he touched or seemed to touch, turned to shit, although the crazy inflation and the disastrous handling of Afghanistan top the list. This country was in the worst shape it was in since 1980, when Carter deservedly went down in defeat to Reagan, and the GOP successfully defended all of its seats and picked up 12(!) to win the Senate. The Democratic brand was in pretty bad shape then but still held some cards with the House under Speaker Thomas “Tip” O’Neill. It deserved to be in bad shape. 1976-1980 had been failure after failure under Carter and his own party in Congress. It was nothing but failure under Biden, AND now it’s coming to light that we don’t know who was even responsible for these failures, because the party DELIBERATELY CONCEALED that their president was a dementia patient and a cancer patient. Yup, the Democratic Party deserves to be in bad shape. Unfortunately/fortunately, we can’t outlaw it like Germany outlawed the Nazi party and Russia outlawed the Communist party, but if this doesn’t make you wish we could, then I’d question whether you’ve been paying attention.
Exit question: If the Democratic Party were TRYING to destroy itself, what would it be doing differently? Not much, as far as I can see. Having its most visible “leaders” be David Hogg,Jasmine Crockett, Bernie and OAC? Behaving like children during the SOTU? Putting Biden and Tim Walz out in public? Weeping for illegal immigrants, Harvard, cheating trans athletes, big law firms and corrupt journalists?
Due to the actions of the political left, their PRAVDA like propaganda attack dogs in the media, their absurd politicians, their indoctrinated and brainwashed vocal supporters, etc. I’m relatively convinced that the core of the political left actually hate the core foundations the United States and they are actively trying to undermine those very core foundations in their efforts to bring down the USA government so they can instill their decades long dreams of an unachievably absurd utopia. These fools are the socialistic/communist/utopian change that Obama called to action in 2008, they have become the enemy of liberty, freedom, and we the people.
it would let Bernie win the nomination.
however, his days of running for president are probably over
-Jut
“Never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake”
(Napoleon Bonaparte, maybe).
Both Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump have been transformational Presidents for the Republican Party as they both changed the brand, and in the case of Ronald Reagan we can say for sure that he strengthened the brand; the verdict is still out on Donald Trump on this.
Ronald Reagan was able to create a big tent of Cold War hawks, small government libertarians, and social conservatives. Nelson Rockefeller style liberalism fell out of favor in the GOP during Reagan. Periodicals such as National Review and Weekly Standard expressed this fusionist approach. The Republican party also had a political style that could be described as gentlemanly. They were able to do business with Senate Majority leader Tip O’Neill (Democrat).
Things have changed significantly, and during the Obama administration it became clear that the Ronald Reagan approach had run out of gas, and that the George W Bush approach (compassionate conservativism, idealist foreign policy in the Middle East) did not work. Donald Trump was able to play all the RR/ GWB acolytes out against each other, and when he was the last man standing in the 2016 Presidential elections the Republican Party was ideologically divided. After the Biden presidency trainwreck Donald Trump gained the upper hand in the Republican party, on a platform that is at major points significantly different than the Ronald Reagan and George W Bush platforms (see: tariffs, foreign policy).
The GOP at this point is still ideologically divided; there are enough GOP Senators who still represent old Reagan style, such as Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn, Thom Tillis, plus some old style Republican liberals such as Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and the libertarian Rand Paul. The biggest risk to Trump’s success as a President is when these old stalwarts are able to block Trump’s agenda (with the help of the Democrats). If e.g. the big beautiful bill dies in the Senate and taxes go up massively on Trump’s watch he will loose the 2026 midterms, and Trump will fail to consolidate the GOP. So Trump needs to succeed in making the tax cuts permanent, improve the economy, and have some other successes such as immigration. Also the GOP needs to improve the quality of those serving in the various legislatures at national and state level, as these are low in approval ratings.
That also means that the Democrats are not dead yet; they are on life support provided by the old stalwarts in the GOP. And if Trump allows activist judges to thwart his platform he still loses, even if the Democrats are out of power in Congress and the White House; so if push comes to shove he needs to defy these judges.
The Democrats are indeed in a bad shape. They have lost the political center and the middle class, and have become the party of the elites (intellectual, artistic and moneyed), social activists, and people with unusual life styles and interests. The Republican Party has become the party of the common people, earning less than 100K. The coalition of minorities is falling apart, as Hispanics but also young black man are moving to the Republicans.
However will the Democrats go the way of the Whigs? I doubt it, as any time a major party disappeared from the political stage, there were at least two other political parties present. The collapse of the Whigs coincide with the rise of the Republicans. At this moment the Democrats will not collapse because they have nowhere else to go. Many moderate Democrats have already become Republican and this includes Trump, RFK, Gabbard and Musk! The second reason is that the Democrats can still triangulate by working together with those who oppose Trump in the GOP. The third reason is that the liberals still have majority power many institutions such as the judiciary, education, and the press.
I am thinking that instead of trying to produce a list of best to worst Presidents ever and in doing so trying to evaluate each President’s good and bad points in which his bad points may bring a President who did a lot of great things down due to his bad points, why not have two lists, one only evaluating all his good points only and the second evaluating his bad points only. That way a bland, ho hum President who didn’t do much of anything would be near the bottom of both lists, and a controversial, flawed President who did a lot of great things could be at the top of both lists. Then when looking at both lists, would not this give a better idea of the value of each President?
Nothing wrong with bland. They used to say that Ike was bland, but he managed to quietly avoid many potential crises. Meanwhile, a ledger-style evaluation can miss the forest for the trees. Nixon, in retrospect, probably did more good than not—a skilled, productive President. But it’s like the joke, “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?”
Interesting. I think the approach along those lines would be a system like WAR in baseball: figure out what a “replacement President” would have done in specific span, and then calculate whether the actual President did better or worse. A “replacement level” President would be one like Van Buren, Coolidge, perhaps, or Taft. A replacement level President in place of Washington, Lincoln or FDR would have been disastrous, and maybe the same could be said of TR, LBJ, Eisenhower and Reagan. They would have “plus” WARs. A “replacement President,” an average one, would have been an improvement over Madison, Pierce, Buchanan, Hayes, Wilson, Harding, Hoover, Carter, the Bushes, obviously Biden. Nixon? Difficult balancing job. Clinton? Obama? Also tough.