Who is this Joe Biden? And what parallels can we find in history to assess our Democratic rivals as they attempt to usurp the rightful place of the American Nation within its historical country? As an historian and a teacher of many years, here is my suggestion: Joe Biden is James Buchanan and this is a redux of the Election of 1856. May we choose more wisely than our forebears.
Most Americans today know very little of President Buchanan. His presidency is overshadowed by the bloody Civil War which tore the country apart and ended the lives of at least 620,000 Americans. But Fort Sumter, Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg, Cold Harbor, and Appomattox didn’t materialize from thin air.
How did this happen? James Buchanan’s weakness, ineffectuality, and corruption accelerated the nation’s collision with disaster. It is true that the sectional strife went back to at least 1820 with the question of admitting Missouri into the Union, but the pace of the strife picked up during the 1850s and spiraled out of control after his election in 1856.
First, Buchanan handled the Panic of 1857 very poorly. It started with an economic recession that began in 1856, before he was elected. It got worse under Buchanan and this ripped off the materialist Band-Aid that was holding the country together for the sake of mutual profit seeking. Is this not what the 2020 Chicom Flu recession did to us? Has it not revealed the depth of our own mutual alienation? But while President Trump confronted our current recession with strength and courage, getting America back to work, President Buchanan waffled in 1857.
What happens if Biden is elected and a more damaging recession occurs? Does anyone believe Beijing Biden will rise to the occasion as President Trump did?
In addition to the Panic, open, low-grade civil conflict bloomed up between pro and anti-slavery men in Bleeding Kansas. That violence began in the summer of 1856 before he became president. Yet Buchanan made things worse. He openly sided with pro-slavery settlers. Rather than forcefully defending the right of Kansas to keep slavery out, he sided with his fellow Democrats who rejected the Declaration of Independence and Roger B. Taney who denied the rights of black Americans in his notorious Dred Scott decision in 1857.
Sound familiar?
Today’s left-leaning New Republic magazine calls for the abolition of the United States Constitution. Others call for the abolition of the Electoral College. Similar to their Democratic forebears who declared war on the American Founding, today’s Progressive Liberals have openly declared war on the founding in defense of their two golden calves: infanticide and open borders. Echoing Bleeding Kansas, Biden’s Antifa and BLM shock troops have done 1-2 billion dollars’ worth of damage while Democratic state and local governments turned a blind eye. How much more damage will they inflict if given federal cover?
In 1859, anti-slavery firebrand John Brown led a raid on the Harpers Ferry arsenal in the hopes of starting a full-scale insurrection throughout the American South. How would Joe Biden handle such a situation today? One shudders to imagine this shell of a man being confronted by such a challenge.
Social failure was not the only aspect of Buchanan’s Presidency. In the aftermath of Buchanan’s disastrous government, congressional investigators in the Covode Committee uncovered widespread graft and malfeasance in his government. His Democratic Party produced fraudulent naturalization papers for immigrants in exchange for votes. Deja vu? Candidate Biden plans to manufacture at least 11 million more citizens if elected.
Democratic officials under Buchanan bilked the United States Treasury in the sale of government lands and overpaid for government contracts under sweetheart deals while the president turned a blind eye or profited himself. According to one historian, Buchanan might have been the most corrupt president before the Civil War. Does anyone think that a President Biden will be any different while he and his oligarchic friends enrich themselves at America’s expense? The Hunter Biden quid pro quo allegations ought to give one pause.
Finally, it was President Buchanan who did nothing between the election of 1860 and Lincoln’s inauguration in March 1861 as seven Southern states seceded from the Union. While secessionists seized federal installations and arsenals, a tired Buchanan refused to act. One story has him reportedly saying at the end of it all, “If you are as happy entering the White House as I shall feel on returning to Wheatland [his home in Pennsylvania], you are a happy man indeed.” Yet what of candidate Biden? Buchanan reluctantly allowed secession to occur. Biden’s people embrace it! If elected, Biden will enter the White House with former Democratic administrators like John Podesta who openly considered secession from the United States during “war games” this summer held by Democrats for next week’s election.
I do not know if President Trump will be able to defeat the Leviathan that has declared war on our past and keeps its fractious coalition united through demonization.
But can anyone have any confidence in Joseph R. Biden, Jr. at all?
Does anyone think that he will suddenly restrain or say “No” to the demands of his Red Guards: BLM, Antifa, dissolute entertainers, Bolshevik educators, culturally Marxist journalists, third quadrant tech bros, or the globalists in the administrative and deep state? Does anyone think he will do anything at all about the problems that face our nation: the destruction of the family, the exploitation of the American economy, or the loss of faith in our ancestors? His party talks about diversity, inclusion, and equity but the subtext is that they mean to include everyone except those they label oppressors. Will Biden buck this trend?
My prediction? Absolutely not.
If Joe Biden is elected president, get ready to party like it’s 1856.