Biden allies have tried to portray him as some kind of FDR, an insult to everything FDR accomplished in America. First of all, FDR was elected president four times in huge landslides; Biden narrowly beat the worst president in history and was then hounded out of office after one term. If his allies want to compare him to a president with whom he has more in common, maybe, in a stretch, LBJ would be a better choice— and not just because LBJ was also hounded out of office.
Both men had been pivotal senators but LBJ started his congressional career in the House as a New Dealer, serving for over a decade where he worked on progressive economic policy while, alas, remaining committed to ugly racism. He was elected to the Senate in 1948 (by cheating) and quickly turned right to kiss up to corporate oil interests in Texas. The powerful Senate racism bloc backed him for majority whip in 1951 and in 1953 he was elected minority leader, which turned into majority leader the following year. He was very good at the job and some historians say he was the best Senate majority leader ever. He was very cooperative with President Eisenhower and shepherded the first Civil Rights bill to pass Congress since 1875 (Reconstruction) through the Senate, although not before weakening it by removing the enforcement provisions. In 1960, he ran for the Democratic presidential nomination— with the backing of the DC establishment— but lost to JFK, who quickly picked him, as a Southern conservative, to balance the ticket.
Biden’s tenure in the Senate was much longer, beginning with an unlikely 1972 victory over a Republican viewed as impossible to beat. He was comfortably reelected 6 times, making him one of the longest-serving senators ever. He was generally considered a conservative Democrat for most of his tenure. He never made it to Senate leadership but was a power as chair of both the Judiciary Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee, with mixed records on both. Starting in the 80’s, he kept running for president but never got to first base in any primaries. Obama picked him, a conservative, to balance his ticket in 2008.
As president, LBJ had a very bifurcated legacy. His transformative domestic agenda (the Great Society) was superb and enduring— the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Fair Housing Act of 1968 (which landed Trump and his father in hot water 5 years later) Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and Head Start (part of the War on Poverty). Unfortunately, that was overshadowed by his decision to escalate the Vietnam War, which destroyed his presidency and an otherwise excellent presidential legacy.
Biden’s domestic achievements were very nice and very incremental— the American Rescue Plan, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act— but not really historically noteworthy or even vaguely transformative... commendable but not bold and nothing that addressed any systemic issues plaguing the country. History won’t remember any of them. On foreign policy, he helped revitalize the alliances that had frayed under Trump, helped stop Russian aggression in Ukraine and ended the war in Afghanistan. The glaring problem though, has been his complicity in the catastrophic Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people, primarily in Gaza. Ironically, he wasn’t driven from office because of it but because he was judged to be no longer mentally fit for a tough reelection campaign against a deranged fascist.
Biden— or at least his administration— was more about crisis management than transformation: dealing with COVID and the disastrous economy Trump left. His presidency will be remembered more, if at all, for returning government to a sense of “normalcy” post-Trump rather than charting a new course for America. Because of narrow majorities in Congress (including corrupt conservative senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema) his presidency will be viewed by history as a missed opportunity. He did nothing about expanding healthcare, nothing lasting about climate crisis, although Democrats claim otherwise, and nothing much about addressing wealth inequality.
Another part of his legacy is more difficult to assess at this point: dealing with Trump. If Trump wins the election and turns the country in a more fascist direction, Biden will, in part, be blamed. He and his awful Attorney General failed to hold Trump accountable for his corruption, for the attempted coup and for the J-6 insurrection. That Trump is not behind bars will be a shameful part of Biden’s historical legacy. History parcels out blame to James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, and Millard Fillmore— and to some extent John Tyler and Martin Van Buren— for the Civil War. Biden is going to be blamed for anything Trump does going forward. And all of those presidents just named are considered among the worst in history.
Biden won’t be placed by historians among the worst— like Buchanan, Nixon, Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson, Pierce, Hoover, Harding, Tyler, Fillmore and, of course, Trump— whose failures left lasting damage but he’s never going to rise in the ranks among transformative presidents like Lincoln, FDR, Washington or even LBJ, who redefined the country in moments of need and crisis. They stepped up to the plate. Biden didn't. Not everyone will agree with me on this, of course:
