Before Trump raised the bar so considerably, most Presidential historians could not decide if Andrew Johnson or James Buchanan was our very worst president (with W usually coming in 3rd).
Not coincidentally, I think, both undermined Lincoln.
Buchanan, through indecision and moral indifference and fear of action, handed Lincoln a Civil War that was probably avoidable. (Jackson, no hero of mine, averted nullification in the 1830's, and any show of significant military force or rhetorical thunder by Buchanan might have stopped or transformed secession.) Johnson, through petty jealousies and defective character, undid many of Lincoln's very hard-won gains.
But in contrast to Trump, these men, as inept as they were, were geniuses.
Just this morning I re-read Buchanan's fateful speech (after Lincoln' election but before his inauguration) that may have brought on the Civil War. As awful as the man was, we cannot imagine Trump giving anything nearly so coherent:
"Why is it, then, that discontent now so extensively prevails, and the Union of the States, which is the source of all these blessings, is threatened with destruction?
"The long-continued and intemperate interference of the Northern States with the question of slavery in the Southern States has at length produced its natural effects....
"All or any of these evils might have been endured by the South without danger to the Union in the hope that time and reflection might apply the remedy....This feeling of peace at home has given place to apprehensions of servile insurrections..."
Buchanan was very much like the amoral school principal who cares nothing for the moral or other arguments that motivate protest but cares only to regain peace by suppressing argument and presenting a united front against the claims of injustice. Much like parents who care more about their agreement "in front of the children," than the fairness or rationality of the children's protests. (I suppose that this is where so many may learn this pernicious character flaw; after all, authoritarian parents are more likely to present a united front and parent by fiat, and their children are more likely to grow up to believe that stability and respect for authority supersedes their right to protest perceived injustice.)
Buchanan's moral vacuity and rejection of "apprehension" echoes in today's reactionary rhetoric condemning not the race killings but the property damage and protests that rise up against them, upsetting the tranquility of the deluded -- what reactionaries value most. This is a form of malignant narcissism that of course resonates with Trump.
But Buchanan was at least logically correct that those advancing moral claims from 1835-1860 were indeed contributing to the state of agitation in the nation. In these ways, he was morally flawed like Trump -- caring not for the moral claims but for the consequences for himself (the demands for decision and action pained him and moral reflection was beyond him) -- but packaged in a much more intelligent form. After all, it's impossible to imagine Trump writing (and pronouncing) this speech.
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