Gary Gallagher: belief

Transcript context

…So can we take that tiny tangent of why they were terrible pr- tangent on a tangent, why was Andrew Johnson such a terrible president, and Buchanan as well? I think he was a terrible president because he was extremely prejudiced. He had all kinds of grievances stacked up. He had the poor white man’s grievance from being in a slavehold. He hates… His slaveholders were part of his enemies when he was growing up, then he embraced them after the war. He was… He couldn’t get beyond his most profound lifelong prejudices. He was not malleable in any way. He thought what he thought, and that’s what he was always gonna think. And he just was not the right be- person to be in place. Well, why is Buchanan the worst president- … in America’s history?…

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