The Gist

A How-Not-To Manual for Presidents

America’s 15th president was a committed waffler: James Buchanan refused to take a stance on the country’s wide-open question of slavery and helped usher in the Civil War.

James Buchanan
James Buchanan. Lithograph by Nathaniel Currier.

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Do you have great aspirations of being the best president the United States has ever known? On The Gist, journalist Robert Strauss says you’d be better off trying to learn from the mistakes of America’s duds. That’s why Strauss wrote Worst. President. Ever. about James Buchanan, who has the distinct dishonor of setting the national stage for the Civil War.

In the Spiel, Mike takes on the myth of the “perfect voter.”

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