Charles Bastille's Guide to U.S. Presidents
This President's Day, let's take a brief look at each American president
I love history, don’t you? Let’s have a quick rundown of all our presidents for President’s Day. But let’s start with a public admonition to all the men who refused to vote for this woman:
Dudes. Get your shit together.
GEORGE WASHINGTON | 1789-1797
Explained the English language to his troops to help motivate them across the treacherous Delaware on the way to the Battle of Trenton, which eventually led to an American victory in World War One the Revolutionary War.1
JOHN ADAMS | 1797-1801
A scrappy Federalist who often fought with his allies. Represented slaves in lawsuits seeking their freedom, helped lead Massachusetts toward emancipation in 1780 by sneaking abolition into the Massachusetts constitution.
THOMAS JEFFERSON | 1801-1809
Born into the Colony of Virginia’s plantation class, he acted the part. Generally acknowledged as an important figure in the independence movement, it was all tainted by modern DNA analysis showing he fathered as many as six kids through one of his slaves, Sally Hemings.2
His nailery in Monticello was worked by slaves as young as ten years old.3
Got a nickel for all his efforts.
JAMES MADISON | 1809-1817
Another plantation dude. The plantation economy relied on slavery. He sometimes raised an objection, then went quietly into the night. Mostly known for his work with the Federalist Papers and the development of the U.S. Constitution.
JAMES MONROE | 1817-1825
Another founding father, was a member of the Democratic-Republican Party, which makes no sense.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS | 1825-1829
Mostly known for having towns named after him, such as Quincy, Massachusetts, and Quincy, Illinois, the latter of which was home to Michael Swango, one of the earliest known medical psychopaths, who killed dozens of people, including some fellow healthcare workers with laced donuts. What a world.
ANDREW JACKSON | 1829-1837
America’s first widely acknowledged MAGA enthusiast and ethnic cleanser, forcing the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminoles into Oklahoma, where nobody aside from Sylvester Stallone’s new fictional character wants to live. Signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830. He’s still worshipped by American racists today, some of whom have even been known to prominently display his portrait in the Oval Office.
MARTIN VAN BUREN | 1837-1841
Helped build Democratic Party 1.0, which was really the Republican Party. If you want to confuse your crazy uncle, just start talking about this.
WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON | 1841
Delivered a two-hour inaugural address in the rain without any rain gear. Died a few weeks later after several other public appearances with insufficient weather gear. Helped lead medical advancement when doctors discovered that applying mustard plaster to the stomach and prescribing mild laxatives won’t cure weather-related illness.
JOHN TYLER | 1841-1845
Helped fix the Consitution when early American politicians discovered through his predecessor’s death that it was broken, because nobody knew for sure if the vice president was supposed to become president til the end of the term or if they should just be a stopgap. Eventually, this was all sorted out.
JAMES K. POLK | 1845-1849
Empire Builder! Welcomed Texas to the Union, which in turn started the Mexican-American War, which turned out very badly for Mexico’s border on subsequent maps. Snagged the Oregon Territory from Britain, too!
ZACHARY TAYLOR | 1849-1850
Died of a stomach ailment in the days before Pepto Bismol, so he never had a chance to do much.
MILLARD FILLMORE | 1850-1853
Mostly known as a rival of Thurlow Weed for the leadership of the Whig Party in New York state, which I only mention because I love the name “Thurlow Weed.” Also described by historian Robert Scarry thusly: “No president of the United States ... has suffered as much ridicule as Millard Fillmore.”4
Note: Robert Scarry should not be confused with Richard Scarry.
FRANKLIN PIERCE | 1853-1857
Worthless goon who promoted slavery. Move along.
JAMES BUCHANAN | 1857-1861
Basically frozen in place by the conflict created by Southerners who wanted to continue their assault on human decency, leaving matters for a man better suited for his times.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN | 1861-1865
Winner of the first American Civil War. First president to give MAGA the middle finger. Was a Republican (this is another chance to confuse your crazy uncle), but obviously would not be one today.
ANDREW JOHNSON | 1865-1869
The return of MAGA! First president to be impeached, which tracks.
ULYSSES S. GRANT | 1869-1877
Mostly known for kicking some serious ass during the Civil War. If only he had pushed for a formal peace treaty with the South, maybe we wouldn’t all still be fighting this damned war.
RUTHERFORD B. HAYES | 1877-1881
An abolitionist who didn’t do much in office, and in many respects one of the grimmer mistakes of our timeline (see next entry).
JAMES A. GARFIELD | 1881
Known by some (okay, just me) as “If Only,” (not be confused with your crazy Uncle, Bif). If only Garfield had served Hayes’s four-year term instead of just making a cameo appearance, we’d be living in a very different world. Garfield was passionate about reforming the federal government’s approach to former slaves. He pushed hard for free, public education for freed slaves, understanding that the best path for them was economic and educational opportunity.
His Wikipedia entry sums up his approach to former slaves:5
Garfield also worked to appoint several African Americans to prominent positions: Frederick Douglass, recorder of deeds in Washington; Robert Elliot, special agent to the Treasury; John M. Langston, Haitian minister; and Blanche K. Bruce, register to the Treasury. Garfield believed Southern support for the Republican Party could be gained by “commercial and industrial” interests rather than race issues and began to reverse Hayes’s policy of conciliating Southern Democrats. He appointed William H. Hunt, a Republican from Louisiana, as Secretary of the Navy. To break the hold of the resurgent Democratic Party in the Solid South, Garfield took patronage advice from Virginia Senator William Mahone of the biracial independent Readjuster Party, hoping to add the independents’ strength to the Republicans’ there.
He was murdered by the coward (and one of the first MAGA incels), Charles J. Guiteau, who shot him twice in the back.
CHESTER A. ARTHUR | 1881-1885
Introduced immigration control policies and appreciated a good tariff or three. Was also an ally of Readjusters like William Mahone, who, like President James Garfield, felt strongly that a solid economic base for freed slaves was essential for civil rights and even economic stability more generally.
He didn’t get far in that regard, however, as he tried to form a coalition to counter the persistent refusal of Southerners to reject the policies that started the Civil War. In the end, he was only successful in finding some success taming Southern policy in Virginia with the help of Mahome, but even that was eventually eroded by Southern obstinacy.
GROVER CLEVELAND 1.0 | 1885-1889
The first Democrat elected president after the Civil War. The Democratic Party and Republican Party had not yet flipped the script (this is the script that confuses your crazy Uncle who says, “Abe Lincoln was a Republican!!!!!” while spitting out his vodka-spiked early morning orange juice). So, he was MAGA.
Cleveland extended the process of emasculating American Indians with the Dawes Act, which essentially forced a bizarre version of capitalism on a people who had no familiarity with the concept of property as we know it. The intent of the act was to force “their absorption into the American mainstream.”6
Also regulated railroads, so he wasn’t completely worthless.
BENJAMIN HARRISON | 1889-1893
The American people looked at MAGA, said, “Eww,” then elected a Republican again (pre-script flip). He helped build what you could call a “steel navy” and made some anti-trust reforms. But then, America went MAGA again. And you thought we only started the crazy in 2024.
GROVER CLEVELAND 2.0 | 1893-1897
Was hit by the Panic of 1893, which was started, believe it or not, by a gold shortage caused by too much silver on the market. I think you’d need to be a late nineteenth-century economist to understand the dynamics of that. Or Krugman. I’m not touching that one.
Cleveland spent most of his time dealing with the economic crisis.
Oh, and he crushed a labor revolt. Yeah, I don’t know how I almost forgot that.
You’ve probably heard of Eugene Debs. He was a labor leader during the1890s depression who helped launch a boycott against Pullman trains, which were trains that hauled cars made in the Pullman factory of Chicago. This whole mess was dubbed by history as the Pullman Strike, which ended in violence and Debs’ arrest.
You can imagine how Cleveland, who led the federal government’s aggression towards striking workers, might be considered a hero to a certain crowd in the U.S. today.
WILLIAM MCKINLEY | 1897-1901
Mostly known for the McKinley Tariff, which he helped push through as a congress critter. The tariff imposed 50% duties on imports (on average) and, some economists say, helped induce the Panic of 1893 and the brief depression that followed.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT | 1901-1909
Chest pounder. Leader of men. Inventor, for better or for worse, of the “Bully Pulpit.” Complicated. Worthy of your own research.
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT | 1909-1913
Became a Supreme Court Justice after his presidential term was over.
Hint, hint.
WOODROW WILSON | 1913-1921
He flipped the script! He flipped the script! Call your crazy uncle! The first progressive Democrat, he led reforms and led the nation through World War One.
WARREN G. HARDING | 1921-1923
Died a popular president, but scandals like Teapot Dome and an extramarital affair messed up his reputation after he died. Also, hint, hint, his Attorney General was tried in a corruption scandal after he left office. Hint, hint.
CALVIN COOLIDGE | 1923-1929
The nation takes a nap before the Great Depression.
HERBERT HOOVER | 1929-1933
Herbert Hoover starts the Great Depression.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT | 1933-1945
They’re all flawed human beings, but he was pretty damn good, wouldn’t you say?
HARRY S. TRUMAN | 1945-1953
Bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I understand the arguments both ways, but yeesh, I’m glad I didn’t have to live with that decision.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER | 1953-1961
The last (only?) decent Republican.
JOHN F. KENNEDY | 1961-1963
Camelot. This word can have more than one meaning, especially if you split it in half and add a vowel to the middle of it.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON | 1963-1969
It’s complicated. Vietnam War. War on Poverty, since lost again to MAGA, but we’ll be back, as Arnold might say.
RICHARD M. NIXON | 1969-1974
Impeached for crimes that… well, let’s describe it this way.
Let’s say somebody gets caught tilting a vending machine over and snagging a bag of potato chips.
Compared with today, that’s kind of what happened. Essentially, he was brought down by the media for stealing a bag of chips.
Today, you can be a major player in a billion-dollar child trafficking empire, and the media is like, “Nothing to see here.”
GERALD R. FORD | 1974-1977
Mostly famous for Chevy Chase's slapstick comedy.
I guess he was decent, too, at least in the sense he wasn’t a jerk.
JIMMY CARTER | 1977-1981
Better as an ex-president than a president, he wanted a gentler, kinder nation and identified America’s modern political malaise before anybody else was thinking about it.
RONALD REAGAN | 1981-1989
Good God, where do I begin? Things haven’t been the same since.
GEORGE H.W. BUSH | 1989-1993
Ex-CIA dude and the last Republican President with a functional hippocampus. A lot of good it did anyone, as he simply fortified the actions of his predecessor.
BILL CLINTON | 1993-2001
Cigars and tech bros.
GEORGE W. BUSH | 2001-2009
Dumber than a dead ox. Killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and got away with it.
BARACK OBAMA | 2009-2017
Our last really good president. Centrist. But nobody’s perfect. Too many drones. But a good man. Life is complicated.
ERROR | 2017-2021
History is still trying to figure out what the hell happened here.
JOE BIDEN | 2021-2025
FDR Light.
ERROR 2025-2026
A repeat of a previous glitch in the timeline. Possible involvement from an evil race of extraterrestrials, or, more likely, enemies tainted the water supply and made everyone stupid.
Karen Marie Shelton assures us that whatever cosmic force undid hundreds of years of work is about to be corrected, so I’m going with that. I’m not into astrology myself, but I will be if she’s right.
Well, that’s about it! I hope you enjoyed this guide. Be sure to pass it along to your Republican friends and distribute it across all the MAGA social networks.
Footnotes
The Revolutionary War was part of a much larger worldwide war involving Spain and France, and was fought on many fronts. Had it not been a world war, it’s unlikely the Colonials would have prevailed (they barely did, anyway). British resources were stretched to the point that it was almost impossible to defeat even the Colonials, who had a tiny army.
Foster, E. A.; et al. (November 5, 1998). “Jefferson fathered slave’s last child”. Nature. 396 (6706): 27–28. Bibcode:1998Natur.396...27F.
There are more familiar sources than this, but I prefer this anyway:
Soulsinmyfamily.org. “The-Nailery-And-The-Nailboys,” 2026. http://www.soulsinmyfamily.org/The-Nailery-and-the-Runaways.html
Scarry, Robert J. (2001). Millard Fillmore (Kindle ed.). McFarland & Co., Inc. ISBN 978-1-4766-1398-7.
Contributors. “1881 Murder of the 20th President of the United States.” Wikipedia.org. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., November 19, 2007. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_James_A._Garfield.
Friedman, Lawrence M. (2005). A History of American Law: Third Edition. Simon & Schuster. p. 387. ISBN 978-0-684-86988-9.
Thank you, thank you, Charles!
Thank you for that recap, it’s easy to forget how flawed people are when history puts them in tinsel lights. It’s also depressing to see how many earlier leaders weren’t worthy of the mantle they carried. It isn’t much wonder then how we remember a handful of names in this list as truly having left a positive impact on humanity.