The Dumbest Thing Every President Has Done, Vol. I

In case you haven’t noticed, around here we like to write about history a good bit. Our nation is currently run by someone to whom stupidity comes as natural as breathing. We here at The Colloquial have been spending a lot of time thinking about the dumbest things our Commanders in Chiefs have managed to do in their presidency. The list was so long, we had to break it up into multiple volumes.  

John Fitzgerald Kennedy: Unlike most other presidential stupidities, this one did not really hurt the american people or the peoples of some poor vassal state to the Cold War struggle. JFK just couldn’t stop cheating on his wife. You might be thinking, well duh, he was a president, and yes, touché, BUT did any of those other presidents have one of his mistresses come to the whitehouse and sing him a seductive rendition of happy birthday on national television? That’s what I thought.

William Henry Harrison: He decided not to wear an overcoat or gloves during his two-hour long inauguration speech where it was near freezing and raining. It is believed he caught pneumonia and died, but there is an alternative theory that is equally as stupid (and way more gross).

Franklin Pierce: Before you ask, yes, this was a real person, and he was in fact a US President. A lot of folks give him a pass because his son died in a train crash (very metal) on the way to his inauguration, but I will not. Franklin Pierce seemed hell-bent on either keeping slavery around or expanding it, which isnt that odd for a president of the time, but is extremely odd for one who was from New Hampshire. Signing the Kansas-Nebraska act is the event he is  most famous for in an otherwise forgettable term, but attempting to buy Cuba from Spain is probably the dumbest.

Warren G. Harding: Harding, like JFK, was a serial cheater, and, like Harrison, likely caused his own demise by “going too hard in the paint”. But, I don’t want any repeats, so I had to dig a little deeper. A closer look at Harding reveals that he was actually a decently well intentioned guy. He didn’t push his convictions hard enough for congress to do any meaningful legislation, but he seemed to care about the plight of Black Americans (not a lot of other white political figures in 1920 supported anti-lynching legislation) and immigrants to an extent. His biggest blunder was letting the powerful voices of the status quo toss him around like a rudderless ship. Chief among these blunders of abdication of leadership was appointing Herbert Hoover to be the Commerce Secretary and letting him run the department completely as he saw fit. No spoilers, but if you know how the 1920s ended, you know why this was dumb.

To be continued…