Fine, I’ll Get Political.

I don't think Buchanan was a traitor or dumb. I think he underestimated the lengths that secessionists were ready to go towards the end of his term, particularly after Lincoln's election, and he was paralyzed by either fear or resignation that he was powerless to do anything to stop secession. It doesn't excuse him, though. Buchanan didn't want to start the war by making it look like he was taking action that could trigger hostilities. But his inaction allowed the embryonic Confederacy to build up early advantages that the South never should have been able to have once the war did start.

It is crazy to me that Buchanan's Secretary of War that you referenced -- John B. Floyd -- isn't as well-known as Benedict Arnold because Floyd was arguably an even bigger traitor. All of the Confederate soldiers were traitors, but Floyd should be remembered as one of America's biggest villains. He committed Treason (with a capital 'T') while he was a still not only a member of Buchanan's Cabinet, but the civilian leader second in command authority of the U.S. military behind only the President.

Ulysses S. Grant made sure to remind everybody of Floyd's treachery several times throughout his Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant (BOOK | KINDLE), suggesting in his section about the Battle of Fort Donelson where Floyd commanded the opposing Confederate forces, that Floyd was particularly anxious about being captured by Union troops when the Confederates were about to surrender (Floyd gave up command before the formal surrender and fled):

"General Floyd, the commanding officer, who was a man of talent enough for any civil position, was no soldier and, possibly, did not possess the elements of one. He was further unfitted for command, for the reason that his conscience must have troubled him and made him afraid. As Secretary of War he had taken a solemn oath to maintain the Constitution of the United States and to uphold the same against all its enemies. He had betrayed that trust.

Not sure what you want to do but you want to help? ACLU has actions you can take broken down into time intensity:

Got 15 minutes to call your representative, senators and governor? 5Calls has hundreds of scripts you can read off and will auto connect you! (It genuinely takes less than 15 mins for all of them and frequently you get a voicemail so you don’t even have to talk to them!)

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The day is won through thousands of individual acts of resistance hitting them on all sides! These resources are just a drop in the bucket, I guarantee there is something you can do to help!

Yeah he absolutely did this.

Here's the full CSPAN broadcast from the screenshot with captions, plus two articles:

The New Republic

Did MAGA activist Jack Posobiec just accidentally compare President Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler? During a Wednesday roundtable discussion on antifa populated by pitiable right-wing shills, the conspiracy theorist took a moment to claim that the so-called domestic terrorist group had historical roots in Germany. “Antifa is real. Antifa has been around in various iterations for almost a hundred years, in some instances, going back to the Weimar Republic in Germany,” Posobiec whined. Indeed, there were multiple groups that opposed fascism in the Weimar Republic and voiced strong opposition to the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, including the Communist Party of Germany’s Antifaschistische Aktion group and the Iron Front, which partnered with the Democratic Socialists. Posobiec seems to think that comparing modern-day antifascists opposing Trump’s reign to these groups opposing Hitler should demonstrate how terrible antifa is—when in fact, it did just the opposite. Posobiec, perhaps better known as the Pizzagate guy, fancies himself a historian but appears blind to the most obvious comparison to the present day. The antifascist groups in Weimar Germany were staunchly ideologically opposed, with little connecting them other than their opposition to authoritarianism. Ironically, that’s the case for many of the so-called members of antifa, which is short for “anti-fascist” and is a movement, not a group. The so-called organization lacks a central structure and is instead a loose network of individuals and groups who act separately under the banner of opposing fascism. Posobiec previously co-wrote a book called Unhumans: The Secret History of Communist Revolutions (and How to Crush Them). The book supposedly tracks the opponents of conservatism throughout history, and endorses a modern-day McCarthyism to root out the “radicals” from American institutions. It’s worth noting that Vice President JD Vance provided a glowing promotional blurb about the book. “On a base level, unhumans seek the death of the successful and the desecration of the beautiful,” Posobiec and his ghostwriter claimed, later adding, “Take the path of the hunter, and with one singular voice, we are going to make them the prey.” In the end, Posobiec is a facism fanboy who likes to vote in a swing state he doesn’t even live in, and Trump’s roundtable on countering antifascism is exactly the political farce it presents as.

and The Independent

Not to be outdone, in came Jack Posobiec, one of the right’s weirdest hangers-on, who is perhaps most famous for the time he spread the “Pizzagate” theory and then got removed from the pizzeria in question by police for filming a child’s birthday party. Running with the major theme of the hour — that Antifa is definitely, certainly, really real despite all evidence to the contrary, and that everybody needs to stop saying it’s not real — Posobiec made a startling claim: Antifa is so clearly real that it “has been going on for almost 100 years ... going back to the Weimar Republic in Germany.” And look, yes, it is absolutely true that there were anti-fascist protesters in the Weimar Republic. If you’ll remember, those were the people taking issue with the early versions of the Nazis. But it’s sort of difficult to position yourself as the good guys if you’re aligning yourself with the Nazis in your historical analogy. I’m just saying that, if I was Posobiec’s publicity guy, I might ask him to drop that soundbite from future public appearances. I think we all know what’s going on here. But let’s begin with the fundamentals: Antifa isn’t real — at least, not in the way one convenes a roundtable. It has no central command structure, no coherent leadership, no membership rolls, no headquarters. It is a loose ideological umbrella — a term that is sometimes used by disparate activists and local groups, but much more frequently by the far right than by the supposed lefties who are part of it. Obviously, the fact that there’s no proof anyone even really identifies as Antifa didn’t stop the White House from designating the “group” a terrorist organization a couple of weeks ago. Research shows that genuine political violence remains overwhelmingly driven by far-right actors, not nebulous “Antifa” networks. But this, truly, is where MAGA has arrived at: a place so far removed from observable reality that it now holds official government functions with imaginary enemies. Once, conservatism prided itself on being “the party of realism.” Today’s version treats politics as fan fiction, complete with invented villains and lore.

Clearly it’s a protected building

But of course the Secretary of the Interior Burgum isn’t going to say anything about it

And Congress isn’t around for these things

And the Courts are reactionary—but only if the suit has standing.

RIP George’s Pick. RIP Jackie’s Vision. RIP Iconic American Symbol.

Ugly flag poles, paved over gardens, and a hole in the home of Presidents.

Clearly it’s a protected building

But of course the Secretary of the Interior Burgum isn’t going to say anything about it

And Congress isn’t around for these things

And the Courts are reactionary—but only if the suit has standing.

RIP George’s Pick. RIP Jackie’s Vision. RIP Iconic American Symbol.

I wanted to highlight this comment from my last post regarding Presidential succession because it raises a really important, somewhat frightening issue.

@idroolinmysleep is 100% correct: if Speaker of the House John W. McCormack had assumed the Presidency during the period when there was a vacancy in the Vice Presidency without a mechanism for naming a Vice Presidential replacement, anyone who was elected Speaker of the House to replace McCormack would have become next in the line of succession. I should have worded it differently, but was trying not to confuse the already-confusing line of succession by introducing hypotheticals and what-ifs. The president pro tempore of the Senate (Carl Hayden at the time) would have only moved up in the line of succession if there was a vacancy (or ineligibility) in both the Vice Presidency and Speakership.

The crazy thing is that you can really begin causing genuine Constitutional mayhem by asking questions and challenging the eligibility of people in the line of succession by debating the role of "acting" secretaries or even arguing about the meaning of the lines of succession within each of the individual Cabinet departments that make up the overall line of succession. Just as there is a Presidential line of succession, there is also a line of succession within each Cabinet department. So if something happened to the President, Vice President, Speaker of the House, and president pro tempore of the Senate, and the Presidential line of succession reached the Secretary of State, what would happen if the Secretary was ineligible to actually serve as President because they were born in Canada? The Presidential line of succession then moves on to the Treasury Secretary, but what if the Deputy Secretary of State (who is next in line in the State Department's line of succession) tries to claim that they are the rightful President because they are the next Constitutionally eligible successor within the State Department?

Or, here's something to really fuck with you: what if something happened to the President, Vice President, and Speaker of the House on a Monday morning, resulting in the president pro tempore of the U.S. Senate assuming the Presidency, and then the House of Representatives elected a new Speaker on Tuesday to fill the vacancy from the previous day? Would the newly-elected Speaker bump the president pro tempore out of the White House? Who would enforce that decision? What if they disagreed?

Here's another one: What happens if something happens to the President and Vice President, but the Speaker of the House is a week short of their 35th birthday and, technically, Constitutionally ineligible to serve as President? Do they just wait a week and then bump the president pro tempore of the Senate out of the White House when they celebrate their birthday?