Kyle and Eric break down the short, spicy, absolutely unhinged presidency of Zachary Taylor — the reluctant leader who walked into Washington like it was a battlefield and handled Congress with the same stubborn, no-frills logic he used in the army. Yes, he was a slave holding southerner. Yes, he also threatened to personally deal with any state that tried to secede. It’s complicated.
This episode unpacks Taylor’s entire frontier-brained approach to governing: his die-on-this-hill stance on California becoming a free state, his “don’t test me” energy in the Texas–New Mexico boundary dispute, and his refusal to play nice with either political party. He wasn’t a strategist in the fancy, Washington sense — he just relied on the same simple, immovable, dig-in-and-don’t-budge instincts that carried him through decades of combat. And somehow? It worked.
It’s stubbornness, secession threats, moral contradictions, and the disastrous summer illness that ended it all.
🎙️ The Buck Starts Here: where U.S. history meets frontier petty, congressional panic, and presidents powered entirely by spite.
Music:
Semper Fidelis by Heftone Banjo Orchestra, Free Music Archive, license CC-BY-SA
Images:
Zachary Taylor: The Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Whig Banner: N. Currier (Firm), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Inauguration: Popular Graphic Arts, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Millard Fillmore: The Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
