Donald Trump echoes our worst presidents in so many ways. And since El Rushbo has us talking secession, let's examine one of them, who Trump will likely eclipse in the historical rankings to become our WORST president): James Buchanan...(who once served as ambassador to Russia!)

Buchanan's abysmal ranking comes because of his completely ineffectual handling of two things that are quite relevant today: a presidential election / transition ... and secession. As Doris Kearns Goodwin reminded us yesterday on @MorningJoe, inaugurals used to be in March.

That meant the outgoing president had to hold it together even longer than our current loser. And how did ole' Jimmy Buchanan do? Not well. The first issue was Buchanan's sympathy, despite being a northerner, for the idea of white people owning Black people...

Enter: Dred Scott!

And then, another anti-slavery Republican runs for president and actually wins: one Abraham Lincoln. And in the four-month lame duck period between Lincoln's inauguration and Buchanan's exit, pretty much things go as downhill as they are going right now in America...

And it turns out being a racist cur who's cool with slavery (or being hopelessly corrupt - or both!) doomed a lot of our presidents to piss-poor performance. Go figure!

And a bonus bit of trivia: the first president to be sworn in on January 20 rather than March 4? FDR, for his second term, following the passage of the 20th Amendment (nicknamed the "lame duck Amendment"). https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1901-1950/The-first-inauguration-after-the-lame-duck-amendment/#:~:text=The%20inauguration%20of%20Roosevelt%20and,March%204th%20to%20January%2020th.