James Buchanan: Difference between revisions

{{tropelist|Tropes Buchanan Embodied}}

* [[Ambiguously Gay]]: He was a boarder with and very good friends with congressman William King, to the point it was joked King was "Buchanan's wife". Neither man was ever proven to have a confirmed homosexual relationship, and the truth died with them both.

* [[Fashion Victim Villain]]: He was considered disreputable in some circles because of his rather oldfashioned apparel.

* [[The Peter Principle]]: Living proof of it. He was assumed qualified for the presidency because of all the other government posts he was good at, but it turned out to be one rung of power too high on the ladder for his competence.

* [[Pet the Dog]]: Had one moment in his congressional career, where, despite his southern sympathies, he utterly opposed an attempt to prevent abolitionist petitions from being hear before Congress, citing he thought them nonsense himself, but the people had every right to petition Congress regardless.

* [[Reliable Traitor]]: Given his handwringing and impotence in the face of imminent secession, he was regarded as such by many who had plans to secede because his impotence was such an asset to their cause,and his pro-Southern sympathies despite his avowed Unionism were so well known he was regarded as an accomplice to their designs either way.

* [[Retcon]]: His memoirs written two years before his death attempt to recast his failures as [[Never My Fault|things he could not have prevented]].

* [[Vindicated by History]]: The only president among the most vilified of the entire group to have never gotten this treatment. Even [[Warren Harding]] got this trope by some later historians after he was discovered to be [[Misblamed]] for a lot of actions by others. [[Richard Nixon]] managed to redeem himself in later years, and while [[Franklin Pierce]] wasn't much better in some historians eyes, his errors were not half as pronounced as Buchanan's.