I’m Millard Fillmore, And This Is My Special Day Too, Goddamnit
Since when does signing one little humanitarian cataclysm into law mean no one names a middle school after you?
By Nick Morgan & Talia Argondezzi
All my death, I’ve been stuck in the shadows of the popular presidents. Your Jeffersons, your Lincolns, your Roosevelts T and F. The presidents you wrote report after report about as schoolchildren — founding fathers, emancipators, and consequential action doers — as if nobody were running the country during the critical American epoch of 1850 to 1853.
But you know what day it is, you selectively appreciative assholes? It’s Presidents’ Day. That’s Presidents’ — that is, belonging to all presidents. Not just the ones who “did something” or “weren’t spineless xenophobes.” Not just the ones who were actually elected by voters instead of assuming the presidency after Zachary “Fatal Diarrhea” Taylor bit the dust on the toilet.
Everybody assumes I’m jealous of the two-term presidents because I served only a partial single term. But have you seen my beautiful, voluminous jaw? No one with my prodigious mandible girth could envy these pansy-faced men who took eight years to accomplish what I couldn’t in only three. Two terms? Big whoop. I prefer having two chins. Historians rank me in the worst five Presidents in history, but I would put up either one of my chins against the chins of lowlifes like James “Respiratory Failure” Buchanan, whose recessed jaw looks like John Cleese got clotheslined by a railroad gate. Or Warren “Cardiac Arrest” Harding, who looks like he grew up in a vise-tightened chin strap.
Don’t you dare bring up Lincoln’s janky-bearded chin. All I ever hear about is Lincoln, Lincoln, Lincoln. Oooh, Abraham “Head Wound” Lincoln was soooo great! He won the Civil War! He ended slavery! La-dee-dah! But if you’re so honest, Abe, tell me: which President signed the catastrophic Fugitive Slave Law that sustained the slavery you “ended” and caused the civil war you “won”? I’ll give you one guess: this MF. This Millard Fillmore.
And about the Compromise of 1850, of which one teeny tiny part was the Fugitive Slave Act. It never fails: You sign one little devastating, humanitarian cataclysm into law and — boom — just like that, no one ever names a middle school after you. I wasn’t the first or the last President to sign some horrific genocidal law without a second thought. Just ask Andrew “Chronic Dropsy” Jackson about the Indian Removal Act. Jackson got the twenty-dollar bill. I got a limited run thirteen-cent stamp.
To all the Whigs who blamed my policies for killing off their party: I admit that I was a Whig when it suited me, but I was always a WhINO. I had the good sense to bail and join the Know-Nothings, while the rest of you Whig tools were stewing in a legacy defined by dipshits like William Henry “Septic Shock” Harrison. The writing was on the wall even before Zachary “Explosive Dysentery” Taylor shat the bed.
Why doesn’t anyone ever mention my signature achievements? Oh, can’t think of any, fair-weather patriot? Maybe you should ask one of the dozens of members of the Millard Fillmore Appreciation Society (now defunct).
Ever dragged your slimy tongue over a perforated postage stamp? Thought so. You’re welcome for that conveniently-easy-to-tear stroke of genius, which no, I did not invent but did put into postal circulation. How about my steadfast devotion to procuring Peruvian guano (which, yes, is bird poop) by any means necessary? And never forget my legendary, not-mediocre final words, when my doctor gave me a spoonful of soup and I declared, “The nourishment is palatable.” That would sound so much better on money than “E Pluribus Unum.”
So Happy Presidents’ Day, you pathetic groupies of George “Throat Quinsy” Washington who don’t know guano about your thirteenth president. Next time you drive by the University of Buffalo’s Night School (permanently closed) named after me, you can kiss my dead white ass.
Yours in infamy,
Millard “Two Strokes” Fillmore
