Slow Boring

Share this post

Happy Presidents Day

www.slowboring.com

Happy Presidents Day

Some second thoughts about Honest Abe

Matthew Yglesias
Feb 21, 2022
∙ Paid
80
89
Share

It’s Presidents Day!

My longstanding position is that we should merge this dumb holiday with the Super Bowl by either moving the holiday a week earlier or the game a week later. The Super Bowl, unlike Presidents Day, is a real thing and everyone could use some recovery time after all the beer and chips.

However, DC Public Schools gives this entire week off so the whole family is going on vacation. Never fear, though, I’ve got piping hot evergreen takes ready for everyone on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and then (because I’m a workaholic) a mailbag column from the beach on Friday. So watch for that mailbag thread later today.

A thought on presidents before I sign off: a lot of people whose ideas about American history I basically agree with say that Abraham Lincoln was the best president and Andrew Johnson was one of the very worst. But the only reason Johnson became president is that Lincoln, in a display of poor judgment, decided to make him VP as a concession to border state Dem…

Keep reading with a 7-day free trial

Subscribe to Slow Boring to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in
© 2023 Matthew Yglesias
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing