The Buck Starts Here - Presidents, Policies, Hilarious History

Before Harrison was slinging hard cider and log cabin merch, he was out in the Indiana wilderness starring in his own chaotic war story: the Battle of Tippecanoe. Kyle & Eric break down the buildup — broken treaties, Tecumseh’s growing confederacy, and Harrison marching his troops right up to Prophetstown. Then the fight kicks off: a surprise night attack, soldiers firing into the dark, office...

1840 wasn’t just an election, it was the first American political rager. The Whigs rolled out log cabins, Tippecanoe clubs, parade floats, and barrels of hard cider until the whole country was drunk on Harrison hype. It was the original meme campaign, and it worked. Kyle & Eric are here for all the chaos: 🍎How Harrison became the first viral candidate (no Wi-Fi required) 🏛️The 8,445-word inau...

Think Harrison was just “the president who gave a speech, caught a cold, and died” ? WRONG. This man was a walking PR machine, a frontier general, and the guy who basically put Ohio on the map (you’re welcome, Buckeyes). Kyle and Eric are here to drag him out of history’s meme bin and show you: ⚔️How Harrison went from 18-year-old ensign to field-promotion legend 🍎Why the Whigs turned “hard cider...

No one asked for chaos, but here it is anyway: the unedited, unhinged mid-season interlude. Jackson slander? Check. Van Buren’s Darth Vader redemption arc? Check. A half-baked plan to score presidents on morality? Check. Hurricane Katrina, Soviet planes, and Eric inventing new words? Also check. This is what happens when Laura doesn’t edit out 25% of the nonsense. You’ve been warned. 🔥 Don’t just...

Martin Van Buren walked straight into the Panic of 1837like, “Hey y’all, I’m here to ruin your economy.” But plot twist — the guy actually invented some modern banking practices, called Congress back on their day off (rude but effective), and even gave us the ten-hour workday. We’re talking the Divorce Bill , boiler explosions, and a redemption arc thatalmost makes you forget he enforced the Trail...

Pull the strings, history nerds — it’s time to meet Martin Van Buren , the “Little Magician” who made political deals appear out of thin air while looking like Jackson’s less-fun stunt double. Was he a genius or just a guy who knew how to hang around long enough to inherit the throne? This episode dives into Dutch tavern tales, Jackson’s puppet show, banking schemes, and one very sad love story. S...

Andrew Jackson is DONE… but the chaos he left behind? Oh dear, it’s still smoldering. In this episode, we’re dragging Old Hickory for his real presidential legacy—bulldozing Native Americans off their land under the banner of “benevolence” (translation: bayonets and bad faith). We’re serving up the receipts: the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, shady treaties signed by randos with zero authority, Florida...

Andrew Jackson might be out of office, but the scorched-earth vibes are alive and well in this episode. Kyle and Eric break down how Old Hickory basically rage-quit the economy—killing the national bank, banning paper money for land, and tossing federal funds into sketchy “pet banks” like he was making it rain at a fiscal frat party. Spoiler: he left the country broke. Martin Van Buren? Useless. T...

Democracy Not Found, Please reinstall Constitution Get ready to scream into a $20 bill, because this episode is one wild, whiskey-soaked ride through the chaos that was Andrew Jackson’s presidency. Our hosts Kyle and Eric break down the hot mess express of Jacksonian democracy—starting with a literal mob trashing the White House and ending with an economic meltdown that somehow wasn’t even the wor...

He called himself the champion of the common man—but spoiler alert: only if that man was white, land-owning, and totally cool with slavery. In this hot-and-heavy second dive into the tangled legacy of Andrew Jackson, Kyle and Eric rip off the rose-colored glasses and get real about the president who practically invented political branding and executive overreach. From a booze-soaked inauguration t...

We showed up ready to drag Andrew Jackson—and somehow left kinda rooting for the guy. Before he was torching democracy and flexing executive power like a toddler with a crown, Jackson was a dirt-poor, rage-powered teen orphan with a scar on his face and a grudge against the British. In this jaw-dropping origin story, Kyle and Eric trace how this scrappy frontier misfit went from bootless brawler t...

Think the Founders shot their shot with the First Five? Please. The back half of the Bill of Rights is where it really gets spicy. Kyle and Eric Mason break down Amendments 6–10—and then hit you with a bonus round so wild it involves smugglers, speedy trials, and a college kid with a C paper who rewrote the Constitution out of pure spite. We’re talking civil juries, cruel and unusual punishment (h...

The Founding Fathers were wild, opinionated, and absolutely not here for standing armies in their guest rooms—let’s get into it. In this Buck Wild episode of The Buck Starts Here , Kyle and Eric catapult you back to 1791—when powdered wigs were poppin’ and the fear of standing armies was all the rage. Get ready as we dive into the OG top five amendments—ranging from the freedom of speech (hint: Co...

Unroll your canvas and dip your brush in the tea, friends. Your charmingly chaotic hosts Kyle and Eric are back, and they've summoned fan-favorite Rae Faba - our resident realism vendor - for another trip into the glittery, grimy world of early American portraiture and the messy marriage between art and truth. We're diving deep into America’s painted past: presidential portraits with side-...

John Quincy Adams: science nerd, policy wonk... almostfunder of a journey to the center of the freaking Earth? Yeah, that happened. Kind of. This week, Kyle and Eric dig into the gloriously unhinged tale of John Cleves Symmes Jr.—an ex-Army guy turned HollowEarth hype man—who tried to convince Congress that the Earth was basically a cosmic donut. And guess what? It almost worked. Was JQA secretly...

This one’s got it all : dysentery, white savior complexes, land “purchases” no one understood, and Francis Scott Key playing dictator from D.C. Welcome to Liberia, brought to you by James Monroe and the “philanthropists” ofthe American Colonization Society. In this bonus episode of Buck Wild , Kyle and Eric rip the powdered wig off the American Colonization Society’s misguided plan to ship freed s...

Gather ‘round and clutch your Constitution, because we’rerewriting the narrative with flair . This week, we're shining the spotlight on Paul Jennings —James Madison’s enslaved footman, secret memoirist, freedom-funder, and the real MVP behind that whole “Dolley saved the portrait” story. (She didn’t. She sentPaul . Let’s get it right.) From setting the president’s table to setting the damnreco...

Jefferson may have had fast horses and a fancy violin, but in this episode, Kyle and Eric are here to expose the soft-handed myth of the so-called “common man” and hand the mic to someone way more impressive: Benjamin. Freaking. Banneker. We’re talking clocks made out of wood that ran for 50 years, almanacs so accurate they made 18th-century sailors weep, and abolitionist essays sneakily tucked be...

You thought we were done with John Adams? Think again. In this bonus episode, Kyle and Eric mop up the revolutionary tea that didn't make it into Parts I–IV. From Franklin’s naked diplomacy and Adams’ tooth-rotting sweet tooth to Haitian revolutions and rumors of London mistresses, we’re closing out the Adams arc with one final chaotic cannonball. Get ready for HBO callouts, bathtub chess matc...

We weren’t done with George Washington— not even close. In this bonus episode, we dig up the wild side quests and forgotten facts we missed the first time around. Meet Lawrence, George’s hot-shot older brother who basically kickstarted the whole “military hero” storyline. Travel with young GW to Barbados (where he caught smallpox and lifelong immunity) and find out why his "wooden teeth” were...

No majority. No chill. And definitely no evidence of a "corrupt bargain.” In this fact-loaded and fire-starting Season 1 finale, Kyle and Eric break down the 1824 presidential election—where Andrew Jackson lost, cried foul, and stomped back to his slave plantation while John Quincy Adams calmly walked into the White House with the receipts . We’ve got: 🔥Jackson throwing a historic hissy fit...

He had the receipts, the vision, and the plan—Congress just brought the drama. In this episode, Eric and Kyle finally dive into the presidency of John Quincy Adams, aka the king of "I told you so." Civil War? Called it. National highways? Pitched them. A naval academy and an astronomical observatory? Yes, please. JQA was ready to launch the country forward—unfortunately, the Jacksonians...

Before John Quincy Adams became America’s most forgettable president, he was basically a Founding Father Nepo Baby turned globe-trotting prodigy. In this episode, Kyle and Eric dive into JQA’s chaotic and impressive early life—getting inoculated before vaccines were cool, becoming a teenage diplomat fluent in multiple languages, and turning down a seat on the Supreme Court because he “didn’t feel...

John Quincy Adams: fluent in diplomacy, allergic to BS, and way too smart for the room. In this episode, we kick off our JQA series with a look at the man who basically wrote American foreign policy, got wrecked by Congress during his presidency, and came back swinging as the “Madman from Massachusetts.” Eric’s basically doing a séance from Quincy City Hall, Kyle’s trying to keep things on track,...

Surprise! James Monroe didn’t write the Monroe Doctrine—John Quincy Adams did... then he refused to take credit like the ultimate 1820s ghostwriter. In this episode, Kyle and Eric dig into the foreign policy flex that told Europe to stay outta the Western Hemisphere (while we quietly kept receipts). We break down the real reason the doctrine was written (hint: hi, Russia), why Latin America loved...