Song Review: "Why Millard Fillmore Sucked"

Well, this song comes from a series of Why Every President Sucked so, let me acknowledge here that they are biased.

Link to the song

Lyrics:

Let’s have a compromise
Just ignore those cries you hear
It’s nothing at all
Just the sound of freedom giving way to fear

Let’s have a compromise
Just ignore those cries
Runaway slave, you gotta come back now

It’s a lose-lose, not a win-win-win
Which we all know would be the best
But if we all give a little
We can all be miserable
I can see that you’re impressed

Millard Fillmore is my name
There’s a reason you’ve never heard of me before




The final couplet strikes me immediately. I hate that no one has heard of Millard Fillmore. In fact, I believe tvtropes.com characterizes him as "famous for being obscure." I think Millard Fillmore was a pretty poor president generally, but a lot of that is due to the times and not the man.

The song focuses on the Compromise of 1850, which admittedly is the major accomplishment of Fillmore's administration. However, I disagree with the calling it lose-lose. In fact, it managed to push by the Civil War, albeit by maybe a decade, but that's better than not doing anything about it COUGHCOUGHJAMESBUCHANANCOUGHCOUGH.

Millard Fillmore spent the majority of his presidential years working to appease both sections of the country. Compromise and saving the Union were key to him. However, he also asserted American neutrality despite it having negative political implications with the German-American demographic. In addition, he sent Commodore Perry to Japan which would open trade with them. And he began the White House library.

So Millard Fillmore gets a lot of negative outlooks, but he really wasn't all that bad. In fact, I defy this song and say Millard Fillmore did not suck.

I must give the song credit, though. It's very appealing to the ear.