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PODCAST

The Buck Starts Here - Presidents, Policies, Hilarious History

China Shop Productions

The Buck Starts Here—where U.S. presidential history gets a spicy makeover. Join no-nonsense economist Eric Mason and history-obsessed wild card Kyle Hedman as they dig into the messy, mind-blowing, and often WTF moments that shaped America’s commanders-in-chief. This is history served hot, with side-eye, deep dives, and sharp commentary that brings the past to life. From bad decisions and bigger egos to the policies that still echo today, we’re naming names and spilling presidential tea. Hit follow

history

All Episodes

01:00:27

Buck Wild: From Hustler to Afroman - FAFO, Legally...

The Buck Starts Here - Presidents, Policies,... ·

2026/03/27

What do Hustler, Afroman, and the legal system have in common?More than you’d think.In this episode, we take a detour into the strange intersection of free speech, lawsuits, and the fine line between expression and consequences, featuring everything from landmark legal battles involving Hustler Magazine to modern-day chaos involving viral moments and unexpected courtroom drama.Because as it turns out, “FAFO” isn’t just internet slang.It’s also… occasionally a legal strategy.We break down:• How free

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00:39:30

Buck Wild: The Lost Tapes (What Happens Without...

The Buck Starts Here - Presidents, Policies,... ·

2026/03/06

Normally The Buck Starts Here is a history podcast about U.S. presidents, American politics, and the decisions that shaped the country.This week… the tangents won.With schedules blown up by real life, we opened the archives and stitched together a supercut of conversations that were too weird, too nerdy, or too wildly off-topic to survive a normal episode.Inside this historical fever dream:• Andrew Jackson doing a Boston accent• The eternal 747-on-a-treadmill debate• Economics explained with

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00:51:28

James Buchanan Part II: You Can’t Secede… But I Can’t...

The Buck Starts Here - Presidents, Policies,... ·

2026/02/27

James Buchanan finally found his spine in December 1860.It lasted about six sentences.In Part II of our Buchanan series, we watch the most passive collapse in presidential history. The Dred Scott fallout is still burning. Kansas is chaos. Utah required federal troops and got pardons. The Panic of1857 hits. Congress launches corruption investigations. The House is unruly. The country is brittle.Then Lincoln wins.South Carolina secedes.Buchanan declares secession unconstitutional — and in the same

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01:00:12

James Buchanan Part I: Safe Choice, Dangerous Moment

The Buck Starts Here - Presidents, Policies,... ·

2026/02/20

James Buchanan didn’t sneak into the presidency. He arrived with a résumé longer than most 19th-century novels.By 1856, he’d been a congressman, senator, Secretary of State, and diplomat to both Russia and Great Britain. He wasn’t a dark horse. He wasn’t a gamble. He was the Democratic Party’s safe, experienced, establishment choice in a country that was very much not stable.In this episode of The Buck Starts Here, we trace Buchanan’s rise through decades of Washington politics and examine the

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00:43:28

The Economy Enters the Find Out Phase | North vs...

The Buck Starts Here - Presidents, Policies,... ·

2026/02/13

If Part I was the slow drift, this is where reality shows up and starts keeping score.In Part II, The Buck Starts Here moves into the 1810s and watches the North and South get stress-tested by war, credit collapses, and the Panic of 1819. This is where a textbook case of Dutch Disease in the American South stops being abstract and starts hurting.We break down how a monoculture, extractive economy built around cotton pulls labor and capital into one sector, starves everything else, and eliminates the

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00:48:17

Two Economies, One Awkward Union | North vs South...

The Buck Starts Here - Presidents, Policies,... ·

2026/02/06

At America’s founding, the North and South were technically on the same team. Same revolution. Same Constitution. Same optimistic speeches. Economically? They were already headed for couples counseling.In Part I of North vs South Economics, Eric takes us from the 1770s through the early 1800s and lays out how two regional economies quietly diverged long before anyone said the word “secession” out loud. The North starts investing in education, skilled labor, diversification, and early

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00:55:20

Frederick Douglass: Read, Wrote, Won

The Buck Starts Here - Presidents, Policies,... ·

2026/01/30

This is not a full biography.This is a Buck Wild sprint through 13 facts about Frederick Douglass that explain why he kept outplaying everyone who tried to underestimate him.Born enslaved and denied education, Douglass figured out early that literacy was power and silence was the trap. He learned to read anyway. He learned to write anyway. And then he used both to dismantle pro-slavery arguments, embarrass powerful people, and force America to listen whether it wanted to or not.In this Buck Wild

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00:46:34

Buck Wild: We Regret Nothing (Except Some Scores)

The Buck Starts Here - Presidents, Policies,... ·

2026/01/23

This is what happens when you rank presidents for a year and then actually think about it.In this Buck Wild episode of The Buck Starts Here, Kyle and Eric hit pause on the timeline to revisit their presidential ranking system and ask the uncomfortable question: are we even being consistent anymore? What started as “judge the presidency only” has slowly turned into “well, but what happened later though,” and now it is time to sort it out.They reexamine scores for John Quincy Adams, Zachary Taylor,

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00:51:33

Franklin Pierce Part II: So That Went Poorly

The Buck Starts Here - Presidents, Policies,... ·

2026/01/16

Franklin Pierce finally gets the presidency and walks into the White House like the friend everyone trusts to keep things calm. You know the type. Reasonable. Even-tempered. Not going to rock the boat. Which is a bold strategy when the boat is already taking on water and half the passengers are lighting matches.In this episode of The Buck Starts Here, Pierce tries to govern with balance, restraint, and vibes. He builds a cabinet designed to keep everyone happy. He rotates offices like it is a team

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00:43:09

Franklin Pierce Part I: The Calm Before the Presidency

The Buck Starts Here - Presidents, Policies,... ·

2026/01/09

Franklin Pierce is the guy everyone agrees is a great choice... right up until reality shows up with a chair and starts swinging. In this episode of The Buck Starts Here, Kyle and Eric introduce you to Pierce before the presidency, back when he is smart, likable, well connected, and absolutely crushing the 19th century political ladder.Pierce does everything correctly. He rises fast in New Hampshire. He glides through Congress. He builds a reputation as the Democratic Party’s most dependable team

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00:48:40

Millard Fillmore Part II: Compromise Is a Hell of a Drug

The Buck Starts Here - Presidents, Policies,... ·

2026/01/02

Okay, so Millard Fillmore finally gets the presidency... and immediately chooses the most stressful possible way to use it. Kyle and Eric break down Fillmore’s term in office, the Compromise of 1850, and the moment he decided that preserving the Union mattered more than literally anything else.This episode covers California’s admission, congressional meltdown season, popular sovereignty nonsense, and the Fugitive Slave Act - aka the law that made Fillmore historically radioactive forever. He thought

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01:01:24

Millard Fillmore Part I: History’s Most Forgettable...

The Buck Starts Here - Presidents, Policies,... ·

2025/12/26

Alright, let’s talk about the president nobody remembers, before he even becomes president. In this episode of The Buck Starts Here, Kyle and Eric introduce you to Millard Fillmore: born poor, raised rough, powered entirely by grit, spite, and an unhealthy love of rules.This is Fillmore’s origin story. Frontier childhood, child labor, self-education, law school by vibes, and a political rise fueled not by charisma but by competence. He’s a Whig’s Whig: anti-Jackson, pro-Congress, deeply suspicious

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00:58:30

Mexican–American War Part II: This Escalated Immediately

The Buck Starts Here - Presidents, Policies,... ·

2025/12/19

If Part I was the awkward diplomatic buildup, Part II is where everyone stops pretending this wasn’t inevitable. Kyle and Eric dive straight into the shooting phase of the Mexican–American War, where artillery rewrites the rules, generals improvise at scale, and the U.S. military realizes it might be way better at this than anyone expected.This episode covers the rapid escalation of the war: Zachary Taylor digging in and daring anyone to move him, flying artillery absolutely wrecking traditional

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00:54:58

Mexican–American War Part I: Border? Never Heard of Her

The Buck Starts Here - Presidents, Policies,... ·

2025/12/12

Kyle and Eric kick off this two-part Buck Wild saga with the absolute chaos leading up to the Mexican–American War; geopolitical dumpster fire powered by bad maps, worse communication, and two nations acting like the group project was someone else’s problem.In Part I, we’re talking Mexico trying to run a brand-new country, American settlers arriving in Texas with an energy best described as “uninvited plus one,” Santa Anna rewriting the government structure every time he sneezes, and President Polk

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00:53:08

Zachary Taylor Part II: Secession? Try Me.

The Buck Starts Here - Presidents, Policies,... ·

2025/12/05

Kyle and Eric break down the short, spicy, absolutely unhinged presidency of Zachary Taylor — the reluctant leader who walked into Washington like it was a battlefield and handled Congress with the same stubborn, no-frills logic he used in the army. Yes, he was a slave holding southerner. Yes, he also threatened to personally deal with any state that tried to secede. It’s complicated.This episode unpacks Taylor’s entire frontier-brained approach to governing: his die-on-this-hill stance on

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01:07:35

Zachary Taylor Part I: The Man, The Myth, The Malaria

The Buck Starts Here - Presidents, Policies,... ·

2025/11/28

Kyle and Eric dive into Zachary Taylor’s wild, fever-drenched military career : years of mud, malaria, and miraculous battlefield luck. This is Taylor before politics: a stubborn, dust-covered commander who kept winning fights through sheer force of will and a total disregard for strategy.From early frontier chaos to the near-disaster-turned-victory at Buena Vista, the guys break down how Taylor’s “just send it” approach shaped his entire legend. It’s messy, unpredictable, and extremely on brand for

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00:43:24

Buck Wild Bonus: States Rights: America's Original...

The Buck Starts Here - Presidents, Policies,... ·

2025/11/07

Kyle and Eric go Buck Wild in this bonus episode about the biggest historical cop-out of all time: states’ rights. You’ve heard the phrase, now hear the chaos behind it. From the 10th Amendment’s “you’re not my real dad” energy to John C. Calhoun’s compact theory meltdown, the guys trace how a constitutional clause got twisted into America’s longest-running excuse for bad behavior.We’re talking nullification drama, Andrew Jackson’s federal power flex, slavery masquerading as “liberty,” and the

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00:56:21

James K. Polk Part II: Polk Harder

The Buck Starts Here - Presidents, Policies,... ·

2025/10/31

The overachiever president is back, and he’s not here to relax. Kyle and Eric break down how James K. Polk took the Oval Office like it was a four-year challenge round: start a war with Mexico, threaten Britain over Oregon, cut tariffs, expand the country by a third, and burn himself out in record time.It’s Manifest Destiny, micromanagement, and moral mayhem: the ultimate story of a man who did everything and enjoyed none of it.🎙️ The Buck Starts Here — where history meets sharp wit, brutal

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00:40:32

James K Polk Part I: A Whig in A Poke

The Buck Starts Here - Presidents, Policies,... ·

2025/10/24

Kyle and Eric fire up the mics to roast President #11 — the guy whose greatest achievement might’ve been getting cut open without anesthesia and still somehow making it to the White House. From his “industrious” slave-owning dad (eyeroll) to his math-nerd grind at UNC Chapel Hill and his fanboy obsession with Andrew Jackson, this episode dives deep into how Polk turned being forgettable into a political superpower.We’re talking early Tennessee politics, suffrage for white men only (wow), the birth

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00:58:43

John Tyler Part II: Whigging Out

The Buck Starts Here - Presidents, Policies,... ·

2025/10/17

John Tyler is back and Whigging Out. He’s vetoing everything that moves, picking fights with Congress for sport, and casually dropping foreign policy hot takes about Hawaii. Tariffs? He’s mad. The Whigs? They’re furious. Daniel Webster? Probably stress-drinking tea somewhere.This episode’s got it all: tariff tantrums, Florida joining the Union, Texas waiting in the wings like a messy situationship, and the Tyler Doctrine arriving out of nowhere like that guy who crashes every party. Manifest Destiny

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66 results

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