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The Abraham Lincoln Song All Those Weird Lincoln Kennedy Coincidences The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Explained Every U.S. President's Favorite U.S. President The Most Surprising Battle of the Civil War The American Presidential Election of 1860 The American Presidential Election of 1864 What if Abraham Lincoln Lost the Election of 1860? Why Abraham Lincoln is Not the Greatest President (Short) Was Abraham Lincoln a Communist? (Short) Can the President Throw You in Jail for No Reason? (Short) Abraham Lincoln took cocaine and ate mercury (Short) The Tallest and Shortest American Presidents (Short) And as promised, here is the script from my video: First of all, you’ve heard of Abraham Lincoln, haven’t you. He’s kind of a big deal. We’ve turned him into a freaking symbol. Yep, that’s him. (Mount Rushmore). We’ve slapped his name on a car brand, a tunnel, and a memorial the size of a small stadium. And that memorial is even on the back of your $5 bill and penny (RIP).I mean, without Lincoln there’s no Linkin Park. Even his nicknames are famous. Honest Abe. The Great Emancipator. The first president to grow a beard while in office, he wore a hat so tall it made him look like an architectural landmark. But uh…much more importantly, Abraham Lincoln was the dude who almost single-handedly saved the Union and ended slavery. If you ask not just historians but if you ask the average American to rank the greatest presidents, Lincoln usually sits right at the top, chillin' right there with George Washington. We basically treat him like a secular saint. But why? Why the bloody heck? I mean, he’s not MY favorite president. (gasp!) Also, I think Lincoln wasn’t exactly a saint. And y’all know this…history is messy. If you actually look at his ENTIRE life, from his dirt-poor upbringing to his controversial, rule-bending presidency…you find a man who was way more complicated, way more stressed out, and frankly, a lot more weird than your history textbook lets on. For example, did you know he was a licensed bartender? Or that he took medical pills made of actual mercury that probably gave him insane mood swings? Or that…despite freeing the slaves….he was pretty racist? In this video, let’s go through the entire life and legacy of Abraham Lincoln, and try to figure out…why IS he often seen as the greatest American president in history? Why DOESN’T his poop seem to stink? And as I said long ago, WAYYYYY back at the beginning of this video, I’m here in Springfield to hang out where Lincoln used to hang out…to even try to literally trace his footsteps. Oh, and I even have a tour guide to help me out! Well, he’s a fellow American history teacher and video maker. Mr. Beat: If you don’t mind, could you introduce yourself Jared: "Hey I'm Jared Bruening from the YouTube channel THE DAILY BELLRINGER." Mr. Beat: And have YOU heard of Abraham Lincoln before I brought him up to you? Jared: Um….yeah Mr. Beat: I knew it -Frontier Life- Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, in a one-room log cabin in modern-day LaRue County, Kentucky. Yeah, that’s it. Well, no….that’s not it….that’s a reconstruction of it…but it probably would have looked like that. Anyway, Abraham’s parents, Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, were farmers. He had an older sister, Sarah, and a younger brother, Thomas Jr., who died as a baby.If you think your childhood was rough, Lincoln’s family was literally living on the edge of survival on the American frontier. There were no Starbucks around. When Abe was just seven years old, his family packed up and moved to the deep woods of Indiana, in part because Indiana was a free state and Kentucky was a slave state. Thomas Lincoln was a strict, harsh man. He didn't see much value in books or "edumacation," and he regularly put young Abe to work clearing fields and splitting rails. Yeah, there’s Abe splitting rails. Abe hated the physical labor, but he LOVED reading. He’d walk literally miles to borrow a book. Totally hooked on phonics. Later in life, he estimated that all of his formal schooling combined added up to less than one year. He was almost entirely self-taught. Tragedy hit him early and often. When he was nine, his beloved mom died of "milk sickness,” a surprisingly fairly common form of poisoning on the Midwestern frontier, and which happened when people drank milk from cows that ate the toxic white snakeroot plant. Around that same time, Abraham got kicked in the head by a horse, knocking him unconscious for several hours. A few years later, his older sister Sarah died during childbirth. Another time, he nearly chopped his thumb off with an axe. Some historians say all this trauma triggered a severe, lifelong depression^1. Back then, they called it "melancholy." Today, we’d recognize it as clinical depression. Lincoln struggled with it his entire adult life, often using humor as a defense mechanism to keep his dark thoughts at bay. Abe’s dad remarried to a woman named Sara Bush Johnston, a widow herself with three children of her own. Abraham would become close to her. In 1828, when Abe was 19, he took a flatboat trip down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. There, he saw the cruelty of slavery up close, and it really freaking affected him. In March 1830, fearing another milk silkness outbreak….told you was fairly common…the family moved again, this time to Illinois. By the time Lincoln was 21 years old, he was 6 foot 4 inches tall. At the time, the average height of an adult American man was five foot 8, so Lincoln often towered over everyone around him.^2 Also by the time he was an adult? He wasn’t get along very well with his dad. As soon as he turned 21, he basically said, "Alright, I'm out," and struck out on his own, leaving his father’s farm behind for good. -Started from the Bottom now we’re in Illinois- Before he was a politician, Lincoln was trying to find ANY way to make a buck that didn't involve….ya know…clearing forests. Let's look at his resume from his twenties….
And THIS is where he lived while he was in his twenties. New Salem, Illinois. Well, this is actually a RECREATION of New Salem, as the original village…it don’t exist no more. Imagine being so famous in history that they resurrect a village you lived in for six years because of you. Anyway, some big moments in Lincoln’s life happened when he was in New Salem. It was there, in 1832, where he signed up to serve in the Black Hawk War. He didn't see any actual combat, but he was elected captain of his volunteer militia unit, which gave him his first taste of leadership. He later joked that he "suffered a good many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes." It was in New Salem that Lincoln developed a reputation as one tough son of a gun after winning a wrestling match with the leader of a local gang called Clary’s Grove boys. But nah man….what he REALLY wanted to do was law and politics. In 1834, at age 25, he won a seat in the Illinois State Legislature as a member of the newly formed Whig Party. The Whigs loved infrastructure, big banks, and modernization…and Lincoln was a pretty big fan of the Whig leader, another dude from Kentucky, Henry Clay. While serving in the legislature, Lincoln decided to become a lawyer. I know, usually it’s the other way around. Lawyer first, then politician. Lincoln wasn’t like other boys. And of course, he didn't go to law school. He literally just bought a bunch of law books, memorized them, passed the bar exam in 1836, and moved to the new state capital of Springfield to open a practice. Oh crap, so I guess we need to go to Springfield now. Heck yeah. It was here in Springfield that he met Mary Todd. Mary came from a wealthy, aristocratic slave-holding family in Kentucky. Oh don’t worry- Mary never owned slaves herself and I’m pretty sure was against slavery.^3 Mary was brilliant, fiercely ambitious, and uhhh….a bit high-strung I would say. She was also 14 inches shorter than Lincoln. But they apparently fell in love. Lincoln and Mary had a stormy courtship. In fact, Lincoln actually got cold feet and broke off their engagement once, but they ultimately would get married on November 4, 1842. He was 33 at the time, she was 23. They’d eventually have four sons together….Robert, Edward, William, and Thomas. Tragically, only one of them would live to adulthood, and that dude, Robert Todd Lincoln….would strangely be present at a BUNCH of tragic deaths of important people. Lincoln served four terms in the Illinois House of Representatives. Yeah, in this building behind me. Ok, yeah sorry this is actually also a reconstruction. Lincoln was not afraid to attack other politicians. He famously very publicly criticized Illinois’s State Auditor and future U.S. Senator James Shields. Shields was so upset by it that he challenged Lincoln to a duel, and the two nearly actually did fight before making peace and eventually becoming friends. In January 1844, Lincoln bought the home you see behind me right now. (turning to look at it) It was the only home he ever owned. And finally, the house you see is the original one preserved. That’s what I’m talking about. You can tour it and everything. And we did. Obviously. Lincoln would buy it for $1500, and his family would live there for 17 years…right up until he moved to the White House. I like to think in an alternate timeline, Lincoln got to retire in this home, just chilling up there on the balcony drinking coffee every day reading a newspaper. Stop! I hate to have to interrupt like this, but we simply can’t make videos like this without help. Sometimes we, unfortunately, have to give corporations our data. We’ve been looking at buying a new car and yeah, had to give some car dealerships our information, and yeah, now they WON’T STOP CALLING US. But I hate to break it to you, every time you go online, giant corporations are also STEALING your personal data. And then data brokers are turning around and selling your personal data to ANYONE. Stuff like your address, your phone number, even your political beliefs and income level. But you wanna know one way I fight back. By using DeleteMe. DeleteMe proactively removes our home address, phone numbers, and family details from the internet. What I like about DeleteMe is that it sends you these personalized privacy reports showing what they found, where they found it, and what they DELETED. I’ve been using it for several years at this point and it’s done a really good job scrubbing my personal information from all kinds of messed up sites out there. Protect YOUR personal information and your family’s personal information with DeleteMe. And get 20% off DeleteMe consumer plans when you go to joindeleteme.com/mrbeat and use promo code MRBEAT at checkout (QR code on screen). That’s join delete me dot com/MRBEAT, code MRBEAT. (turning) Proceed! Originally it was a much smaller house. Lincoln expanded it to its current size in 1856 to accommodate his growing family. By this time, it was obvious Lincoln had higher ambitions, the federal government, baby. But he actually lost the first time he ran for the United States Congress. After failing to earn the Whig nomination for Illinois’s 7th district seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1844, two years later Lincoln finally made it to the big leagues, getting elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. But he quickly made enemies soon after taking office. Democratic President James K. Polk had just kicked off the Mexican-American War, claiming that Mexico had shed "American blood on American soil." Well, Lincoln thought Polk was totally full of crap. He believed Polk had intentionally provoked Mexico to grab land to expand slavery. And for the record, I think Lincoln was right about this. Lincoln introduced what became known as the "Spot Resolutions” nicknamed that because he demanded that President Polk point to the exact SPOT on the map where American blood was shed to prove the war was justified. Eh? Yeah, this did not go over well. The country was swept up in wartime patriotism, and Lincoln’s critics labeled him "Spotify Lincoln," as his preferred music streaming platform was Spotify. Oop, I think I read that wrong. Critics labeled him “Spotting Lincoln,” calling him a traitor. Realizing he had zero chance of getting re-elected, he didn't even bother running for re-election in 1848. He went back home to Springfield with his political career seemingly dead in the water. For the next five years, Lincoln focused on his law practice. He became one of the most successful lawyers in Illinois, representing everyone from poor farmers to massive railroad corporations. He rode the "judicial circuit," traveling from county seat to county seat on horseback. February 1, 1850 was the date of another tragedy. That’s the day the Lincolns lost Eddie. He likely died from tuberculosis. He was just three years old. -A House Divided- Lincoln probably would have stayed a wealthy corporate lawyer forever if it weren't for one man…. Stephen A. Douglas. (looking over) Oh yeah there he is. That’s what he looked like. Hello Stephen. Douglas was a powerful Democratic U.S. Senator from Illinois, and in 1854, he pushed through the Kansas–Nebraska Act, a horrible law that I have brought up MANY times in my videos…but for those of you who don’t watch every video I release for some reason…The Kansas–Nebraska Act created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opened them for settlement, and allowed the new settlers to determine whether they would be admitted to the Union as a free state or slave state. What? Yeah, this predictably caused a mad rush of both proslavery and antislavery advocates to Kansas. And Lincoln HATED this law. He believed slavery was a moral wrong that was fundamentally at odds with the Declaration of Independence. While he still didn't believe the Constitution allowed the federal government to abolish slavery where it already existed, he felt it absolutely HAD to be contained so it would eventually die out. Well, the Kansas-Nebraska Act destroyed the Whig Party, and out of its ashes rose a brand-new, purely northern political group: the Republican Party. Lincoln joined up and quickly became its star in Illinois. And in 1858, Lincoln challenged Stephen A. Douglas for his U.S. Senate seat. They engaged in a series of seven legendary outdoor debates across Illinois. Massive crowds turned out to watch these two political titans go at it for hours. Douglas painted Lincoln as a radical "Black Republican" who wanted full racial equality….which was a massive political liability back then. And Lincoln, trying to appeal to a racist electorate while maintaining his moral ground, gave his famous "House Divided" speech, arguing: "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free." I mean, Lincoln was also probably racist himself I’d argue. Here’s another quote by Lincoln at one of those debates: “I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races.” Oof. Just oofness Abraham. Whether he actually meant those words or not, his racist appeals wouldn’t be enough. While Lincoln actually won the popular vote in Illinois, due to gerrymandered legislative districts at the time, the state legislature chose Douglas for the Senate. Lincoln lost….but here’s a plot twist! By going toe-to-toe with the famous Stephen Douglas, Lincoln became a national celebrity. His debates were printed in newspapers all over the country. Just as the country was marching straight toward a civil war, more and more Americans were wanting this Lincoln fellow to run for president. In February 1860, a famous abolitionist named Henry Ward Beecher invited Lincoln to give a speech to his congregation in Brooklyn, New York. Well, so many people wanted to go that they had to change the location to a much bigger venue (Cooper Union). Uh-oh, looks like we got a rock star on our hands. Despite his popularity, Lincoln wasn’t the frontrunner when the Republican Party met up at its national convention in May of that year. That would be William Seward, the U.S. Senator from New York. But Seward had too much political baggage. Lincoln was viewed as a moderate, a family man from the West, and an outsider who could win crucial swing states. Oh he locked down the nomination alright. The Republicans chose Hannibal Hamlin, a Senator from Maine, as his running mate. The presidential election of 1860 was the most chaotic in American history. It’s the only presidential election to be a big cause and directly lead to the American Civil War, for crying out loud. In the months leading up to the election, most Southerners seemed to be terrified by the idea that Lincoln, if elected, would get rid of slavery. While Lincoln and the Republicans promised they did not want to ban slavery completely, many Southerners weren’t convinced, and swore if Lincoln won, then they were gone. As in secession. The Democratic Party, meanwhile, had completely fractured into Northern and Southern factions, while a fourth party, the Constitutional Union Party, also jumped into the race with the primary goal of keeping the country together. Now, I have a video about this election….as I do of EVERY election in presidential history…long story short….Because the Democrats split their votes, Lincoln won the presidency despite winning only 39.8% of the popular vote. He didn't win a single Southern state. In fact, ten Southern states didn't even put his name on the ballot! In retaliation, Lincoln grew a beard! No just kidding. He grew a beard after an 11-year old told him to. Seriously, an 11-year-old named Grace Bedell wrote him telling him he’d look better if he grew one. And when an 11-year old tells you to do something, you do it. Right Reegan? And sure enough, before Lincoln even took the oath of office, South Carolina seceded from the Union. On December 18, 1860, a U.S. Senator from Kentucky named John Crittenden desperately tried to keep the country together with a proposal to make it unconstitutional for future congresses to end slavery. Known as the “Crittenden Compromise,” to Lincoln and his fellow Republicans, this wasn’t a “compromise” at all. They rejected the proposal. By February 1861, six more states followed, forming an entirely new country called the Confederate States of America. When Lincoln arrived in Washington D.C. for his inauguration, he had to sneak into the city at night, in disguise, because of assassination plots against him. In his first inaugural speech, Lincoln referred to what he had said before. "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” But it was too late. The nation was already breaking apart before he even sat in the Oval Office. -A Surprisingly Controversial President- Lincoln’s Cabinet was kinda awesome. Lincoln chose his advisors carefully. He wanted the most competent people. He didn’t care if they had once been his political opponents. He didn’t care if they didn’t like each other. The historian Doris Kearns Goodwin famously described his Cabinet as a “team of rivals.” The aforementioned William Seward, who…remember… ran against Lincoln for president, became his Secretary of State. The Ohio Governor and U.S. Senator, Salmon Chase, who also ran against Lincoln for president, became his Secretary of the Treasury. Lincoln’s Attorney General? A former Congressman from Missouri named Edward Bates who…you guessed it…also ran against Lincoln for president. Lincoln would make five appointments to the Supreme Court. Noah Haynes Swayne (I love saying his name), Samuel Freeman Miller, David Davis, Stephen Johnson Field, who was a DEMOCRAT mind you, and the aforementioned Salmon Chase. But Lincoln didn’t have much time to focus on his team because…. On April 12, 1861, just 39 days after Lincoln had become president, Confederate forces opened fire on Fort Sumter, a federal outpost in South Carolina. The American Civil War had officially begun. Lincoln immediately called for 75,000 volunteer troops to put down the rebellion. In response, four more Upper South states…including freaking Virginia….seceded and joined the Confederacy. Lincoln faced the biggest crisis any president has ever faced. Eleven states left the Union, and he had to prevent four more slave states, known as the “Border States,” also from seceding. He had to build up an army from scratch. And he had to deal with the fact that many in the North weren’t even sure they wanted to fight to end slavery…if they DID want to fight, they mostly just wanted to preserve the Union. Now, this is where we have to start talking about arguably the most controversial aspect of Lincoln’s presidency…his massive, unprecedented expansion of executive power. Because Congress was out of session during the opening months of the war, Lincoln basically ran the country via executive orders. Let's break down what he did, ok? First of all, he suspended Habeas Corpus…But let’s quickly review what habeas corpus is since (Noem clip) ya know….Habeas corpus means you can’t just throw someone in jail and forget about them. A person detained by the authorities has the right to appear before a judge to know WHY they are being locked up and be able to CHALLENGE their detention. Well Lincoln suspended this right, initially along the military line between Philadelphia and Washington, to keep Maryland from seceding. If Maryland seceded, Washington D.C. would be completely surrounded by enemy territory. Over the course of the war, over 14,000 citizens were arrested and jailed without a trial. And then, after Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney ruled in a case called Ex parte Merryman that only Congress could suspend habeas corpus, Lincoln literally ignored the order. Not only that, Lincoln’s administration shut down or seized over 300 newspapers that published either “pro-Confederate” or anti-war sentiment. And finally, Lincoln straight up spent money without Congressional approval. He ordered the Treasury to advance millions of dollars to private citizens to buy war supplies, which yeah, explicitly went against Article One of the Constitution. Was he a tyrant? Well, Lincoln argued that these emergency, TEMPORARY, measures were absolutely necessary to preserve the government. He believed that if the Union died, the Constitution died with it. It was a classic "ends justify the means" argument. But it set a massive, permanent precedent for future presidents to maximize executive power during a national crisis. -The Great Emancipator- The first two years of the war were an absolute nightmare for Lincoln. The Union Army of the Potomac suffered defeat after defeat under overly cautious generals like George McClellan. Lincoln was plagued by insomnia, severe depression, and immense grief after his beloved 11-year-old son, Willie, died of typhoid fever in the White House on February 20, 1862. 11-years old (looking over at Reegan) Meanwhile, more reform-minded folks in his own party, known as “Radical Republicans,” were screaming at him to abolish slavery immediately. On the other side, Northern Democrats were screaming at him that this war was not worth it. Lincoln’s own views seemed a bit more complex. In an 1862 open letter to journalist Horace Greeley, he wrote: "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it... What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union." Lincoln spent much of the first two years of the war actually promoting the Back-to-Africa movement, a call for the descendants of African American enslaved people to be helped moving back to colonies in Africa if they so wished. He genuinely doubted that black and white Americans could live together peacefully after centuries of brutal enslavement. Many folks forget that Lincoln signed some important laws as president that would have impacts that lasted long after the war would end. Lincoln signed laws like the Pacific Railway Act, which led to the completion of the country’s first Transcontinental Railroad, the Morrill Land-Grant College Act, which gave federally-controlled public lands to states to sell and in return states could establish colleges, and most famously, The Homestead Act, which accelerated western expansion by letting any adult citizen…including freed slaves and women….claim 160 acres of free land as long as they lived on the land for five years to improve it. Very cool. (pause) But back to the war…. On September 17, 1862, the bloodiest day in American history, both Confederate and Union troops took heavy casualties at the Battle of Antietam near Sharpsburg, Maryland. 22,726 soldiers on both sides either died, got wounded, or went missing that day in the battle. 22,726 people in one day. That’s an insane number. It was the first major campaign by Confederate troops into Union territory. While Commanding General of the United States Army George McClellan was able to push the Confederates out, the Union suffered heavier casualties in the battle. Plus, similar to previous battles, McClellan was overcautious and didn’t pursue Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s forces after they began to retreat. Lincoln and McClellan never had fully trusted each other, and McClellan would often :sing: talk trash about Lincoln behind his back. After the Republican Party suffered big losses in the 1862 midterm elections, Lincoln fired McClellan. On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued his most famous executive order. The Emancipation Proclamation, which declared that all slaves in areas still in rebellion against the United States were free. Now, it didn’t immediately free ALL slaves, but it DID officially change the war from just being about preserving the Union to now being about ending slavery. The proclamation also prevented European powers like Britain and France from recognizing the Confederacy, because they couldn't politically justify intervening on the side of slavery. Boom snappity snap. Oh, and the proclamation also allowed African Americans to join the Union Army, and nearly 200,000 did, and they fought bravely. And they needed those soldiers- hardly any white Americans were wanting to fight. In fact, Congress passed the Enrollment Act, the first widespread conscription law in American history. AKA the “draft.” Many Americans resisted the draft. Those who could afford to buy substitutes did so. And so, like most wars in modern history, this war was mostly fought by poor people. In July 1863, the tide finally turned. The Union won two massive, decisive victories at around the exact same time: the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania and the capture of Vicksburg, Mississippi, which split the Confederacy in half. The Battle of Gettysburg is probably the most famous battle in American history, and for good reason. It marked THE turning point of the American Civil War- after it the Union had win after win after win after win. Still, the three-day battle was the bloodiest in American history up to that point. More than 50,000 casualties on both sides. Due to these heavy losses, Lincoln decided to travel to the battle site in November to dedicate a new national cemetery. No one knew it at the time, but that’s where he’d give his most famous speech, and arguably the most famous speech in American history. His dedication speech was just 271 words long, lasting barely over two minutes, but boy did it have an impact. “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” he began. Lincoln praised the soldiers, arguing that their sacrifice should elevate the country’s commitment to ensuring the Union win, famously saying that the soldiers ought not to die in vain….ending his speech saying “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Newspapers far and wide printed what became known as “The Gettysburg Address.” Indeed, it completely redefined the meaning of the war. Still, the war dragged on. By 1864, the war had dragged on for three brutal years. By that time, Lincoln had finally found his general in Ulysses S. Grant, a dude willing to fight a brutal, aggressive war of attrition in order to crush the rebellion. However, Grant’s campaigns in Virginia were resulting in staggering casualties, and the Northern public was growing deeply exhausted. And hey, it was a presidential election year! Lincoln decided to run for re-election, even though he had big doubts he could actually win. To the surprise of many, Lincoln chose Andrew Johnson as his running mate, a DEMOCRAT, in order to have broader appeal and promote national unity. The 1864 election was the only one in American history to feature a Republican and Democrat running together on the same ticket. (Looking over) That video has HALF the views as the 1860 election video, so I know for a FACT that many of you did not watch it. Shame on you! Oh, and guess who Lincoln’s main opponent was? Go on, Fred Armisen….no that’s wrong. His main opponent was his former top general, George McClellan, who ran as a peace candidate wanting to negotiate an end to the war with the Confederacy. At first, it did indeed seem like McClellan had the advantage in the election. But then, in September 1864, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman captured Atlanta, Georgia, and began his famous, devastating "March to the Sea." This massive military breakthrough proved to Northern voters that the war was almost won. Lincoln actually ended up cruising to what some say was a landslide re-election victory, winning 55% of the popular vote and securing the support of Union soldiers who voted overwhelmingly for their Commander-in-Chief. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miTcKE5LJAc By the end of the year, Union forces were closing in on the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. Lincoln easily wins re-election, is about to win the war. We back on top, baby, what could go wrong? On March 4, 1865, Lincoln delivered his Second Inaugural Address. Instead of celebrating his victory or demonizing the South, his speech was incredibly somber and forgiving. He noted that both sides "read the same Bible, and pray to the same God," and urged the nation to move forward… "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds..." Lincoln was already looking toward Reconstruction, or basically looking at how to rebuild the country without destroying the South's economy completely while ensuring freedom for the formerly enslaved population. Hey speaking of the enslaved population, Lincoln tirelessly worked behind the scenes convincing members of Congress to support the ratification of the 13th Amendment, which would make slavery illegal except as a punishment for a crime. By the end of the year the 13th Amendment became part of the Constitution. It was the first amendment to the Constitution in 61 years. On April 9, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House. The war was effectively over. Two days later, Lincoln gave a speech from the White House balcony regarding his Reconstruction plans, during which he publicly advocated for giving voting rights to literate Black men and those who had served in the military. Dang Lincoln, changing your mind like that. In the crowd that night was John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor and fanatical Confederate sympathizer. Hearing Lincoln support Black suffrage, Booth furiously muttered, "That is the last speech he will ever make." On April 14, 1865….just five days after Appomattox and also Good Friday mind you….Lincoln and Mary went to see a comedy play called Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. During the third act, Booth slipped into the presidential box completely undetected and shot Lincoln in the back of the head. Lincoln was carried across the street to a boarding house, where he remained unconscious through the night. He passed away at 7:22 AM the following morning, April 15, 1865. He was 56 years old. Upon his death, his Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, famously remarked, "Now he belongs to the ages." It was the first time a president had been assassinated in American history…Lincoln was the first of four presidents assassinated. It’s actually one of the wildest stories ever told. I made a whole separate video about the Lincoln assassination that I kinda recommend 6 out of 10. The country was devastated. A controversial president when he was alive, his death turned him into a martyr. But I think that’s because we humans tend to not realize how great someone is until they're gone. -Why is Abraham Lincoln considered the greatest president?- Most presidential historians say that Abraham Lincoln is the greatest president in American history. And sure, I’ve had criticisms of the guy, and he may not be my favorite president, but you’d be foolish to deny his greatness as a leader. He would have been a strong leader even during stable times, but he was a strong leader during the country’s most chaotic time. He knew when to take a stand. He knew when to compromise and form coalitions. He knew when to change his mind. And he did all those things. Like, a lot. Lincoln was everything a president should be. Tall, dark, handsome. And other things. In my video about what makes a good president, I argue there are ten things that make a person a good president. A good president is honest, willing to listen, open to change, disciplined, decisive, pragmatic, empathetic, courageous, and really good at communicating. Well, Lincoln was all ten of those things. Honest? Well, his freaking nickname was Honest Abe. He listened to his advisors. He listened to his wife. Again, he changed his mind. Despite going through tremendous hardship both in his personal life and with the country as a whole during his presidency, Lincoln showed remarkable discipline. Unlike his predecessors, Lincoln was decidedly decisive. Oh he made decisions alright. Big ones. Lincoln was undoubtedly pragmatic, especially with his work. And if it wasn’t obvious enough by this point in the video, Lincoln had empathy and courage. And heck yeah he could talk. One of the best speakers in American history. As it turns out, I did find Abraham Lincoln. Actually, I found a lot of them…but I had to go back to Kansas to find them. And those Abraham Lincolns…they can sing, man. Anyway, I guess Lincoln is everywhere is what I’m trying to say. Historians tend to rank Lincoln as the greatest American president not because he was flawless, but because when history handed him an impossible situation, he figured it out. He didn’t just save the United States, he kinda rebooted it. He took a country that was living a lie….claiming all men are created equal while holding millions in chains….and forced it to begin the long, painful process of actually living up to its own ideals. It’s in our darkest moments that true leaders emerge, and Lincoln was the absolute right person at the absolute right time. We will almost certainly remember him in 1,000 years….it certainly helps that his face is carved into a mountain and that his memorial is the most epic memorials for an American ever. But it’s not enough to remember him. We ought to remember why he was so great. Which is why I recommend you watch this video. Oh you already did? Oh thanks buddy. That’s really cool of you. (walk off) Thanks to Jared from the Daily Bellringer for collaborating with me for this video. Everyone has to subscribe to his channel or they will face immediate punishment. Where can they find you? Jared: Check out Daily Bellringer on YouTube or go to my website www.dailybellringer.com And here are three of the books I used to research for this video. All really good freaking books. A. Lincoln: A Biography by Ronald C. White Jr. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle by Jon Meacham As always, a full list of sources are in the description of this video. So tell me, Sabrina Carpenter. Was Lincoln our greatest president? Could anyone else have held the country together during that crisis? What about your grandmother? Let me know your thoughts by mailing me a hand-written letter. I’m not joking. The address is PO Box 1982 Lawrence, KS 66049.If you liked this deeper look at Lincoln’s presidency, give this video a thumbs up, subscribe, and check out my other presidential videos, for real. Hey thanks for staying curious bruh. _____________________________________________________ ^1. https://en.wikipeAdia.org/wiki/Health_of_Abraham_Lincoln ^2. https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-04-18-highs-and-lows-englishman%E2%80%99s-average-height-over-2000-years-0 ^3. https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/mary-todd-lincoln Sources/further reading: And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle by Jon Meacham Purchase here: https://amzn.to/4uZmGlP Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin Purchase here: https://amzn.to/3RF1ao5 A. Lincoln: A Biography by Ronald C. White Jr. Purchase here: https://amzn.to/4dIp5KV Abraham Lincoln: A Life by Michael Burlingame and Jonathan W. White Purchase here: https://amzn.to/4fxFhkq Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America by David J. Kent and Sidney Blumental Purchase here: https://amzn.to/4dG1mei https://www.whitehousehistory.org/bios/abraham-lincoln https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/life.htm https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/abraham-lincoln/ https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/history/presidents/al16.html https://millercenter.org/president/lincoln/life-in-brief https://www.lincolnshrine.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/The-Life-of-Abraham-Lincoln.pdf https://www.nps.gov/linc/learn/historyculture/abraham-lincoln-the-man.htm Creative commons credits: Rene Sturgell FloNight Jonathunder
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Mr. Beat tells the story of the longest war in American history, the War in Afghanistan. This video contains historical accounts of war. If you need support, visit https://findahelpline.com/.
Can't get enough of this video? Here are some related videos: 9/11 Explained The Iraq War Explained The George W. Bush Song The Barack Obama Song The Donald Trump Song The Joe Biden Song The Real Reason Why the United States Is Constantly at War The Fall of Kabul and The Fall of Saigon Compared Who was more anti-war? Biden or Trump? And as promised, here is the script from my video: 19 years, 10 months, 3 weeks, and 2 days I’m Mr. Beat, and that’s not how old I am (I’m a bit older than that) That’s how long the longest war in American history lasted A war that spanned four presidencies. A full generation of Afghans. As a matter of fact, for many of you watching right now, this war lasted most of YOUR life. A war that resulted in the deaths of more than 200,000 people. That displaced millions. That cost more than 2.3 TRILLION dollars.^1 That’s TRILLION with a “T.” A war in which a comparably small and weak group of fundamentalist militants wreaked havoc on the LARGEST MILITARY IN THE WORLD. And after all that, the group the United States sent in to kick out….ended up right back in charge. Dang. I personally know multiple people who fought in this one. Friends AND family. And so, unlike in previous videos I’ve made about American wars, in THIS video you’ll hear from veterans. Those who actually fought in it. (clips) Oh, I guess you just did. Here’s the story of the War in Afghanistan. First, let’s set the scene. Where the heck is Afghanistan? (turning) Oh, there it is. -“The Graveyard of Empires”- Afghanistan sits right in the middle of Central and South Asia….bordered by Pakistan to the east and south, Iran to the west, and a whole bunch of countries to the north. Many people forget it’s also got a tiny sliver of a border with China. Amusing fact. Because China has one time zone across the entire country, crossing this border is a 3 and a half hour jump. Anyway, Afghanistan is almost entirely mountainous and thus hard to get around in and thus hard to control. Search up “The Graveyard of Empires” and Afghanistan pops up. The country earned that nickname because multiple countries over the years have tried to conquer the area but failed each and every time. Alexander the Great, The Mongols, The Persians, The British. They failed every time. So that should have been a warning sign, but unfortunately not enough people in the world freaking STUDY HISTORY. -More than 9/11- Most people think the War in Afghanistan starts with 9/11, but you have to go back further than that man. Come on, let’s go further back in time. (running) Ah, here we are. Shakedown 1979. Cool kids never have the time That year, after fundamentalist Muslims in Afghanistan rebelled against the pro-communist government, the Soviet Union, which was a massive communist superpower at the time…in case you’re rusty on your Cold War history…decided to intervene. The Soviets rolled in with tanks and troops to prop up the communist government in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital. This kicked off what became known as the Soviet-Afghan War, which would last the next ten years. The other superpower in the world at the time, the United States, perhaps obviously wanted to see the Soviet Union lose this war. It started funneling money and weapons to the Afghan resistance, known as the mujahideen. Clone: Wait, didn’t the United States basically help create the people they’d later fight? Mr. Beat: Well, it’s complicated While the United States supported the mujahideen, after the Soviets left in 1989, the American government kind of just…ignored Afghanistan. After the Afghan Civil War, a new fundamentalist group emerged called the Taliban. By 1996, they had taken over most of the country and had implemented a very strict version of Sharia law. Clone: Who is Sharia Law? Mr. Beat: Dude, you sound like an idiot. Sharia Law is not a person. Sharia law is an Islamic legal system, based on both the Qur'an and hadith and interpreted and modified by Islamic judges. Anyway, meanwhile a rich dude from Saudi Arabia named Osama bin Laden and his organization, al-Qaeda, had set up shop in Afghanistan. Why? Well, because the Taliban gave them a safe space to hang out and train. Flash forward to September 11, 2001. al-Qaeda, led by the aforementioned Osama bin Laden, carries out the deadliest terrorist attacks on American soil in history. I was alive during this time. Yeah I’m old. I’m currently at the exact spot I lived during this time. The building’s not there anymore. And I made a whole video about 9/11, as it’s more commonly called, but the gist of it is that 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four planes with the goal of crashing them into four prominent American buildings. They crashed two into the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon, ultimately killing nearly 3,000 people. George W. Bush, who had just taken over as the American president around eight months prior, didn’t wait long to act. 21:48-22:59 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az9h45H0E7I Bush issued an ultimatum to the Taliban- hand over Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan, close the terrorist training camps there, and give the United States full access to verify all this. After the Taliban didn’t fully cooperate, Bush was like, “fine, we’re gonna go to war against you.” And uh, yeah, that’s how the war began. -The Quick Win (Or So They Thought)- Americans overwhelmingly supported an American military campaign in Afghanistan.^2 I know I did…I, like almost every American back then, was very angry at al-Qaeda for what they did on 9/11. Congress had already overwhelmingly passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force, or AUMF. How overwhelmingly? Every member of Congress voted for it except one, a U.S. Representative named Barbara Lee, who worried it gave the federal government a blank check to wage war without debate. She had a point. Although it originally was meant to authorize the president to use all “necessary and appropriate force” against those who “planned, authorized, committed or aided” the September 11th attacks, it has been kept on the books ever since to justify a seemingly endless war on terrorism. Anyway, the first time the president used the AUMF was Bush sending troops to Afghanistan. This wasn’t a massive ground invasion like the Iraq War would be a year and a half later. It was mostly American Special Forces and the CIA working with an Afghan coalition of anti-Taliban militias known as the Northern Alliance. Operation Enduring Freedom A few other NATO countries helped out. On October 7, 2001, less than a month after 9/11, the United States launched Operation Enduring Freedom. It began with air strikes targeting Taliban military positions and al-Qaeda training camps across Afghanistan. American and British bombers pounded targets from thousands of feet in the air. It was kinda wild. You had Green Berets on horseback, working with Afghan fighters, calling in air strikes on their cell phones.^3 Very 21st century yet 10th century at the same time. And it worked. At least in the beginning. The Taliban began to lose power fairly quickly. Mazar-i-Shariff, a major city in northern Afghanistan, fell to the Northern Alliance on November 9th. Kabul fell four days later. Kandahar, the Taliban’s spiritual home base in the south, fell on December 7th. Within two months of the war starting, the Taliban had mostly been driven from power. The remaining Taliban fighters scattered into the mountains or fled across the border into Pakistan. It seemed like a stunning, decisive victory. But bin Laden was still out there, man. In December 2001, the CIA gathered enough intelligence to place bin Laden somewhere in the mountains near the Pakistan border…in a network of caves and tunnels that had actually been built with American CIA assistance back during the Soviet-Afghan War, which is kinda ironic. Around that time, an international conference had met to establish a new government for Afghanistan, and since the country hadn’t had a unifying national government since 1979, the folks at this conference felt it was important to have some sort of transition period before a permanent new government got established. The result of this conference was the Bonn Agreement, which made THIS dude, Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s new president. Karzi, a Pashtun leader who spoke English and had strong ties to Western countries, was well-liked and he genuinely seemed to want to build a stable, democratic Afghanistan. Plus, he wore a cool hat. -And now a brief departure from the story- Traveling the planet of Earth today is easier than ever. Well, until you look at your phone bill. We’ve all been there… you cross a border, look at a map, and wham bam bippity bam…..your local cellular phone carrier hits you with massive, unexpected roaming charges. But you can avoid all that financial drama with today’s sponsor, Ubigi (pronounced You-Bee-Ji, like Mount Fuji!)." Ubigi is an app that gives you instant eSIM data plans in over 200 destinations around the world. With Ubigi, there are no surprise roaming fees, saving you around 90% compared to your local carrier. Plus, there’s absolutely no commitment. My favorite part? It’s the only app you can actually recharge even if you have zero Wi-Fi or cellular data credit left. It is ideal to prepare in advance for your trip and travel stress-free. Your data plan activates the second you arrive at your destination and turn it on. Go ahead and download the Ubigi app now. Even if you don't have a trip planned tomorrow, it could seriously come in handy if you find yourself without Wi-Fi on your next adventure. You never know! Use promo code MRBEAT to get a 10% discount…the link is in the description, for real. Thanks to Ubigi for sponsoring this video. -I’m a Creep (What the he** am I doing here?)- The United States and its allies poured money into Afghanistan. Billions and billions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_aLESDql1U of dollars for reconstruction. Building roads, schools, hospitals, and training a new Afghan army and police force. Indeederoo, this was the nation-building phase of the war, and it was pretty dang ambitious. Essentially, the goal was to transform one of the poorest, most underdeveloped countries on the planet into a stable, functioning democracy. Oh, and do it while simultaneously fighting off a lingering insurgency. No pressure. The United Nations Security Council established the International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF (ISAF!), which eventually took over command of security operations across most of Afghanistan. At its peak, the ISAF would have 400 military bases throughout the country and troops from 42 different countries.^4 Some real progress was made in these early years. Life expectancy went up. Infant mortality declined. Girls, who had been banned from education under the Taliban, could now go to school. Afghans created a new constitution and began to hold elections. al-Qaeda was a shadow of itself. But there were some serious, serious problems, ok? First of all, the Taliban didn’t just, like, disappear. They grouped in the mountainous tribal areas of Afghanistan, and nearby Pakistan, where the Pakistani government had limited ability and will to go after them. Heck, even Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI, was historically a bit too cozy with the Taliban. Indeed, the Taliban used Pakistani territory as a safe haven to recruit, train, and launch attacks back into Afghanistan. Second, corruption. The Afghan government, from top to bottom, was riddled with corruption, for real. Money meant for reconstruction just disappeared. Warlords who had become allies with the United States sold illegal stuff. In fact, Afghanistan became the world’s leading producer of opium. Third, and this is a big one…the Bush administration decided to all get the United States involved in another war. After the United States invaded Iraq to topple the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein on March 20, 2003, the administration shifted its focus and resources into what became known as the Iraq War. I have vid about it. But yeah, after this the United States shifted attention and resources away from Afghanistan. And the Taliban noticed this. By 2005, Taliban attacks had begun to dramatically increase. Roadside bombs…usually improvised explosive devices, or IEDs…became the signature weapon of the insurgency. Suicide bombings increased.^5 Taliban fighters who had quietly blended back into villages began organizing and fighting again. In Helmand Province in the south of Afghanistan, things got particularly crazy. British forces deployed there in 2006 were stunned by the intensity of the fighting. Many of them had to fall into defense positions in some of the most intense combat of the war. In response to this, NATO launched major operations to clear Taliban strongholds across southern Afghanistan. In Operation Medusa, Canadian troops, believe it or not, led a brutal push to clear Taliban fighters out of the Kandahar Province. But once NATO troops left an area, Taliban fighters would come right back. As it turns out, this would be a recurring theme in the War of Afghanistan. Coalition forces would clear an area of Taliban fighters, but without enough troops to hold the area permanently, the Taliban would just come back when the coalition forces moved on. A classic counterinsurgency dilemma. By 2007, Taliban forces had at least 10,000 soldiers fighting. Over the next two years, that number would double.^6 In 2008, President Bush began authorizing raids into Pakistan, even though Pakistan didn’t like that so much. Bush also began withdrawing troops from Iraq while consistently increasing more troops to Afghanistan. That same year, Barack Obama won the presidential election, in part by promising to end the Iraq War. And indeed, after he got into office he swiftly began to withdraw American forces from Iraq. But the new president remained committed to finding Osama bin Laden. Clone: Wait, they still ain’t found bin Laden in nearly eight years? Mr. Beat: Nope, they still ain’t found him. Not only that, by that time the Taliban was as strong as ever. In 2009, Stanley McChrystal took over command of NATO operations in Afghanistan, launching Operation Strike of the Sword in Helmand Province, the biggest offensive airlift by the Marines since the Vietnam War. Meh, it didn’t go as well as McChrystal had hoped. He begged Defense Secretary Robert Gates for more troops…up to 40,000 more if possible. Otherwise, the war might be lost. After McChrystal’s pleas for more troops became public, even more Americans began to wonder what the heck the United States was still doing in Afghanistan. Obama remained committed to the cause. He ordered a surge of 30,000 more troops to the country. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oxz9TaQOLg Yeah, I just said that. That would now bring the total American force in the country to around 100,000. Obama’s goal was still to defeat al Qaeda. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oxz9TaQOLg. Yeah I just said that. Now, announcing a withdrawal date while simultaneously escalating…eh….was controversial, to say the least. Supporters argued it would motivate the Afghan government to step up. Critics….including some of Obama’s own generals…argued it told the Taliban that all they had to do was wait. The surge years, 2010 and 2011, were actually the deadliest years of the war for American troops. More than 700 Americans died during those two years. The Korangal Valley, near the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, became known as the “Valley of Death” since that’s where some of the most intense combat of the entire war went down.^7 In May 2011, everything changed. CIA intelligence had tracked Osama bin Laden to a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Not hiding in some cave in the mountains, but living in a relatively comfortable house in mid-sized city in Pakistan, not far from Pakistan’s main military academy. President Obama authorized a raid by NAVY SEAL Team 6. In the early morning hours of May 2, 2011, in Operation Neptune Spear, the SEALS broke into the compound and shot and killed bin Laden.^8 There’s a now iconic picture of Obama and his advisors watching it take place. 12 years later, a YouTuber went to the exact site where this all went down and found a cow grazing and kids playing cricket. Oh, and a lot of trash. https://youtu.be/Y4m6JGeyjjY?si=we4nndCpq-QWJOJ4&t=135 American forces would later bury his body at sea. After Obama announced the news, crowds immediately gathered outside the White House, chanting “USA! USA!” Indeed, most Americans were thrilled. The man who had ordered the 9/11 attacks was dead. The primary justification for the entire war had been accomplished. But the war didn’t end. Because by this point, it wasn’t really about bin Laden anymore. -Years of War, Miles of Nothing- As Obama had promised, American troop levels in Afghanistan had decreased in 2012. NATO combat operations officially ended at the end of 2014, replaced by a smaller “Resolution Support” mission focused on training and advising Afghan forces rather than LEADING combat operations. Except the war wasn’t over. Not even close, Francis. Taliban attacks continued. Afghan security forces, now technically leading the fight, took catastrophic casualties- thousands of soldiers and police killed every single year. The Taliban made steady territorial gains. Districts that had been cleared multiple times fell again. The United States was afraid that, if they left, the Afghan government would immediately collapse. A new group also entered the picture- ISIS-K, the Afghan affiliate of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Remember ISIS? The group that gained a lot of power in Iraq and Syria around 2013 and 2014? Well, they spread to Afghanistan, too. ISIS-K, in some ways, was even more extreme than the Taliban, and the two groups actually fought EACH OTHER at times. So now you’ve got a three-way war going on at points. Great. Instead of sending troops back, though, Obama used drones to bomb the crap out of the country. In what proved to be one of his most controversial policies, he dramatically increased aerial attacks from unmanned remotely piloted aircraft, aka drones. Critics of drone warfare said that, way more often than not, these bombs were being dropped on civilians, not militant insurgents. Even if they were known terrorists, critics argued, their constitutionally guaranteed right to trial by jury protected them from just being straight up executed. By 2016, most Americans had completely turned against the War in Afghanistan. That year, Donald Trump got elected president, in part, for his promise of ending “forever wars.” Obama left office in January 2017 having reduced American forces in Afghanistan all the way down to 8,400. The war he had called “necessary” still had no clear end in sight. As Trump entered office, many Americans were optimistic that he’d end the war. After all, for years he had been critical of nation-building and long overseas military commitments. However, his military advisors persuaded him to actually INCREASE American troop levels in Afghanistan, at least slightly. Trump also loosened the rules of engagement, which led to a big increase in drone warfare. And unlike Obama, Trump stopped making it public every time the United States accidentally bombed civilians with drones. As civilian casualties climbed, more and more Afghans turned against American occupation.^9 But Trump’s instinct to get out of Afghanistan never really went away. In 2018, his administration did something that the United States had avoided doing for 17 years…they started TALKING to the Taliban. Direct negotiations. The talks were led by a diplomat named Zalmay Khalilzad, an Afghan-American who had been involved in Afghanistan policy for decades. Months turned into years of negotiations. Finally, on February 29, 2020, the United States and the Taliban signed the Doha Accord. ‘Twas a big deal. The Taliban agreed to not allow Afghan territory to be used as a base for attacks against the United States and its allies, to prevent al-Qaeda from operating in Taliban-controlled areas, and to negotiate with the Afghan government. In return, the United States agreed to withdraw all remaining American forces within 14 months. However, this deal had problems, you could say. For starters, the Afghan government had little say in the agreement. It was mostly left out of it. Not only that, the Taliban never actually committed to a ceasefire in the deal…Taliban attacks literally continued on Afghan forces after the deal was signed. But the deal was already done, and the logic was clear…every American presidential administration since 2001 had tried to “win” this war. None had succeeded. Americans were so done with this war. It was time to admit there was no military solution and get out. -A Chaotic Exit- Well, when Joe Biden became the next president, he inherited this Doha Accord. As the 14-month withdrawal deadline approached, his military advisors were split. Some wanted to maintain a small residual force indefinitely to prevent the Taliban from taking over. Others argued that any continued American presence was just delaying the inevitable. Biden, who had been skeptical of Afghan nation-building since his time as Vice President, sided with the second group. On April 14, 2021, Biden announced that American troops would be fully withdrawn by September 11, 2021, the 20th anniversary of the attacks that started the whole thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDdFItbqOz4 And then things…completely fell apart. In the following months, the Taliban began seizing district after district. Afghan security forces, which included more than 300,000 trained soldiers, equipped with American weapons and technology, seemed to just melt away. Some fought hard and died bravely. Many surrendered. Others went home. Years of corruption, years of poor leadership by now president Ashraf Ghani ….years of ghost soldiers on payrolls, years of dependence on American air support that was no longer coming…well it all caught up with the Afghan army at the worst possible moment. By mid-August, the Taliban had completely surrounded Kabul. On August 15, Ghani was gone. He fled Afghanistan. Within hours, the Taliban were in the presidential palace, sitting in the chairs of the government that had spent 20 years and hundreds of billions of dollars struggling to establish itself. The scenes from Kabul Airport were heartbreaking and chaotic. Thousands of Afghans who had worked with Americans, who had believed in the project of building a new Afghanistan, who were terrified of Taliban rule, rushed to the airport hoping to get the heck out of there. The world saw scenes of people clinging to the outside of departing aircraft. Babies being handed over fences to soldiers. Desperate crowds, crushing in the heat. On August 26th, an ISIS-K terrorist blew himself up at one of the airport’s busiest entrances, killing 13 American service members and dozens of Afghan civilians. The last American troops left Afghanistan on August 30, 2021. The war was over.^10 -Legacy- After all that, the Taliban won. They won because they weren’t destroyed. Today, the Taliban’s victory in the War in Afghanistan is often seen as one of the most significant underdog victories in modern history. The Taliban fought against a superpower that spent 2.3 TRILLION dollars and had much more advanced technology. After the war ended, the Taliban resumed treating women like second-class citizens. Many of the as many as 250,000 Afghans who helped Americans during the war remained there with no guarantees of their protection. Humanitarian aid into Afghanistan stopped. At the time of this recording, though, the Taliban are still in power. The War in Afghanistan was a war that left behind a trail of broken promises, reversed freedoms, and a grim reminder of the limits of military power in the graveyard of empires. More than 3500 American and coalition troops died. The human toll in Afghanistan was far worse. The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan documented over 100,000 civilian casualties between 2009 and 2021 alone. Total civilian deaths over the full 20 years likely numbered hundreds of thousands when you include indirect causes like the three “Ds”....displacement, disease, and destroyed infrastructure. Nobody knows exactly how many Taliban fighters died, but we do know that more than 5 million Afghans were displaced from their homes over the course of the war. Ok, so the question everyone asks. Was it freaking worth it? Well, the war did result in bin Laden being killed and the sharp decline of al-Qaeda in the region. After all, al-Qaeda hasn’t successfully launched another big attack on the United States ever since. In the 20 years of American occupation, millions of Afghan girls went to school who never would have otherwise. Life expectancy increased significantly. A whole generation of Afghans grew up in a much freer society than their parents would have known. That matters. Clone: But… But… The initial objective…which remember was destroying al-Qaeda and killing bin Laden, was mostly accomplished by late 2001. Who are we kidding, man. Everything after that was mission creep. Nation-building in one of the world’s most complex, tribal, and historically ungovernable countries was never a realistic goal. We spent 20 years and trillions of dollars training an Afghan army that collapsed in weeks. We propped up a corrupt government that ultimately lacked the legitimacy to survive, mostly because it was propped by the “occupiers.” Most importantly, the war created more terrorists than it killed. And the end result was exactly what would have happened anyway- the Taliban is back in power. What was the freaking point? In my opinion, the biggest lesson from this war is that…you can win every battle but still lose the war if you don’t have a good plan for what happens after the shooting stops. Every war has lessons if you’re willing to look for them. What did the United States learn from 20 years in Afghanistan? Hopefully, some humility. Just because you’re the world’s military superpower doesn’t mean you can solve all the world’s problems. Thanks to Noah Taylor and Joseph Hall-Patton for sharing their experiences as veterans fighting in the War in Afghanistan. Noah just so happens to be running for the U.S. Senate right now here in Kansas, and Joe, of course, aka the Cynical Historian, is a long-time friend and a historian who has a wonderful YouTube channel that you should subscribe to dad gomit. Obviously, I left a lot out, and as always, I encourage you to research The War in Afghanistan further. Here’s one book I used to research this video. Carter Malkasian’s The American War in Afghanistan. As always, I’ve listed the rest of the sources I referenced for this video in the description. You should read books. (long dramatic pause) Thank you for staying curious. _____________________________________ ^1. https://www.warcosts.org/conflicts/afghanistan ^2. https://www.cfr.org/articles/us-war-afghanistan-twenty-years-public-opinion-then-and-now ^3. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/10/18/how-the-horse-soldiers-helped-liberate-afghanistan-from-the-taliban-18-years-ago/ ^4. ChartsBin. "Countries Currently Contributing Troops to ISAF". ChartsBin. Archived from the original on 25 August 2021. ^5. https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/jss/vol17/iss3/6/ ^6. O'Hanlon, Michael E."Staying Power: The U.S. Mission in Afghanistan Beyond 2011, The Brookings Institution, September/October 2010. ^7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0o4-jhnaGs ^8. Dodds, Paisley; Baldor, Lolita C. (May 6, 2011). "Al-Qaida vows revenge for Osama bin Laden's death". Fox News. Associated Press. ^9. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/trump-afghanistan-middle-east-strikes-civilian-deaths ^10. https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2021-08-30/the-war-in-afghanistan-is-officially-over Sources/further reading: The American War in Afghanistan: A History by Carter Malkasian Purchase here: https://amzn.to/3PkVgaT https://apnews.com/article/----50d29d8b2d444fdcb963d38dd792e21f The Forever War by Dexter Filkins Purchase here: https://amzn.to/4w7EYma No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes by Anand Gopal Purchase here: https://amzn.to/4n2QyLg Little America: The War Within the War for Afghanistan by Rajiv Chandrasenkaran Purchase Here: https://amzn.to/4d0jP4W https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2011/9/11/taliban-offered-bin-laden-trial-before-9 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NHTovOwiok&t The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War by Craig Whitlock Purchase here: https://amzn.to/4cKxcr0 How to Lose a War: The Story of America’s Intervention in Afghanistan Purchase here: https://amzn.to/3OC1mDG https://www.ippnw.de/commonFiles/pdfs/Frieden/Body_Count_first_international_edition_2015_final.pdf https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2021/08/16/the-talibans-victory-proves-the-west-has-failed-to-learn-the-lessons-of-the-past/ https://www.britannica.com/event/Afghanistan-War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-business-afghanistan-43d8f53b35e80ec18c130cd683e1a38f The American Pageant. (16th edition). Cengage Learning. The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People (9th edition) America Through the Lens (National Geographic) Bergen, Peter. The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict between America and Al-Qaeda (2011). Free Press. Creative commons credits: Callum Darragh Todd Huffman EFarid Tufail Hassan Tohma Ben Schumin Umar Muzammil Fibonacci Blue _____________________________________ ^1. https://www.warcosts.org/conflicts/afghanistan ^2. https://www.cfr.org/articles/us-war-afghanistan-twenty-years-public-opinion-then-and-now ^3. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/10/18/how-the-horse-soldiers-helped-liberate-afghanistan-from-the-taliban-18-years-ago/ ^4. ChartsBin. "Countries Currently Contributing Troops to ISAF". ChartsBin. Archived from the original on 25 August 2021. ^5. https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/jss/vol17/iss3/6/ ^6. O'Hanlon, Michael E."Staying Power: The U.S. Mission in Afghanistan Beyond 2011, The Brookings Institution, September/October 2010. ^7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0o4-jhnaGs ^8. Dodds, Paisley; Baldor, Lolita C. (May 6, 2011). "Al-Qaida vows revenge for Osama bin Laden's death". Fox News. Associated Press. ^9. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/trump-afghanistan-middle-east-strikes-civilian-deaths ^10. https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2021-08-30/the-war-in-afghanistan-is-officially-over
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Related videos: How to Become the 51st State (Released 3/10/2028) The U.S. Interstate Highway System Explained (Released 4/8/2022) Why the 25 Biggest American Cities Exist (Released 4/25/2025) Every U.S. Territory Explained (Released 7/4/2025) States Compared Playlist And as promised, here is the script from my video: Let me first state that I’m Mr. Beat. I’ve lived in two of the fifty states in these somewhat United States…I lived in Nebraska for about four years, but for the rest of my life I’ve lived in Kansas The state in the middle. The middle of Middle America. I’m currently here in Topeka, Kansas, the city where I was born And home of the capitol of Kansas, the place where the government of Kansas does stuff “A single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.”^1 That’s a quote from the legendary Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis that basically explains federalism, or the idea that power is divided between the federal government and each of the 50 state governments. Indeed, the Tenth Amendment of the United States Constitution says that “all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” And this, Benedict Cumberbatch, is the whole freaking basis for the laboratories of democracy concept articulated by Brandeis. And I think Brandeis was right. The United States is totally like 50 different laboratories of democracy all running different experiments at the same time. While we focus a lot on what the FEDERAL government is doing in DC, the truth is, your day-to-day life is much more shaped by the folks in your state capitol. (pointing) In this video, we’re looking at how all 50 states govern themselves…from how they tax you to how they pick their noses…I mean judges. For the Kansas stuff, I got some help from…. (introduce themselves) WHATS UP YALL this is Paris with Loud Light, we’re a Kansas based advocacy non-profit known for our work here in the Capitol and getting young folks to vote. Today I’m here with Mr. Beat to talk about what goes on in that building. Yeah, what goes on in that building? But yeah, Paris will be chiming in from time to time. And at the end of the video, BASED on all this information, I’m gonna reveal to you which state is the most “average” American state based on all these metrics, according to the latest publicly available data. Ready to begin? I was born ready What should we begin with? Let’s start with what goes on inside this building and how state legislatures work! But I’m scared about what goes on this building! #1 State Representation and Legislatures First of all, all but one state legislature is bicameral, meaning they’re set up like the federal government, with two houses- a Senate and House of Representatives. The exception? Nebraska, which has just one chamber. As such, Nebraska has fewer members of its state legislature than any other state. The smallest bicameral state legislature is Alaska, with 60 total lawmaker peoples, 40 in the House…20 in the Senate. Minnesota has the most Senators of all states, with 67 total lawmaker peoples in its Senate. New Hampshire has the most representatives in its lower chamber AND HECK…the most TOTAL in its legislature. 424 total lawmaker peoples. And with 400 members, it has by far the biggest House of Representatives of any state. On average, each Representative in New Hampshire represents about 3,300 people. Oh HECK yeah. That’s what I’m freaking talking about. Let’s goooooooooo. But yeah, unfortunately New Hampshire is not average. The average legislature membership is around 148 lawmaker peeps. New Hampshire also has the longest requirement to be able to run for its Senate. You have to live in the state for 7 years to run for Senate! In Alabama, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, and North Dakota, a Representative’s term is 4 years. For all the other states it’s two years. 4 years is pretty standard for Senate terms in most legislatures, although for some states the terms are 2 years or even BOTH 2 years and 4 years. These 16 states have term limits for their members: State & Term Limit
Are there term limits in Kansas? In Kansas, members of the House are elected for two years, while Senators are elected for 4 years. We do NOT have term limits for these seats, so legislators can run as many times as they want. We DO have term limits for the Governors seat, which is two terms, each 4 years. This year ends Governor Laura Kelly’s two terms, so Kansans will vote on a new governor this year. Do you know how long the longest tenured member has been in there? Um, yeah, she was way off. But I’m embarrassed for not knowing this, too, because the longest tenured member of the Kansas legislature is Barbara Ballard, who is my representative and I’ve actually met her a few times. She’s been serving since 1993. Most state legislatures don’t meet the entire year. In these four states, they basically meet throughout the entire year, though: Pennsylvania Michigan New Jersey Ohio 46 state legislatures hold regular sessions every year. The other four states- Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, and Texas…meet every OTHER year…the odd-numbered years. Well that’s odd. When does the Kansas legislature typically meet? (The Kansas Legislature meets annually starting on the second Monday of the year in January. Legislative leadership sets the calendar, with sessions typically ending in the spring time around April or May. After the first adjournment, there is a small break and then legislators return for what is called a “veto session”, where they vote to override the veto of bills the Governor rejects. After that, they adjourn until the next year with select committees still meeting during the downtime. Most state legislatures begin regular sessions in January. North Carolina likes to be all weird and start in April. Those freaks. You have to be at least 18 years old to run to be in the legislature for most states. In Kentucky, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Tennessee, you have to be 30 years old to run for the Senate. Dang, that’s old. #2 Taxes How do states pay for their bills? Well first of all, every state is dependent, at least somewhat, on federal funding. But the state MOST dependent on federal funding? Alaska. The state least dependent on federal funding? New Jersey. Otherwise, every state mostly raises money from a combination of property taxes, income taxes, and sales taxes. 42 states have a state income tax. These states have a flat income tax. These states tend to tax the wealthiest folks more. These states DON’T have a state income tax.^2 But that doesn’t mean folks there ain’t gettin taxed. Louisiana, Tennessee, Washington, Arkansas, and Alabama all have the highest sales tax rates in the country, while Oregon, New Hampshire, Montana, and Delaware have NO sales tax. Holy dang. Some of the highest PROPERTY taxes are seen in places like California, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and Texas. What about the corporations? Those poor, poor corporations. Well, 44 states have some kind of corporate income tax, with the highest rate being in New Jersey. What about excise taxes, or taxes on certain products? Well, pretty much every state taxes alcohol, cigarettes, and gas…and if cannabis is legal there they tax it, too. Alcohol taxes tend to be highest in Washington and lowest in Wyoming.^345 Cigarette taxes tend to be highest in New York and lowest in Missouri.^6 Gas taxes are highest in California and lowest in Alaska.^7 Cannabis taxes also tend to be highest in Washington and also tend to be lowest in Missouri.^8 Oh don’t be fooled, cannabis sales generated nearly $256 million in tax revenue for Missouri last year alone. Regarding a balanced mix of ALL types of taxes, I believe Idaho, Indiana, and Utah do a pretty good job finding a sweet spot. What’s a unique challenge a state like Kansas has collecting enough taxes? Kansas is known for the infamous “Brownback tax experiment”. During Governor Sam Brownback’s term, income and corporate taxes were slashed. The state general fund in Kansas, what we use to pay for things saw a major depletion in revenue. The budget crisis got so out of hand that in 2017 the Republican majority legislature voted against their leader Gov. Sam Brownback’s to end the tax experiment. Kansas recovered from this experiment. However, in 2024, Republican leadership were able to cut income tax brackets down to just two. Legislators are continuing their efforts to create Brownback style tax cuts, leading to revenue shortfalls in 2026. Another challenge is overspending by the state legislature. Kansans may not know that while the Governor may send the legislature a proposed budget, legislators ultimately are the final decision maker on budget spending. The governor can line item veto certain things in the budget, but they can not veto the overall budget. -And now some words about a sponsor for this video- Sometimes we, unfortunately, have to give corporations our data. We’ve been looking at buying a new car and yeah, had to give some car dealerships our information, and yeah, now they WON’T STOP CALLING ME. But I hate to break it to you, every time you go online, giant corporations are also STEALING your personal data. And then data brokers are turning around and selling your personal data to ANYONE. Stuff like your address, your phone number, even your political beliefs and income level. But you wanna know one way I fight back. By using DeleteMe. DeleteMe proactively removes our home address, phone numbers, and family details from the internet. What I like about DeleteMe is that it sends you these personalized privacy reports showing what they found, where they found it, and what they DELETED. I’ve been using it for several years at this point and it’s done a really good job scrubbing my personal information from all kinds of messed up sites out there. Protect YOUR personal information and your family’s personal information with DeleteMe. And get 20% off DeleteMe consumer plans when you go to joindeleteme.com/mrbeat and use promo code MRBEAT at checkout (QR code on screen). That’s join delete me dot com/MRBEAT, code MRBEAT. #3 Democracy Which states are more democratic? No, I’m not talking about the Democratic Party. I’m talking about “democratic” with a lower case “d.” Well, first of all, Minnesota has the highest voter turnout. Hawaii has the lowest. According to the Cost of Voting Index, Washington most recently ranked number one as the easiest state to vote in, and Mississippi ranked as the most difficult state to vote in.^9 Indeed, states run elections, and each state runs elections differently. Still, most states have more in common than differences. Only three states- Alabama, Mississippi, and New Hampshire- don’t allow early in-person voting. All states allow mail-in voting in some form, but some are much stricter about it than others. These states (California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, and Washington) automatically mail a ballot to every registered voter. These states only let you vote by mail if they approve of your excuse for doing so. (Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia). 36 states currently require some form of voter ID in order to vote. In your opinion, how strict is Kansas compared to other states when it comes to voting laws? Kansas has some of the strictest voter ID policies in the nation. Photo ID is a requirement to vote here in Kansas. Recently, the Secretary of State’s office has been heavily focused on maintaining the voter roll and removing voters who are inactive. Kansas also has multiple deadlines for voter registration before both primary and general elections, as well as deadlines for mail ballot requests and returns. A ballot initiative allows citizens to propose new laws or constitutional amendments for people to vote on. A referendum allows people to vote on laws or constitutional amendments proposed by state legislatures. These 26 states have some type of citizen-based ballot measure process.^10 Kansas is one of 24 states that doesn’t have a statewide citizen-initiated ballot measure. How does that shape state politics, in your opinion? Honestly in my opinion it shapes a lot because the state legislature and local governments are the only ones who can put special questions onto the ballot. This is what happened in 2022 when we voted in a constitutional amendment that would have changed the constitution to allow legislators to ban abortion. In our neighboring states citizens can lead ballot initiatives, and Kansas citizens certainly have the spirit to do this for popular issues such as medical marijuana or raising the state minimum wage. With a 2/3rd majority vote, legislators can propose these constitutional amendments to rewrite our state constitution in their favor. They even can decide what election, primary or general, will carry these amendments. In the 2026 primary, Kansans will vote on an amendment that would politicize our Supreme Court. In the general, kansans will vote on amendment to ban non citizen voting in Kansas, which is already banned in our state constitution. Ok, how about after the votes are in? Most states allow counting ballots before Election Day. These 10 states require election officials to wait until Election Day to start counting ballots. (Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Alabama, Mississippi, New Hampshire, South Dakota, West Virginia, Indiana, Idaho, Maryland) #4 Judicial Appointments How do states get judges? Don’t worry, I’m not gonna JUDGE you if you don’t know this. 38 states use some form of election to pick at least SOME of their judges. There are generally three types of such elections: partisan elections, nonpartisan elections, and retention elections. In partisan elections, judges run for office with a political party affiliation listed on the ballot next to their name. These states do this.^11 In nonpartisan elections, judges run for office, but no party affiliation is listed on the ballot. THESE states do this.^12 In retention elections, a simple “yes/no” vote is applied to predetermined candidates appointed by the Governor from a list of qualified candidates. THESE states do this.^13 These eight states don’t elect any judges by popular election at all. (Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Virginia). Yep, judges in those states are all appointed. How do we pick judges in Kansas? Currently in Kansas our judges are selected by a merit-based process. They nominate 3 candidates, then the Governor selects one of the three. Kansans also vote on these judges through retention votes on the ballot. This process came about after a 1950s controversy named the “Triple Play”. The “Triple play” is known as a back room deal struck by at the time Republican Supreme Court Justice Governor, and Lieutenant Governor After the Governor lost the Republican primary while running for a second term and shortly before the newly elected Democratic Governor was to take over, both Justice William Smith and Gov. Hall resigned from their positions. After Lt. Gov. McCuish took over in the last days of the term, he appointed Gov. Fred Hall onto the Supreme Court. There was major backlash. At the time Kansas elected its judges, but that was changed to the merit based selection instead of partisan races. How might that change soon? The Kansas Legislature placed a constitutional amendment onto the 2026 August primary ballot that would get rid of this process and reintroduce partisan judges to the Kansas Supreme Court. While many other states who elect judges hold nonpartisan races, the 2026 amendment would allow judges to fully embrace partisanship and work with the state Republican or Democratic parties. It’s widely known that the state legislature beefs heavily with the state Supreme Court over their 2019 ruling protecting abortion rights and cases over funding education. The proposed amendment has been presented as a way to get rid of what top Kansas Republicans describe as “activist judges”. #5 Social Issues Social issues are where the “Two Americas” often really do show up. Ever since the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, abortion laws have varied wildly across the country. In THESE states, abortion is legal at any stage. In these states, it’s legal through the second trimester. In these, it’s legal through the 24th week since the last menstrual period began. In these, it’s legal before fetal viability. In these, it’s legal through the 22nd week since the last menstrual period began. In these, it’s legal through the 18th week since the last menstrual period began. In these, it’s legal through the 12th week since the last menstrual period began. I never thought I would say “menstrual period” so much in a video. In these, it’s legal before a heartbeat is detected. In these, it’s completely illegal. How about cannabis legalization? It’s a patchwork. Cannabis is currently legal for recreational use in 24 states and legal for medical use in 40 states. Idaho arguably has the strictest laws against it. How about the moral panic against transgender folks? States like Florida, Idaho, and Oklahoma have some of the most anti-transgender laws in the country. Wait Kansas? The day session started, legislative leadership scheduled a hearing with less than 24 hours notice on a bill that requires transgender Kansans to forfeit their licenses and reissue them with their sex assigned at birth. Using a controversial “gut-n-go” procedure, where lawmakers can skip bill processes by placing bill contents into other bills, lawmakers expanded this bill to include a “bathroom bounty”. Now, any person who believes another Kansan is using the incorrect bathroom can sue that person for money, while also allowing the Attorney General to investigate as well. After passing it made national headlines everywhere as it is one of the most extreme anti-trans laws in the nation. 27 states still have the death penalty on the books. Man, Florida….man…has been leading the way with executions lately….they carried out 19 in 2025 alone, nearly 40% of the national total. #6 The Economy Probably no surprise here, but the states with the most people tend to have the biggest economies. California, Texas, New York, and Florida…or the Big Four, as I tend to call them, are the only states in the country with an annual GDP exceeding $1.5 trillion. In fact, if California was an independent country, it’d have the 5th biggest economy in the world. Vermont has the lowest annual GDP. But GDP sucks…as an economic metric. How about GDP per capita? Well, New York and Massachusetts win there. And Mississippi and West Virginia are at the very bottom. How about median household income? Maryland and Massachusetts once again win there. And uh…yeah…sadly Mississippi and West Virginia both once again at the bottom. But cost of living, eh? Ok, now Mississippi and West Virginia don’t look as bad. Mississippi and Oklahoma both are the most affordable states to live in, while Hawaii and Massachusetts are the most expensive states to live in. Washington currently has the country’s highest minimum wage at $17.13 while 20 states have the same minimum wage as the federal minimum wage. Nearly $10 an hour difference is kind of crazy. 26 states have “Right to Work” laws, which say workers don’t have to be a member of a labor union. How about the social safety net? Massachusetts and Minnesota lead the country with higher spending on public welfare programs such as unemployment and childcare benefits. At the bottom? States like Mississippi and Alabama. 40 states have expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. These 10 states (Texas, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Wyoming, Wisconsin) do not, although Wisconsin doesn’t have a coverage gap because it lets all adults going through poverty enroll. Maybe speak to what has gone on in Kansas in recent years with Medicaid expansion. Long story short, nothing. Kansas is one of the few states that rejects federal funding for healthcare and refuses to expand medicaid. Medicaid expansion is broadly popular among Kansans and was a top priority for Governor Laura Kelly. However, this must go through the state legislature, where leaders House Speaker Daniel Hawkins and Senate President Ty Masterson refuse to hold a vote on expansion. And speaking of poverty…. Louisiana has the highest poverty rate and New Hampshire has the lowest. #7 Education That’s freaking right. States control most K through 12 education policy, and the vast majority of the funding they use for public education comes from state and local taxes. Some states lean into school choice, pursuing options like vouchers, Education Savings Accounts, or charter schools. Other states focus more on traditional public schools. Basically, the darker the shade of red the state is on this map, the more school choice options the state tends to have.^14 The darker the shade on THIS map, the higher the teacher is paid.^15 And what do you know, Missouri and Mississippi are both facing significant teacher shortages right now. Go figure! New York spends more per student than any other state ($31,629 per year). Idaho spends the least amount ($11,056). Dang, what a difference. But that doesn’t mean Idaho has the worst education system. New Mexico often ranks dead last in both reading and math proficiency, and also has the highest dropout rates. Massachusetts often ranks first when it comes to those things. In general, it’s much more difficult to graduate in the Northeastern states. These states also, along with California, tend to have the highest investment in special education. You might be surprised to learn that each state has wildly different curriculum standards. You got states like Texas and their “Texas Exceptionalism” emphasis, in which they’re learning Texas history in 4th grade and then again in 7th grade. That’s two full years of just Texas history, man.^16 Utah and Ohio make you take a stand-alone course in financial literacy, which I’m personally a fan of. Eight states (Alaska, Delaware, Kansas, Maine, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wyoming) don’t require a civics or government course in order to graduate high school, which I’m personally NOT a fan of.^17 What are some trends over the past few years that you’ve noticed with education funding and programs in Kansas? In Kansas, funding and specifically special education funding is a yearly debate as educators fight for the legislature to fund schools to the required amount. Legislators have also been more involved in day to day operations as they’ve began to require parents permission for students to protest and banning cellphones in classrooms. #8 Religion Sure, most Americans are Christian, but what kind of Christian? Often when we look at this type of information, it’s better to look at a county map, so…uh…yeah…you’re looking at a county map right now. Unless you’re NOT looking! Come on, Millie Bobby Brown, look! I got lots of great maps. As you can see on this map, there are a lot of Baptists in the South, a lot of Catholics in the Southwest, and a lot of Lutherans in the Northern Midwest.^18 his map shows religious diversity in the United States. The darker the county, the more different types of religion within each county.^19 This map shows the most and least religious states. The darker the color, the more religious the state.^20 In case you’re wondering, Vermont is the least religious state and Mississippi is the most religious state. And finally, this map shows the percentage of atheists in each state. The darker the state, the more atheists in each state.^21 If you were to guess the religiosity of Kansas in terms of ranks, what would you guess? #9 Environment While the federal government regulates the land and water of every state, some states, like California and Vermont, have even stricter rules. Hawaii and Vermont both have the most pristine air and water quality. West Virginia and Louisiana have the worst.^22 This map shows the percentage of renewable energy generated in each state.^23 Washington, Idaho, and Vermont all lead the way with renewable energy. Missouri, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Rhode Island are all way behind. The states with the most protected land are generally out West^24, and this definitely coincides with the states with the most FEDERAL LAND within their border.^25 Dang Nevada. BLMaxxing. Want to build something? There are generally less hoops to jump through in states like Missouri and Idaho and more hoops to jump through in states like California and New York. That doesn’t surprise you. Every state has to deal with climate change and national disasters, but which state has the most worries and which has the least worries? The most vulnerable state is probably Louisiana, which has a triple threat of sea-level rise, increasingly powerful hurricanes, and flooding. The least vulnerable state is probably Vermont. The darker the state on this map, the more homeowners were likely to face high financial losses following a natural disaster in 2025.^26 #10 Infrastructure When we talk about infrastructure, we’re talking about the basic things needed for a state to function property. Most people automatically think about roads and bridges when they think of infrastructure, but they should also be thinking about sidewalks, parks, dams, ports, airports, railroads, public transit systems, telecommunications networks, water supply systems, power plants, schools, hospitals, law enforcement agencies, fire stations….heck even banks to a certain extent. And, believe it or not, multiple reports have concluded that Nebraska has the best infrastructure in the country. Alaska seems to have the worst, but at least they have a good excuse. It’s the biggest yet least densely populated state, after all, filled with vast swaths of wilderness. And we’ll stop it there. I know there are plenty of other ways we can compare all 50 states, but we have to stop it somewhere, ok Ghostface Killah? So as I made this video, I made a spreadsheet to help me try to figure out what that most “average” state was. If a state was in the most average range in a specific category, I marked it. And so, based on which state got the MOST marks on that spreadsheet, I’ve determined that the most “average” state, at least in terms of how it governs, is Indiana. But sorry Indiana, Kansas is still the most mid. Thank you to Paris and Caitlyn from Loud Light for helping me make this video. If you live in Kansas, be sure to check out the excellent work they are doing by following their social media stuff that’s on the screen right now. I think it is. Is it? Yeah, it is. I can’t see it. Thank you Mr. Beat for collabing with us and working to spread the word on whats going on in Kansas. You can follow us on Instagram, Tiktok, facebook, and more to stay updated on what’s going on as Kansas heads into a major election year. This year Kansas will elect a new Governor, Secretary of State, vote on constitutional amendments, and so much more so stay tuned, stay engaged, and REGISTER TO VOTE! You should subscribe to my channel. And if you have already subscribed to my channel for a long time, you should consider becoming a Channel Member or Patreon supporter. And now it’s time for a shout out for my Patreon supporters who donate at least $15 or more each month to my channel. Starting with my biggest donors in alphabetical order, thank you to… Thanks to ALL my Channel Members and Patreon supporters, and thank YOU for staying curious! ____________________________________ ^1. New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U.S. 262 (1932) ^2. https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/state-income-tax-rates-2026/ ^3. https://www.thereflector.com/stories/washington-state-retains-its-status-as-state-with-highest-excise-tax-on-distilled-spirits ^4. https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/alcohol-tax-by-state ^5. https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/distilled-spirits-taxes/ ^6. https://www.tax-rates.org/taxtables/excise-tax-by-state ^7. https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/gas-taxes-by-state ^8. https://www.publicnow.com/view/B3878CA5AEBD70328601CDA91878B46A5BCD8262 ^9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_Voting_Index ^10. https://ballotpedia.org/States_with_initiative_or_referendum ^11. https://ballotpedia.org/Judicial_election_methods_by_state ^12. https://ballotpedia.org/Judicial_election_methods_by_state ^13. https://ballotpedia.org/Judicial_election_methods_by_state ^14. https://www.hoover.org/schoolchoicemap ^15. https://www.customwritings.com/blog/analytics-and-facts/average-teachers-salary-by-state-where-teachers-earn-more.html ^16. https://www.texaspolicy.com/social-studies-teks-reform-the-story-so-far/ ^17. https://www.hoover.org/research/state-civics-requirements-2024 ^18. https://www.usreligioncensus.org/sites/default/files/2022-11/Largest%20Religious%20Group%202020USRC.pdf ^19. https://www.usreligioncensus.org/sites/default/files/2023-10/ReligiousDiversity-Jones.pdf ^20. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/09/16/how-religious-is-your-state/ ^21. https://i.redd.it/6vpv3ouqxorz.png ^22. https://wallethub.com/edu/greenest-states/11987 ^23. https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/i4i8bl/oc_renewable_states_of_america_percentage_of/#lightbox ^24. https://cohesivefire.nemac.org/node/215 ^25. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_lands#/media/File:Map_of_all_U.S._Federal_Land.jpg ^26. https://www.newsweek.com/map-shows-where-natural-disasters-threaten-us-homeowners-2093080 Sources/further reading: https://ballotpedia.org/State_legislative_sessions https://www.multistate.us/charts/legislative-session-dates https://ballotpedia.org/State_legislator https://ballotpedia.org/State_legislature_candidate_requirements_by_state https://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on-the-federal-government/2700 https://taxfoundation.org/datamaps/state-maps/ https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/sales-tax-rates/ https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/property-taxes-by-state-county/ https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/state-corporate-income-tax-rates-brackets/ https://ballotpedia.org/States_with_gubernatorial_term_limits https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_turnout_in_United_States_elections https://spn.org/election-laws/ https://ballotpedia.org/Absentee/mail-in_voting_legislation_in_the_United_States https://ballotpedia.org/Judicial_election_methods_by_state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law_in_the_United_States_by_state https://translegislation.com/ https://www.hippo.com/blog/best-states-for-climate-change https://www.asce.org/publications-and-news/civil-engineering-source/article/2026/01/30/infrastructure-report-cards-reveal-similar-challenges-in-california-florida-texas#:~:text=State%20of%20California%20California%20is,moved%20up%20to%20a%20D%2B https://infrastructurereportcard.org/ https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/infrastructure https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/11/us-states-best-infrastructure-georgia-arizona-virginia.html Creative commons credits: James Brooks. 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