Explanation: During the US Civil War, the (eventually) anti-slavery North fought in order to keep the blatantly pro-slavery secessionist South in the US Union. In 1864, an election year, US President Abraham Lincoln chose a Southerner (in fact, the only Southern Senator to stay with the Union after their state attempted secession), Andrew Johnson, as his Vice President as a means of creating a wartime ‘unity ticket’, as Lincoln was uncertain of his own popularity at the time, and feared that the anti-war wing of US politics might eke out a win (Lincoln would win by a comfortable margin, in no small part due to the strongly pro-Union military vote, rendering his VP choice unnecessary).

Andrew Johnson and Lincoln shared very little other than a shared belief in the Union and a vague sense of populism. But the Vice President is a very do-nothing job in US politics. Outside of some very fringe scenarios, it’s a PR position.

… unfortunately, since Lincoln was assassinated, one such very fringe scenario came to pass, and Andrew Johnson became president in Lincoln’s stead. Johnson did not believe in secession, but he sure as shit believed in White Supremacy, and promptly reversed all the relevant orders given by Lincoln which had begun to unravel the whole sickened state of Southern society.

While the Radical-dominated US Congress of the time managed to fight him on many issues, the separation of powers meant that some pooches couldn’t be unscrewed - like Andrew Johnson’s unconditional mass pardons for Confederates.

We’ve been dealing with entrenched radical white supremacy ever since, especially in the South. By many views, it remains one of the most enduring and impactful issues of American politics to this day.

Lincoln wouldn’t have been perfect. But he would have done much more damage to the notion of white supremacy than Andrew fucking Johnson’s tireless defense of racism did.