Every president was.
They were human after all, correct?
Whenever I hear/read a discussion about so and so is a racist, coupled with: well, that’s how things were back then, I think about definitions. The way I look at it, and my friends and I have discussed, people can be prejudiced, bigoted, and racist, but not necessarily all 3 (unless one is a racist). Without looking at a formal dictionary, I would make the following observations:
Prejudice - aka: prejudging, having a set of beliefs (perhaps not so firmly entrenched) about a particular population (or race, if you prefer) of people; this goes back to early tribal thinking, a feature of being human, ingrained as part of our decision-making process
Bigoted - like prejudice, but goes markedly further by tying an emotional component to it; a population of people are not given a benefit of doubt; a population of people deserve scorn/mockery because of preconceived notions inherent to “those people,” bigots are not shy about their opinions
Racist - like bigot, but much more emotional component to it; actively discourages mixing of races, uses power to keep the other down; nothing but contempt for the other, and, the most important component, imo, a reasoning that actions toward the other are justified because of race superiority.
Admittedly, these aren’t the tightest definitions, but, I think, a good starting framework by which to make decisions. I also think they stand the test of time, so we don’t have to go down the rabbit hole qualifier of “as it was for their time.”
To tie all this to the thread: I don’t know much about many of these presidents, Lincoln, probably the most. I would never call Lincoln a racist. For instance, using the framework above, he would never advocate outright harm to blacks.
I wouldn’t call owning slaves a racist mindset either. Slavery was an institution, it doesn’t look/operate the same in all periods it is implemented. That being said, if the basis for such an institution is because the other is chattel and non-deserving of rights afforded to the non-slaves, then yes, we can agree that such an institution is racist.
I know very little of LBJ. I have the movie about him in my queue. That being said, I am no great fan of LBJ, but not because of any perceived racist attitudes, but because of his Great Society. I see him being paternalistic the way Lincoln was, but having to use the vernacular of his racist Congressmen of the South in order to get deals done. Nobody said politics was particularly clean or glamorous.
By that definition you’re right so it is consistent. I however, don’t think that you could, with very few exceptions*, own race-based slaves without at least implicitly accepting society’s views that that race is inferior. That is what I think of as racism, whether or not it has actions or emotion behind it, although both make the racism more likely to reveal itself.
*Exceptions being if you inherited your slaves and freeing them would literally put you in bankruptcy. Which wouldn’t make you not racist, you still probably would be, it just wouldn’t make you racist automatically, since very few people are willing to sacrifice so much for a principle.
I don’t see how that logically follows. You could think that all slavery is fine, whatever the basis, and are therefore unconcerned with whether the basis for this slavery is race-based or not.
Like Trump Kanye is a narcissist self promoter who can’t stand not being the center of attention. Kanye realized he opposed Trump he would just be one of thousands of black celebrities who have reached the obvious conclusion that Trump is a racist asshole, but by supporting him he can be in the headlines, and become the darling of the right wing media circuit, just like Yiannopils did to gays.
I think Harding was known to be generally sympathetic to blacks, but I don’t know how he felt about other ethnic groups.
I think OP may have a point, though; keeping in mind that there are different kinds of racism, that point at different groups, and occur in different degrees. The USA is loaded with racists of varying degrees, and politicians often share in those attitudes or act like they do.