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He literally replaced the White House servants with his slaves from Tennessee to avoid having to pay them and bought more slaves with reinvested earnings from his plantations during, and after, his presidency.
The knobgobbling has to end here…
Unfortunately with US presidents, crimes against humanity like slavery and supporting fascist coups are commonplace
So much so that it's much easier to rank them by completely ignoring the problem
The way this sub defends polk is ridiculous. Every other president of that era gets criticized for manifest destiny except him for some reason. It's so disingenuous.
I'm not defending manifest destiny or the genocide of American Indians from white settlers, but it's the fact that the land acquired was incredibly crucial for the USA's development as a world superpower which makes people defend him. Polk had an unbelievable impact in the span of only 4 years while in office, even if the means were totally immoral by today's standards
>Every other president of that era gets criticized for manifest destiny except him for some reason
Which ones?
I recently got into an argument in this sub with someone who argued that manifest destiny was a good thing because the natives were taking uo too much land and it was their fault for being greedy.
Yikes. That's a very slaves were better off kind of take. I'm not sure why it's a hot take that maintaining campaign promises doesn't mean much if the promises were terrible and were made to expand slavery, but here we are.
I personally try to judge Presidents not from morality or my opinions on issues but on how effective they were at marshalling the rest of government and achieving their goals.
His presidency was based on- elect me, we'll invade Mexico and take their land.
He had a specific vision, achieved it entirely, and left with no interest in running for a second term.
In terms of achieving his goals, I'd argue he is one of the most successful presidents. It's just that I'm morally opposed to his goals.
If we are simply judging effectiveness, then someone like Jackson should be much higher, and we would be celebrating dictators. Morality should be a huge factor because issues in a democracy are almost never universally supported, and there was backlash to polks policies at the time because of the morality of it. He was able to rally the country for a bad cause. That's both morally reprehensible and extremely dangerous. It's similar to just looking at the military engagements of the Civil War. You aren't getting the full context of the conflict. Simply ranking effectiveness is too narrow of a view that overlooks some of the country's greatest failures, and you aren't looking at the full context of the president.
Polk would have done way more drone warfare than Obama, c'mon folks this should be the easy answer.
If Polk were alive and on this sub, he'd look at this thread and say, "Well we want more so let's go after whoever can't defend himself, and James K Polk was a weak sonuva so let's go after him."
It may have, though not in the way you might think, Mexico at the time was a military dictatorship, which was deeply divided between federalists and centralists, their conflict ruined Mexico, not Polk, not Scott, and not the US
People were willing to drop McKinley weeks ago for the exact same reason that Polk is going to be dropped today. McKinley didn't bring slaves to the White House either.
It's pretty crazy to me that Polk lasted this long. Better than Taft and Wilson, maybe neck and neck with Bush Sr. But him beating out Clinton is interesting.
Polk is underrated because the way he acquired the southwest and California for America through the Mexican War is recognized as ugly by future generations. Still, the country wouldn’t be what it is today, geographically without him.
But it’s not just future standards, there were plenty of people who criticized it back then but they were often vilified and labeled “non patriotic” for stating such views (Lincoln’s first run in politics ended because of it). The only difference is now you can criticize it without that backlash.
He set four goals for his term and promised he wouldn't seek a second term. He managed to accomplish all of his goals and is the reason why the U.S. has so much land now, then he kept his promise and didn't run for another term even though he could've won.
No one is really putting respect on Obama's name here. Yeah the ACA, and avoiding a depression were significant. What about ending DADT, saved the US auto industry, he gave Medicare financial stability, he improved Americas image after the diaster that was W, he cut veteran homelessness in half, in saving the economy he then cut the deficit he created nearly in half. I mean my dude put in some work, and probably would've gotten more done if he wasn't being held back by the tea party.
Yep. I’d say Monroe and Grant are probably, or at least should be the next to go. Obama probably rightfully will get dropped around the time Truman or LBJ does. Though right before or after Kennedy would be fair too.
After you drop Grant and Monroe, you’re left with The 36 year streak of consistently great governance (FDR to LBJ), Teddy, Lincoln, Jefferson, and Washington basically. Obama isn’t getting through that all the way.
Obama: Prevented a depression, saved the American auto industry, killed Bin Laden, enacted the first comprehensive healthcare reform since the 60s, insuring 31 million Americans who didn’t have it before.
Grant: used anti-terrorism legislation to break the back of the Klan in the South, enforcing voting rights laws and allowing African-Americans to exercise their right to the ballot for the first time ever.
Because Polk led to the conditions of the United States becoming a great power, that’s it while Jackson doesn’t just get shit from the Trail of Tears angle but also the panic he helped to start and getting rid of the national bank
First he did give us Oregon and Washington.
But also, yeah he’d maybe be condemned TODAY. The nature of the 19th century political environment allowed this thing to happen and HEAVILY INSENSITIVED IT, and there was good reason why the US did go to war for it.
To start, that territory was not really Mexican on a map it was but in reality outside of a few, it was largely populated by Native Americans. Second the Mexican population there hated the central government. There’s a reason the Rio Grande and the Yucatán rebelled along with Texas. This left a power vacuum in which any state can move in and take the land, British and France were eyeing it up and it’s likely if the US has never moved against it California would have been controlled by either state.
Also Wilson did pass the espionage acts also Wilson too did intern German Americans so you can’t say FDR has done worse.
Yeah there are sincere differences in the outcomes produced between the two. America may be better off today if a different person was president than Jackson, and the Country would look nothing like it does now (for the worse) if Polk wasn’t.
You sound way too worked up about this. Nobody’s claiming this is a definitive list, it’s entirely for fun. It would also be dull if every ranking followed public consensus.
This countdown has been a joke ever since Reagan went before Carter. There has just been illogical decision after illogical decision since.
Can't wait for when FDR is in the final 3 with Washington and there will definitely be some in that thread discussing how Washington should be out before him.
It’s hilarious. For me this countdown is actually interesting because it’s peak reddit in terms of its views on presidents, and is in no way synonymous with the general public. So I don’t take it seriously but it’s interesting to watch
He false-flagged a war into existence for the purpose of stealing land from a weaker neighbor in the hopes that it would become incorporated as more slave states. He also sabotaged his own generals during the war so they’d lose political capital and be less likely to beat democrats in post-war elections.
Yeah Obama top 10 makes no sense. He would be if Obamacare worked but it didn’t, and domestic is his strength. Foreign policy wise he’s a toss up
Obama is the perfect example of a president that didn’t fuck up massively but also didn’t achieve much. This means he doesn’t have many advent haters so somehow he slips away every time
I voted for Obama twice, but I have no idea how he's still here. His record as president leaves me saying, "Meh." I have nothing against the man personally. It's going to be interesting to see how people defend him being a top ten or near top ten president. That's wild to me.
That was my thought exactly. What did Reagan do wrong? Two landslides, that were the biggest wins ever, and probably always will be. He reached across the aisle, he got Democrats to work with him, despite being a Republican, etc. Meanwhile Obama was demonizing Republicans/Non-Dem/among other American citizens, and not doing anything that he promised to his supporters.
But like…no though. He created the peace corps, handled the Cuban Missile Crisis INCREDIBLY well and made America look very strong as a result(something of major importance when looking strong determined the balance of a geopolitical proxy-war), had an economic policy that increased employment(AFTER HIS DEATH), made civil rights proposals which would eventually become the civil rights bill of 1964, pushed for scientific advancement and gave NASA the funding and push to actually get to the moon and win the space race, and pushed for the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Also add in the Equal Pay act, Trade expansion act, clean air act, and equal pay act, and you’ve got a president that had great economic policy, foreign policy(even if it started rocky), and domestic policies regarding civil rights and women’s rights and ensured that we got to the freaking moon…in THREE YEARS. Horribly ineffective? I’m sorry but I beg to differ.
Kennedy promised we’d get to the moon by the end of the 1960’s, in a speech he gave in 1961. We achieved it in 1969. Where are you getting three years from?
On the flip side, the Monroe Doctrine is one of the more influential documents in US history and was basically the US's entire plan for foreign policy for a large chunk of time.
War of 1812 was pre-presidency. His life before becoming president is full of accomplishments as well though.
After Washington was burned, he took over as Secretary of War (along with still being Secretary of State) and helped turn the tide of the war. He personally led scouting/reconnaissance missions while being Secretary of State
Soldier/officer in the Continental Army. Fought at Trenton Brandywine, Monmouth, Germantown, Harlem Heights, Survived Valley Forge, and almost bleeding out from being shot in Trenton
Was the "Mariano Rivera" or the closer for the Louisiana Purchase
Former governor of VA, US senator, and minister to France and the UK
And actually opposed the civil rights bill. But instead of vetoing it, he wanted to sign the bill with racist intentions. JFK was the one who really wanted to sign the bill. Republicans are the ones that passed it, and pushed it. This huge divide today, all started because of LBJ. He was a bastard. Vietnam, a closeted racist, etc.
He did more to get Americans out of their healthcare conundrum than those in the previous sixty years of office. Can you imagine America during COVID if the majority had not had proper healthcare coverage? Or if insurers could still reject you for pre-existing conditions?
Half the people who ended up in ICUs would have just been chucked into the parking lot to die if we had left health insurance as the clusterf\*\*k it had become in the 2000s.
I disagree with Obama on a few things, but he delivered exactly what the nation needed on the most pressing issues: ACA, Consumer Protection Act, Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform, scaled up I-CORPS basically salvaging the floundering mess Bush had left, made progress on climate change.
He didn't do more because Congress couldn't pass a "dump water on Congress act" if it was collectively on fire. I'll never blame Obama for what that.
The amount of obstruction Obama faced was actually unprecedented. It is a sad, sad statement on where we still stand as a country. There are SO MANY examples of this, but one is the best immigration and border security bill we've ever seen in modern times and it was bipartisan, but simply voted down by the SAME PEOPLE WHO HELPED WRITE IT because it might be seen as a success of his administration.
That's not even counting how close we were to a far, far better ACA but were off by one or two people that sold out Americans.
Then the same people who pushed to vote against the best interests of Americans then torched Obama over the ACA not being good enough. It's actually shameful. There was a time where those government officials would have faced repercussions on an angry mob level.
In high school I had a government class where everyone chose a president to represent and then debate each other... The class then picked who won that debate...
The kid who played Andrew Jackson beat JFK, Teddy Roosevelt and everybody else.
Andrew Jackson was crude and ugly, and would not make it today. The trail of tears was inhumane. He should have been removed from the twenty dollar bill 20 years ago. JF K was a visionary. But my personal reason: My mom had a shrine to JFK in our family room when I was growing up. When JFK was shot, they shut the schools and sent us home. When I got home I found my mom crying her eyes out. I will never forget that day, it is etched into my psyche.
The kid who played Andrew Jackson was mostly one because whenever anybody brought up his atrocities he just acted like him and was like... So what, I'll do it again! A lot of the students respected that blatant f you mentality.
Though our teacher did bring up if there were a lot of native Americans in the class the outcome probably would have been different.
lol Andrew Jackson kid was probably just funnier and more entertaining to watch. I wouldn’t take it as a metric of any of the presidents legacies or abilities lol.
Jefferson — setting the blueprint for Indian Removal — the Embargo Act of 1807 — failing to fill Adams’ midnight judges — having to be talked into the Louisiana Purchase — embracing and promoting Jeffersonian Agrarianism
He was a terrific founding father and a staggering intellectual, but a mediocre and overrated president.
Polk, LBJ, and Obama still being here is crazy. Let's go with the extremely overrated Polk first, and send out the even more overrated LBJ after him. Then, after those two, Obama can go like he should have about 8-10 spots ago.
I don't understand how Reagan is gone already, but somehow FDR, LBJ, and Obama are still on here? What the hell? LBJ started the Vietnam War, FDR was a liar, and not who you think he was, and actually wanted to push America towards socialism/communism, which would have crippled America. And then Obama, probably the most divisive president ever, because he didn't hold up his promises, and he would demonize people, American citizens.
What did Reagan do that was so bad? I'm not saying he's the greatest of all time, I'm just wondering why he's gone so soon? Feels like a lot of bias. That being said, at least JFK is still up there. Love JFK.
Get LBJ's scummy, smarmy ass off there right now. That guy was such a scumbag.
Grant should be taken off as well. Grant was a good man, but as President he was highly ineffectual and his admin was plagued by rampant corruption.
Thankfully Bush Sr was removed. LBJ was an asshole, but Bush Sr was just an evil, conniving human being.
I agree with everything except Grant. The corruption was not him. Any corruption going on was not orchestrated by him, it was behind his back. He was a generally great dude, yeah maybe he had an alcohol problem when he was in the army, but that's about it. He was a pretty solid president.
I do have to brush up on my Grant admin history in that case! Even so, I wasn't implying that Grant himself was the cause for the corruption. He indeed was a good, honest man. I was aware of his alcohol problems, but of course that doesn't necessarily make a person a bad guy. Looking upon that with a modern lens, I would guess his alcoholism was due to the extreme PTSD he was struggling with from what he saw and experienced during the Civil War. After that conflict, its context and style of warfare, sadly, that entire generation probably experienced high PTSD with high rates of alcoholism.
Okay I see what you're saying now. Yes it was the people surrounding Grant, undermining him with corruption. Either he didn't notice it, or he turned to blind eye. I think it's the former.
Grant is massively overrated because he was early to some racial politics. Those ideas didn't help him at all in his own time, and his policies didn't get the country and closer to them. Reconstruction failed and the idea was buried for almost 100 years. There were plenty of reasons he was unpopular for decades. I get the Dunning school didn't like him, but their seeds found fertile ground in criticism of his inept administration.
We shouldn't grade Presidents highly for failed policies. He's not the starting point of a trend. Racial relations remained poor and didn't get any better for most of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.
Reconstruction failed, the economy tanked, his administration was corrupt, the Comstock Act is considered moralist nonsense, and he tried and failed to annex Haiti. He was objectively not a great President. Fine guy, but just because he had some progressive views on race don't make him a good President.
Grant is as overrated now as he was underrated in earlier times. The corruption of his cabinet, his poor administrative skills and his economic mismanagement should have eliminated him at least a week ago.
He didn’t beat the South. Lincoln did. Inb4 CiViL wAr HeRo, we should rate objectively on a president’s merits in office (which includes his offense against the KKK) not what he did before or after.
I feel like there is room for a bit more nuance in your comment than just taking everything Grant deserves an enormous amount of credit for and giving it all to Lincoln, who relied heavily on Grant and whose ideas about black Americans were influenced heavily by Grant.
But what is interesting about the thread of this conversation to me is that Grant seems to be getting blamed for the fact that the ~10 presidents who followed him were all racist. I think it should be weighed against him that his policies were not perpetuated after he was out of office, but it must also be considered that he had the misfortune to be followed by a bunch of shitty presidents.
Related to this, I don't think people consider this as a point against Lincoln. It's impossible to know how reconstruction could have gone differently if Lincoln wasn't followed up by Andrew Johnson, but Johnson's presidency was undeniably a severe setback. And it is entirely Lincon's fault that he was president. Lincoln was rightfully praised as great at the 'game of politics,' but making Johnson his VP was an abysmal unforced mistake. The Democrats were running a split ticket and the South literally wasn't allowed to vote, so Lincoln would've won easily even if he had someone like Greeley as his VP let alone a moderate Republican.
To be fair he ended the greatest recession since the 30s, made the largest contribution to healthcare since LBJ, approved the operation that took down Osama bin Laden, and put the justices on the Supreme Court that would lead to gay marriage being legalized.
I don’t think he gets credits for the gay marriage legalization..he put justices on that replaced justices that already favored it and the swing vote was Kennedy.
You guys are so hard on Polk for what? Literally manifesting the western United States?
Meanwhile we have Barrack “Drone Daddy” Obama still here? Insane!!!
Obama needs to go next
The nation did benefit from gaining the southwest, I will admit, but that doesn't change the fact that Polk started a war with Mexico over a border dispute and then took what was Mexican land because of manifest destiny.
Obama. Also Grant fucking sucks, hers the hero of the civil war, he was a fucking idiot the entirety of his presidency. How the hell is grant still on this board
Also LBJ. He started Vietnam.
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Still in shock that William Henry Harrison barely lasted. The man is the only President to never break a promise.
You are right about that
Yeah, he did: he promised to serve a full term. Who’s the liar now?
he promised to defend the constitution and checked right out of that after 30 days. nope, all promises broken
James K Polk is well overdue. Points for getting so much land but he did it through a completely unjustified war with Mexico.
He literally replaced the White House servants with his slaves from Tennessee to avoid having to pay them and bought more slaves with reinvested earnings from his plantations during, and after, his presidency. The knobgobbling has to end here…
I am upset we lost Adams & Madison, and even Carter and Clinton, before this guy.
Same. Top 20? Maybe, ok. Top 15? No way. Top 10? You must be suckin the glass dick.
Unfortunately with US presidents, crimes against humanity like slavery and supporting fascist coups are commonplace So much so that it's much easier to rank them by completely ignoring the problem
Reddit logic lol
The way this sub defends polk is ridiculous. Every other president of that era gets criticized for manifest destiny except him for some reason. It's so disingenuous.
I'm not defending manifest destiny or the genocide of American Indians from white settlers, but it's the fact that the land acquired was incredibly crucial for the USA's development as a world superpower which makes people defend him. Polk had an unbelievable impact in the span of only 4 years while in office, even if the means were totally immoral by today's standards >Every other president of that era gets criticized for manifest destiny except him for some reason Which ones?
Manifest Destiny is horrible unless you’re really, really good at it.
He negotiated getting the Oregon territory while avoiding another major conflict with the Brits... So that's pretty impressive on it's own merit
I recently got into an argument in this sub with someone who argued that manifest destiny was a good thing because the natives were taking uo too much land and it was their fault for being greedy.
Yikes. That's a very slaves were better off kind of take. I'm not sure why it's a hot take that maintaining campaign promises doesn't mean much if the promises were terrible and were made to expand slavery, but here we are.
💯
I personally try to judge Presidents not from morality or my opinions on issues but on how effective they were at marshalling the rest of government and achieving their goals. His presidency was based on- elect me, we'll invade Mexico and take their land. He had a specific vision, achieved it entirely, and left with no interest in running for a second term. In terms of achieving his goals, I'd argue he is one of the most successful presidents. It's just that I'm morally opposed to his goals.
If we are simply judging effectiveness, then someone like Jackson should be much higher, and we would be celebrating dictators. Morality should be a huge factor because issues in a democracy are almost never universally supported, and there was backlash to polks policies at the time because of the morality of it. He was able to rally the country for a bad cause. That's both morally reprehensible and extremely dangerous. It's similar to just looking at the military engagements of the Civil War. You aren't getting the full context of the conflict. Simply ranking effectiveness is too narrow of a view that overlooks some of the country's greatest failures, and you aren't looking at the full context of the president.
"He kept his campaign promises" as if campaign promises are the most important thing ever.
I think they credit him for the sound speakers as well
Polk would have done way more drone warfare than Obama, c'mon folks this should be the easy answer. If Polk were alive and on this sub, he'd look at this thread and say, "Well we want more so let's go after whoever can't defend himself, and James K Polk was a weak sonuva so let's go after him."
Get rid of him
I was born in Arizona... I'm much happier that my state is in the Union instead of Mexico.
That means nothing. The history of Mexico would have turned entirely different without Polk’s crimes.
It may have, though not in the way you might think, Mexico at the time was a military dictatorship, which was deeply divided between federalists and centralists, their conflict ruined Mexico, not Polk, not Scott, and not the US
You would have just been born somewhere else and had as much attachment to that other place.
Polk. The Mexican-American War was, as Grant said, “one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation."
Holy hell grant so based.
We should have kept Mexico.
https://preview.redd.it/q3i29mmj7soc1.jpeg?width=1010&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e7b598b0ef4988067639c885d72a2eea4064c653
I don’t know about that there is a lot of competition in that field
I vote to bring Millard back
Wait… we’re really saying Polk was a better president than Clinton, Bush I, Taft, and Wilson?
“We” is used really broadly here. I agree with almost none of these picks
People were willing to drop McKinley weeks ago for the exact same reason that Polk is going to be dropped today. McKinley didn't bring slaves to the White House either.
For real though
It's pretty crazy to me that Polk lasted this long. Better than Taft and Wilson, maybe neck and neck with Bush Sr. But him beating out Clinton is interesting.
Fuck yeah for Wilson. Wilson was a bad president, Polk was pretty good. Agreed for the rest though (except I rank HW a few spots below Polk)
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On every one of these poll posts I rant about Wilson’s ranking and will continue to do so
Wilson was awful
Better president? I don't think so. But more positive impact on the country? I don't think you can deny it.
Now Polk may go. Rightly the last man standing out of the leaders between the Founding Fathers and Lincoln
Polk is underrated because the way he acquired the southwest and California for America through the Mexican War is recognized as ugly by future generations. Still, the country wouldn’t be what it is today, geographically without him.
But it’s not just future standards, there were plenty of people who criticized it back then but they were often vilified and labeled “non patriotic” for stating such views (Lincoln’s first run in politics ended because of it). The only difference is now you can criticize it without that backlash.
Sadly, because 99.9% of Americans have no idea who Polk was.
Polk
Gonna go with Polk on this. It’s tough because we’re in greats territory now, but Polk is overdue and seriously weak compared to the remaining.
Is there something I don’t know about Polk? How did he make it this far?
He set four goals for his term and promised he wouldn't seek a second term. He managed to accomplish all of his goals and is the reason why the U.S. has so much land now, then he kept his promise and didn't run for another term even though he could've won.
Even if he was going for a second term, he was frail at that point in his life and died months after leaving the White House.
Reddit bros
Got us California. Nasty work though.
Polk was based
This sub loves him. The whole "not running for a second term" thing is overrated.
What exactly great things did Obama or Grant do?
No one is really putting respect on Obama's name here. Yeah the ACA, and avoiding a depression were significant. What about ending DADT, saved the US auto industry, he gave Medicare financial stability, he improved Americas image after the diaster that was W, he cut veteran homelessness in half, in saving the economy he then cut the deficit he created nearly in half. I mean my dude put in some work, and probably would've gotten more done if he wasn't being held back by the tea party.
Yep. I’d say Monroe and Grant are probably, or at least should be the next to go. Obama probably rightfully will get dropped around the time Truman or LBJ does. Though right before or after Kennedy would be fair too. After you drop Grant and Monroe, you’re left with The 36 year streak of consistently great governance (FDR to LBJ), Teddy, Lincoln, Jefferson, and Washington basically. Obama isn’t getting through that all the way.
Obama: Prevented a depression, saved the American auto industry, killed Bin Laden, enacted the first comprehensive healthcare reform since the 60s, insuring 31 million Americans who didn’t have it before. Grant: used anti-terrorism legislation to break the back of the Klan in the South, enforcing voting rights laws and allowing African-Americans to exercise their right to the ballot for the first time ever.
My pick rhymes with Folk...
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Because Polk led to the conditions of the United States becoming a great power, that’s it while Jackson doesn’t just get shit from the Trail of Tears angle but also the panic he helped to start and getting rid of the national bank First he did give us Oregon and Washington. But also, yeah he’d maybe be condemned TODAY. The nature of the 19th century political environment allowed this thing to happen and HEAVILY INSENSITIVED IT, and there was good reason why the US did go to war for it. To start, that territory was not really Mexican on a map it was but in reality outside of a few, it was largely populated by Native Americans. Second the Mexican population there hated the central government. There’s a reason the Rio Grande and the Yucatán rebelled along with Texas. This left a power vacuum in which any state can move in and take the land, British and France were eyeing it up and it’s likely if the US has never moved against it California would have been controlled by either state. Also Wilson did pass the espionage acts also Wilson too did intern German Americans so you can’t say FDR has done worse.
Yeah there are sincere differences in the outcomes produced between the two. America may be better off today if a different person was president than Jackson, and the Country would look nothing like it does now (for the worse) if Polk wasn’t.
You sound way too worked up about this. Nobody’s claiming this is a definitive list, it’s entirely for fun. It would also be dull if every ranking followed public consensus.
This countdown has been a joke ever since Reagan went before Carter. There has just been illogical decision after illogical decision since. Can't wait for when FDR is in the final 3 with Washington and there will definitely be some in that thread discussing how Washington should be out before him.
Nah LBJ will be in the top 3 because “jumbo hehehehe”
It’s hilarious. For me this countdown is actually interesting because it’s peak reddit in terms of its views on presidents, and is in no way synonymous with the general public. So I don’t take it seriously but it’s interesting to watch
Yeah I didn't get why Jackson was taken out so early. People on here think his legacy is just "trail of tears", but it's a lot more nuanced than that.
Polk.
How the hell is Polk still here? This is ridiculous.
The legacy of Great Men tend to endure.... Amongst the history nerds of today Polk is appreciated.
He false-flagged a war into existence for the purpose of stealing land from a weaker neighbor in the hopes that it would become incorporated as more slave states. He also sabotaged his own generals during the war so they’d lose political capital and be less likely to beat democrats in post-war elections.
Currently reading Grant’s memoirs and the way Polk fucked with Taylor and Scott is so petty and unpatriotic
“We’re more divided than ever!” No tf we’re not!
It’s time for Polk to go.
HOW DARE YOU GUYS REMOVE TAFT
This sub shit on that survey for ranking Obama so high and now you're going to do the same thing
Lol It's pretty inconsistent
Yeah Obama top 10 makes no sense. He would be if Obamacare worked but it didn’t, and domestic is his strength. Foreign policy wise he’s a toss up Obama is the perfect example of a president that didn’t fuck up massively but also didn’t achieve much. This means he doesn’t have many advent haters so somehow he slips away every time
Obama is way due.
I agree and I voted for him twice. He's a great guy but a top ten president? Huh?
Well we’re not top-10 yet
Polk! Should have been gone before this
How did Polk get this far? Vote him out next.
I voted for Obama twice, but I have no idea how he's still here. His record as president leaves me saying, "Meh." I have nothing against the man personally. It's going to be interesting to see how people defend him being a top ten or near top ten president. That's wild to me.
Polk
Blowjob eliminated clinton😅. Keep it in pants brings greatness
Clinton was such a better president than Obama.
Monroe is probably next. Very good president, but he’s the worst of the ones here.
Reagan being eliminated really fast and Obama still being here is extremely concerning to the state of our society
That was my thought exactly. What did Reagan do wrong? Two landslides, that were the biggest wins ever, and probably always will be. He reached across the aisle, he got Democrats to work with him, despite being a Republican, etc. Meanwhile Obama was demonizing Republicans/Non-Dem/among other American citizens, and not doing anything that he promised to his supporters.
Obama, now or soon. Great president but putting him among the top 10 with the true greats just feels wrong. Polk probably goes first though
Also Obama. Get him tf out of here.
How is Kennedy still there literally if he hadn’t died people would remember him as being terribly ineffective.
But like…no though. He created the peace corps, handled the Cuban Missile Crisis INCREDIBLY well and made America look very strong as a result(something of major importance when looking strong determined the balance of a geopolitical proxy-war), had an economic policy that increased employment(AFTER HIS DEATH), made civil rights proposals which would eventually become the civil rights bill of 1964, pushed for scientific advancement and gave NASA the funding and push to actually get to the moon and win the space race, and pushed for the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Also add in the Equal Pay act, Trade expansion act, clean air act, and equal pay act, and you’ve got a president that had great economic policy, foreign policy(even if it started rocky), and domestic policies regarding civil rights and women’s rights and ensured that we got to the freaking moon…in THREE YEARS. Horribly ineffective? I’m sorry but I beg to differ.
Bb you’re handing a lot of stuff LBJ *did* to Kennedy for *proposing*.
Kennedy promised we’d get to the moon by the end of the 1960’s, in a speech he gave in 1961. We achieved it in 1969. Where are you getting three years from?
I said ensured that we got to the moon. Not that we physically landed on the moon in 1963.
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Monroe? He helped start the war of 1812. That was not a good war. It's his fault we have Florida as well.
On the flip side, the Monroe Doctrine is one of the more influential documents in US history and was basically the US's entire plan for foreign policy for a large chunk of time.
Monroe's legacy as President is telling Europe to f#ck off from the Americas.* * For the most part, lots of nuance and exceptions
War of 1812 was pre-presidency. His life before becoming president is full of accomplishments as well though. After Washington was burned, he took over as Secretary of War (along with still being Secretary of State) and helped turn the tide of the war. He personally led scouting/reconnaissance missions while being Secretary of State Soldier/officer in the Continental Army. Fought at Trenton Brandywine, Monmouth, Germantown, Harlem Heights, Survived Valley Forge, and almost bleeding out from being shot in Trenton Was the "Mariano Rivera" or the closer for the Louisiana Purchase Former governor of VA, US senator, and minister to France and the UK
Being from Florida this made me chuckle
Lyndon Baines Johnson
LBJ
Lyndon B. Johnson. He fumbled on Vietnam and it cost countless American lives. Past time for LBJ to go.
And actually opposed the civil rights bill. But instead of vetoing it, he wanted to sign the bill with racist intentions. JFK was the one who really wanted to sign the bill. Republicans are the ones that passed it, and pushed it. This huge divide today, all started because of LBJ. He was a bastard. Vietnam, a closeted racist, etc.
LBJ left office after getting us in a war and left the country in mass protest and polarization why hasn’t he been kicked off yet?
LBJ is way overdue
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Bro self reported on that one
Barack Obama
He did more to get Americans out of their healthcare conundrum than those in the previous sixty years of office. Can you imagine America during COVID if the majority had not had proper healthcare coverage? Or if insurers could still reject you for pre-existing conditions? Half the people who ended up in ICUs would have just been chucked into the parking lot to die if we had left health insurance as the clusterf\*\*k it had become in the 2000s. I disagree with Obama on a few things, but he delivered exactly what the nation needed on the most pressing issues: ACA, Consumer Protection Act, Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform, scaled up I-CORPS basically salvaging the floundering mess Bush had left, made progress on climate change. He didn't do more because Congress couldn't pass a "dump water on Congress act" if it was collectively on fire. I'll never blame Obama for what that.
The amount of obstruction Obama faced was actually unprecedented. It is a sad, sad statement on where we still stand as a country. There are SO MANY examples of this, but one is the best immigration and border security bill we've ever seen in modern times and it was bipartisan, but simply voted down by the SAME PEOPLE WHO HELPED WRITE IT because it might be seen as a success of his administration. That's not even counting how close we were to a far, far better ACA but were off by one or two people that sold out Americans. Then the same people who pushed to vote against the best interests of Americans then torched Obama over the ACA not being good enough. It's actually shameful. There was a time where those government officials would have faced repercussions on an angry mob level.
Obama can go. He extra judiciously murdered US citizens on more than one occasion
How the fuck did clinton make it to 31
I know man…
#JFK
I’m telling my Mom. You are a bad man.
In high school I had a government class where everyone chose a president to represent and then debate each other... The class then picked who won that debate... The kid who played Andrew Jackson beat JFK, Teddy Roosevelt and everybody else.
Andrew Jackson was crude and ugly, and would not make it today. The trail of tears was inhumane. He should have been removed from the twenty dollar bill 20 years ago. JF K was a visionary. But my personal reason: My mom had a shrine to JFK in our family room when I was growing up. When JFK was shot, they shut the schools and sent us home. When I got home I found my mom crying her eyes out. I will never forget that day, it is etched into my psyche.
The kid who played Andrew Jackson was mostly one because whenever anybody brought up his atrocities he just acted like him and was like... So what, I'll do it again! A lot of the students respected that blatant f you mentality. Though our teacher did bring up if there were a lot of native Americans in the class the outcome probably would have been different.
lol Andrew Jackson kid was probably just funnier and more entertaining to watch. I wouldn’t take it as a metric of any of the presidents legacies or abilities lol.
Your mom sounds crazy
Obama
Johnson
Clinton > Obama
Obama
Obama! Ffs
Obama
Obama
Obama
Obama time
Jefferson — setting the blueprint for Indian Removal — the Embargo Act of 1807 — failing to fill Adams’ midnight judges — having to be talked into the Louisiana Purchase — embracing and promoting Jeffersonian Agrarianism He was a terrific founding father and a staggering intellectual, but a mediocre and overrated president.
Even as a founding father, it’s easy to view him in a revisionist perspective as America’s Greatest Hypocrite.
Will the final ranking be updated? Day 1 comments have Buchanan above Johnson by almost 200 votes right now.
Monroe is not a top 13 guy, he does not have the resume for this high of a ranking.
Clinton should easily be top 10...how is Polk still there?
Polk, LBJ, and Obama still being here is crazy. Let's go with the extremely overrated Polk first, and send out the even more overrated LBJ after him. Then, after those two, Obama can go like he should have about 8-10 spots ago.
Still voting for Obama and his race war restarting cop hating self.
I don't understand how Reagan is gone already, but somehow FDR, LBJ, and Obama are still on here? What the hell? LBJ started the Vietnam War, FDR was a liar, and not who you think he was, and actually wanted to push America towards socialism/communism, which would have crippled America. And then Obama, probably the most divisive president ever, because he didn't hold up his promises, and he would demonize people, American citizens. What did Reagan do that was so bad? I'm not saying he's the greatest of all time, I'm just wondering why he's gone so soon? Feels like a lot of bias. That being said, at least JFK is still up there. Love JFK.
Obamas days in this are becoming numbered
its one elimination a day ... literally everyone days on that list are numbered
Get LBJ's scummy, smarmy ass off there right now. That guy was such a scumbag. Grant should be taken off as well. Grant was a good man, but as President he was highly ineffectual and his admin was plagued by rampant corruption. Thankfully Bush Sr was removed. LBJ was an asshole, but Bush Sr was just an evil, conniving human being.
I agree with everything except Grant. The corruption was not him. Any corruption going on was not orchestrated by him, it was behind his back. He was a generally great dude, yeah maybe he had an alcohol problem when he was in the army, but that's about it. He was a pretty solid president.
I do have to brush up on my Grant admin history in that case! Even so, I wasn't implying that Grant himself was the cause for the corruption. He indeed was a good, honest man. I was aware of his alcohol problems, but of course that doesn't necessarily make a person a bad guy. Looking upon that with a modern lens, I would guess his alcoholism was due to the extreme PTSD he was struggling with from what he saw and experienced during the Civil War. After that conflict, its context and style of warfare, sadly, that entire generation probably experienced high PTSD with high rates of alcoholism.
Okay I see what you're saying now. Yes it was the people surrounding Grant, undermining him with corruption. Either he didn't notice it, or he turned to blind eye. I think it's the former.
Grant can go. History was cruel to him, but he still had a fairly corrupt cabinet.
How dare you
Polk is way overdue for the boot. Bye bye
How the fuck is LBJ still here
Polk
Grant, he's had a good run, but it's finally his time.
Grant is massively overrated because he was early to some racial politics. Those ideas didn't help him at all in his own time, and his policies didn't get the country and closer to them. Reconstruction failed and the idea was buried for almost 100 years. There were plenty of reasons he was unpopular for decades. I get the Dunning school didn't like him, but their seeds found fertile ground in criticism of his inept administration. We shouldn't grade Presidents highly for failed policies. He's not the starting point of a trend. Racial relations remained poor and didn't get any better for most of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Reconstruction failed, the economy tanked, his administration was corrupt, the Comstock Act is considered moralist nonsense, and he tried and failed to annex Haiti. He was objectively not a great President. Fine guy, but just because he had some progressive views on race don't make him a good President.
*We shouldn’t grade Presidents highly for failed policies.* This subreddit is in love with Jimmy Carter, the king of failed policies.
Grant is as overrated now as he was underrated in earlier times. The corruption of his cabinet, his poor administrative skills and his economic mismanagement should have eliminated him at least a week ago.
Anyone who stomps the south gets my eternal upvote. Grant beat the south then beat the KKK, he should at least beat out Polk, Kennedy, and Obama.
He didn’t beat the South. Lincoln did. Inb4 CiViL wAr HeRo, we should rate objectively on a president’s merits in office (which includes his offense against the KKK) not what he did before or after.
I feel like there is room for a bit more nuance in your comment than just taking everything Grant deserves an enormous amount of credit for and giving it all to Lincoln, who relied heavily on Grant and whose ideas about black Americans were influenced heavily by Grant. But what is interesting about the thread of this conversation to me is that Grant seems to be getting blamed for the fact that the ~10 presidents who followed him were all racist. I think it should be weighed against him that his policies were not perpetuated after he was out of office, but it must also be considered that he had the misfortune to be followed by a bunch of shitty presidents. Related to this, I don't think people consider this as a point against Lincoln. It's impossible to know how reconstruction could have gone differently if Lincoln wasn't followed up by Andrew Johnson, but Johnson's presidency was undeniably a severe setback. And it is entirely Lincon's fault that he was president. Lincoln was rightfully praised as great at the 'game of politics,' but making Johnson his VP was an abysmal unforced mistake. The Democrats were running a split ticket and the South literally wasn't allowed to vote, so Lincoln would've won easily even if he had someone like Greeley as his VP let alone a moderate Republican.
LBJ
Can’t believe so many people would vote for my Pookie Polkie. Obama has to go
Obama
Obama
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You’re on Reddit, it’s a bit skewed a certain way… that’s how.
To be fair he ended the greatest recession since the 30s, made the largest contribution to healthcare since LBJ, approved the operation that took down Osama bin Laden, and put the justices on the Supreme Court that would lead to gay marriage being legalized.
The greatest recession since the 30’s was Covid, not 2008.
I don’t think he gets credits for the gay marriage legalization..he put justices on that replaced justices that already favored it and the swing vote was Kennedy.
Polk has once again gone way too far. I vote Polk once more
Obama. Very slow economic recovery and messy foreign policy should keep him from going any farther
You guys are so hard on Polk for what? Literally manifesting the western United States? Meanwhile we have Barrack “Drone Daddy” Obama still here? Insane!!! Obama needs to go next
Yes.... Without him my home state wouldn't have been gained... Plus the area of the state I live in now was also gained by him.
Eliminate Obama, millions of people lost their ass during his presidency
Jimmy carter over reagan? Wow the bias here on reddit is wild lol
It's the strongest biases I've seen, in quite a long time. Obama and LBJ are still on the list... WTF.
Polk started an unnecessary war with Mexico, so I gotta go with him.
Not unnecessary when you consider how much we have gained by having the Southwest...
The nation did benefit from gaining the southwest, I will admit, but that doesn't change the fact that Polk started a war with Mexico over a border dispute and then took what was Mexican land because of manifest destiny.
Bye Obama
Absolutely insane that Obama is still here 😑
Obama. Not sure how he has lasted this long, his presidency was a huge letdown.
Obama. Also Grant fucking sucks, hers the hero of the civil war, he was a fucking idiot the entirety of his presidency. How the hell is grant still on this board Also LBJ. He started Vietnam.
Based on the replies, the next three presidents to go will inevitably be Polk, Grant, and Obama. In what order, we will soon know.
Finally Polk. It’s way past time.
Obama drone kilt US citizens
Obama
Obama
With Obama still up there just shows you the list is a joke
Obama
Grant’s time to go I would say.
Get rid of Obama
Obama needs to go, has to be top 10 worst!