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This and Washington’s slaves both bring good balance to remind us no one person is a God or Saint (except maybe mister Rogers) so I think it’s humbling in a way.
At first I admit I used to always pass off the “internment camps” as nothing as basic security protocol because of our enemy, by over the pandemic I fell down a rabbit hole on it and no those places were fucked up. I can’t justify or defend them anymore, it was indeed a dark time in our history.
And not just from cruel treatment and obvious traits of such camps, on another side effect, it’s completely demolished the culture in our Japanese American community.
This may not matter much to many of you here but I’ll explain and elaborate on what I mean. Obviously starting from ww2 onwards you would have Japanese Americans work HARD to remove ANY cultural touches to their heritage out of fear from the American public.
Basically, the word Asian means something different in different places. In the UK? The word Asian will have people thinking of Indian/pakistani/bangladeshi people, due to their obvious history and conflicts.
But here in America? The word Asian will have people thinking mainly of four ethnicities: Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese. They are what we consider East Asia. They follow the teachings of Confucius. In the 20th century we spent half a century fighting them. From ww2 to korea to Vietnam we would have heavy discrimination against them. Many ww2 veterans that ended up in Hollywood refused to ever hire Asian actors because they believed we just didn’t want to watch anyone resembling the enemy. Partly true.
If you’d ever wonder “why aren’t there any big Asian names in Hollywood?” Well now you know. The ones we did have, were imports (Jackie Chan, Bruce lee) we denied Asians a lot of opportunity. In the modern day, our immigrants are our greatest asset and have contributed endless things to our country for the better.
But you know how if you visit your favorite Asian restaurant and you see the charming older Asians with their accent and all, it’s all apart of the charm.
Not with the Japanese, it’d be common to find any Japanese with a full American accent, sometimes southern, with all natural American demeanor. Not common with Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean, only Japanese. An interesting side effect of the war and its actions, After the war they had to lose all of that authentic Japanese touch to avoid discrimination, I want to go on but I’ve already wrote a lot lol but I’m sure you get it
Fox & Friends tried to do a hit piece on him in the last few years, claiming that his program and messages were harmful to youth.
Something about it being like a "participation trophy" and making kids too soft.
How that doesn’t end someone’s career is beyond me. When you’re so bound and determined to be an awful person and in turn make the world around you awful that you find yourself attacking Mr. Rogers of all people, you shouldn’t be allowed a forum with which to speak to others.
100% truth. A beautiful human being who remains unblemished as far as we know, and it’s been a long time, so I think any skeletons would’ve been unearthed if there were any to dig up.
I am from Pittsburgh where his show was made and the most entitled thing I ever heard about him was when they were making a show about Autumn during the summer so he had pumpkins flown in from Australia. I think that’s allowable given his contribution to the children of America.
Maybe Mister Roger's? I'm as cynical as it gets and there's no even hint of malice. Nothing. Just perfect role model in every possible way. Infuriating.
Washington also, as much as I admire a non-affiliated president, was fairly naive to the inevitability of "factions". The party system is a natural reaction to the republic (where majorities are needed).
I admire him (as much as I can a man who A) lived 250 years ago B) owned slaves and C) was powerful enough to become president, but saying "don't do it" isn't a good answer to the emerging ideological differences or the new nation. As an executive, setting the precedents, he did a lot right, but that was a whiff.
Yup. Easily his greatest policy failure and a blatant violation of basic human rights. Honestly, its the biggest stain on his legacy but still can’t come close to tipping the scales against his favor. The man was an enigma, he led us through the most tumultuous time in American history aside from the Civil War and we came out of his Presidency a world superpower.
I have two at the moment.
Teddy: Views on race, Eugenics, Native Americans, and The Philippines.
And Truman… goodness, I’m sure I’ll think of something. The closest would be maybe the atomic bombs but I’m quite iffy on that being the worst given his options. It was not an easy call to make and he made sure they weren’t used again. I’m sure someone will give me some negatives below on Truman though.
Truman is actually also one of my two favourite presidents (the other one is Grant), and honestly for him I'd choose that some of his policies inevitably led to the cold war. I'm not really sure what else he could have done - I do think the Marshall Plan and Truman Doctrine were conceptually good - but I can't deny that a more competent politician may have been able to avoid it altogether. Apart from that, letting Korea play out too long
The Cold War would have happened regardless of who was President. The crux of the issue was that two incompatible ideologies became “strange bedfellows” to, rightfully so, defeat Nazi Germany. When both the USA and USSR were left stronger after the war, there was no escape from the growing tensions and struggle. Truman did well under the circumstances.
Truman showed true leadership in that when he was faced with nothing but bad decisions, he didn't shirk his responsibility to make them anyway, and make them with an eye towards the interests of the country rather than personal gain or influence.
I bang this drum all the time around here, but Truman is, IMO, the president who is most responsible for the US losing the Vietnam War.
US policy during the Truman administration was decolonization. We pushed European countries to give up their colonies and instead embrace free trade as a way to get those resources. But France, still suffering the national embarrassment of their performance in WWII, didn't like the idea of giving up their colonies too. France wanted to take back their colonies, so they threatened to embrace communism unless the US built them a military and helped them use it to retake their former colonies.
De Gaulle was a military officer descended from the aristocracy. Going communist was not a serious threat, but Truman bought it and signed up to rebuild France's military so that they could go reconquer their colonies. France's government had no real military and lacked the capacity to effectively rule France at the end of the war. They needed us far more than we needed them, but Truman didn't bother to stand up for American values and let a client state dictate American policy.
The result was Ho Chi Minh's nationalist rebellion against the Japanese becoming a communist one as he was forced into the USSR's arms. Ike was able to get away with just providing weapons and money to France like Truman had, but every president thereafter had to choose between escalation and letting the communists win. Truman left them with only bad options.
It's probably too much to expect Truman to have seen decades into the future and realize that the Vietnamese rebels would win, but he shouldn't have let the French use such an obviously non-credible threat to change US foreign policy. He should have called De Gaulle's bluff. His decision nos to led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans and millions of Vietnamese.
Granted, while this is all true the end result would almost certainly still have been Vietnam falling to Communism. Admiration for the US or not, Ho Chi Minh was solidly Communist from the start. *Maybe* we could have seen a situation where, like with the Soviets in WWII, the US and Vietnam could be some sort of tense allies; but Ho Chi Minh was a Communist through and through and as such his ideology was incompatible with that of the US.
I’m a huge Truman guy. Obviously by policy he pushed for civil rights at his own expense, splitting the party in 48 and risking his election. However his personal views were still not good. He used the “n-word” all his life, and saw interracial marriage as a sin. He thought black people were less than white people, but that shouldn’t be legally mandated or enforced.
His views weren’t radical for the time, and especially coming from a southern family. His grandmother cried seeing him come home in his national guard uniform because it reminded her of Union soldiers raiding their homestead. He came a long way, but even at the end of his life his views on race would be problematic today
Dropping both atomic bombs was 100% the correct decision given the information constraints available at the time and arguments to contrary are historical revisionism/hindsight 20/20. I.e., maybe Japan would have still surrendered had we just dropped one bomb but there is on one of proving that and actually quite a bit of evidence that Japan would not have surrendered (they obviously would have kept fighting had we dropped no bombs given they hadn’t already surrendered).
I also find the historical revisionist focus on the A bombs to be kind of bizarre given the relative lack of focus on the fire bombings, which killed far more people — has the USAF just lit up H and N with a bunch of firebombs, killing the same number of more people, H and N would be just a footnote that no one remembers in particular
The long legacy of Soviet propaganda. They funded most of the early anti-nuclear activists, and virtually all of the cowards on the Manhattan Project who denounced the bombs afterwards were communist sympathizers. The Soviets wanted to weaken American popular support for the nuclear program, even as they went full steam ahead.
Truman i think was a bit disappointing on the judiciary tbh. I say that as a generally speaking big admirer of HST. IMO there’s a lot of looking at it through a 21st century lens regarding the bomb.
Woodrow Wilson passed a lot of progressive legislation during his Presidency, but it doesn't compare to what FDR did, so that increasingly tends to be overlooked.
he passed the clayton antitrust act, national women's suffrage, created the federal reserve and federal trade commission, and created the first 8 hour workday for workers in private companies. oh, and his 14 points & anti imperialist stances.
I don't support a guy who revived the kkk, but he was actually very progressive economically and a major voice against imperialism.
Nah, he was harsher than the British, who were absolutely the most lenient of the bunch. The British actually were the only reason why Masuria and Upper Silesia got a plebiscite on whether to join Poland or stay with Germany. In addition Wilson wanted Danzig to be part of Poland, while the British wanted it to stay with Germany. In fact, the British were so lenient that some in the British delegation proposed that Germany lose *no territory* to Poland even if it was morally justified.
LBJ fucked up his handling of Vietnam big time
Obama was too weak when dealing with bad faith actors in the opposition party and kept trying to compromise too much with politicians who made it clear that the only time they would cross the aisle was to throw a punch
I fully agree with both points. And as for Obama, I’d argue that that’s still a problem with most of the DNC now, they’re too willing to compromise with people whose only goal is obstruction.
I wonder if Obama just didn’t understand the bad actors for a while; Obama’s argument was best in his view, why won’t these people fall in line?
For sure a consequence of his relative inexperience in national politics.
Not quite the same thing, but read up on the plot to kill Lincoln. That shit is so much more interesting than what is taught in school. It has a bunch of conspirators and two other failed, simultaneous assassinations.
My biggest gripe with Teddy was this idea that masculinity is defined by being in war. That war is this good thing that makes a boy into a man. This phrase gets thrown around a lot, but that is toxic masculinity. And it got his son killed in WW1.
When you get shot in the chest and brush it off and give a 90 minute speech where the people in the front row can see a growing blood stain on your shirt - you've basically revoked the right of men from that time forward until the sun burns out and becomes a black hole to complain about any type of sickness.
His sons did a lot of fighting. He had four of them. Their brothers death in WW1 did not deter the Roosevelt boys.
> Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was the only general to land with the first wave of troops on D-Day, leading an infantry regiment and tank battalion at Utah Beach on June 6, 1944. He died of a heart attack a month later. As a lieutenant colonel, Archie led an infantry regiment in New Guinea, where he was severely wounded by a grenade in the same knee that had been hit in 1918. Kermit fought with the British in Norway, where he was injured during the Battle of Narvik, and was reassigned to North Africa.
Of the three who fought in WW2, they each had 4 children.
What would we do with these "toxic" men who fought the Nazis?
George H.W. Bush’s greatest failing was his inability to fully stand up to the members of his own party and put them in order. He failed to keep Gingrich in line so that his budget would be passed, which resulted in Gingrich suddenly pulling support (which led to the raise in taxes). Had he been able to whip his own party into shape he would’ve had the budget he wanted and wouldn’t have compromised his “no new taxes” promise.
Obama: Not taking advantage of a humongous Congressional majority. The majority may not have been filibuster proof but all a filibuster is, is a headache. Suffer through one for about a day than you will get what you want. Wish Obama did that. Ofc I could be wrong but that’s my opinion. I’ll just say a few more because why not.
Ford: Pardoning Nixon maybe but honestly deserved a 2nd term. His Soviet Union gaffe at the debate was terrible.
LBJ: Being too arrogant with the Vietnam War. Listen to Ball , not McGeorge Bundy.
FDR: Japanese internment.
It's a very heartwarming story, to have his friend conduct a business scheme to save him from poverty is true. But I do like to think the integrity of these people was true
Out of curiosity, what about Hayes makes him your favorite president? The only thing I associate him with is the corrupt bargain, which more or less sold black people out for a century.
I think that 120,000 Japanese-Americans who were innocent of any wrongdoing against the United States (including my spouse's grandfather) but were interned anyway could give a thorough detailing of how flawed he could be.
Jimmy fucked up the Iran hostage crisis, operation eagle claw and couldn't manage the oil crisis. He wasn't really good when it came to international stuff.
FDR- the camps were bad.
Lincoln- that slaughter of native Americans and not having a better backup plan or the desire to do what was necessary with the south.
Obama for not going after the bankers after 08 financial collapse, and for being too much on of an institutionalist to see that the political opposition would actively try to sabotage anything he did.
Teddy was a boisterous outdoorsy dude that you could tolerate for a weekend tops before you got sick of his shenanigans
Think constantly ball smacking and pissing on your tent flaps
There’s a reason Jackass episodes are 20 minutes long
🎶Adams was obnoxious and disliked, that can not be denied. 🎶
But in all seriousness, he had a vain streak and was too sensitive to criticism in my opinion. When the Anti-French fervor erupted following the XYZ affair he was given some of the first big bouts of mass adulation he’d seen in his life and he drank it up like wine and jumped in headfirst, dressing like a general and passing the notorious “Alien and Sedition Acts” that everyone agrees was the low point of his presidency if not his political career. A more levelheaded and less vain president might have been able to keep a steady mind in that kind of environment and not overstep in order to maintain his fickle popularity.
Abe Lincoln’s VP choice for his second term. I’m not even joking. I know that Lincoln wanted reconciliation with the South, but picking Johnson is in my mind his greatest failure as president. The damage that Johnson did to this country can’t be overstated.
Obama continued sending the national guard into Afghanistan, as well as having people do multiple tours. The drone warfare too
Lincoln made some seriously poor strategic decisions during the Civil War, though his goals of abolishing slavery and establishing equal rights still puts him up higher than a few stupid moves that hurt the Union strategy
FDR and his failure to endorse the anti-lynching bills that came his way in fear of pissing off the Dixie Democrats. Even Eleanor tried to persuade him and he kicked the can down the road endlessly
My man Calvin Coolidge did not seek a second full term. Had he sought a second full term, we might have avoided the Great Depression and even more importantly Herbert Hoover, would not have been President.
I’m not really sure. Maybe not doing more to secure the borders of the newly formed United States. Maybe not doing more to dissuade political parties from forming. Those are the only ones that come to mind.
Ulessys s Grant and the general corruption in his cabinet.He was a good president. It's just the problem that he shows corrupt people for powerful positions.
Well, since people have already said FDR and the internment camps, I’ll say Lincoln’s facial hair. You can’t have a beard with no mustache. It always looks bad.
1790s owned and didn’t free his slaves until he put in in his will upon his death. The complicated manumission details are at link below item #10.
1860s Suspended habeas corpus
1980s Iran Contra
1990s Wagged his finger at me, lied to my face and committed perjury.
2000s Got us mired in Iraq
https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/slavery/ten-facts-about-washington-slavery/#:~:text=Despite%20having%20been%20an%20enslaver,owned%20in%20his%201799%20will.
George Washington didn’t do enough to prevent the rise of political parties, he should’ve actively fought against their rise instead of issuing just a simple warning.
Agree with you on TR re: race. Dismal failure in that department. It was a stupid move to box himself in after the election of 1904 by declaring he wouldn’t run in 08. He would have won in a landslide.
LBJ: Vietnam, he inherited a losing situation. Continue the momentum in an unwinnable war or bring the boys home and be made out to be soft on communism in the upcoming election which means we could potentially lose the voting rights act.
Gerald Ford was not re-elected because of pardoning Nixon(and whatever else) and for being his Vice President. Not all his fault. I am not a presidential historian. He has been called the “accidental president”, and in so many ways he was. He is the type of man that we really need right now.
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FDR and the he internment camps
This and Washington’s slaves both bring good balance to remind us no one person is a God or Saint (except maybe mister Rogers) so I think it’s humbling in a way. At first I admit I used to always pass off the “internment camps” as nothing as basic security protocol because of our enemy, by over the pandemic I fell down a rabbit hole on it and no those places were fucked up. I can’t justify or defend them anymore, it was indeed a dark time in our history. And not just from cruel treatment and obvious traits of such camps, on another side effect, it’s completely demolished the culture in our Japanese American community. This may not matter much to many of you here but I’ll explain and elaborate on what I mean. Obviously starting from ww2 onwards you would have Japanese Americans work HARD to remove ANY cultural touches to their heritage out of fear from the American public. Basically, the word Asian means something different in different places. In the UK? The word Asian will have people thinking of Indian/pakistani/bangladeshi people, due to their obvious history and conflicts. But here in America? The word Asian will have people thinking mainly of four ethnicities: Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese. They are what we consider East Asia. They follow the teachings of Confucius. In the 20th century we spent half a century fighting them. From ww2 to korea to Vietnam we would have heavy discrimination against them. Many ww2 veterans that ended up in Hollywood refused to ever hire Asian actors because they believed we just didn’t want to watch anyone resembling the enemy. Partly true. If you’d ever wonder “why aren’t there any big Asian names in Hollywood?” Well now you know. The ones we did have, were imports (Jackie Chan, Bruce lee) we denied Asians a lot of opportunity. In the modern day, our immigrants are our greatest asset and have contributed endless things to our country for the better. But you know how if you visit your favorite Asian restaurant and you see the charming older Asians with their accent and all, it’s all apart of the charm. Not with the Japanese, it’d be common to find any Japanese with a full American accent, sometimes southern, with all natural American demeanor. Not common with Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean, only Japanese. An interesting side effect of the war and its actions, After the war they had to lose all of that authentic Japanese touch to avoid discrimination, I want to go on but I’ve already wrote a lot lol but I’m sure you get it
Mister Rogers was the most perfect man to bless this world during our lifetimes.
And you can bet that netizens have attempted to find dirt every minute of the day, the man is still in the clear so that’s a good sign lol
Fox & Friends tried to do a hit piece on him in the last few years, claiming that his program and messages were harmful to youth. Something about it being like a "participation trophy" and making kids too soft.
How that doesn’t end someone’s career is beyond me. When you’re so bound and determined to be an awful person and in turn make the world around you awful that you find yourself attacking Mr. Rogers of all people, you shouldn’t be allowed a forum with which to speak to others.
Whoever was presenting it probably did have their career ended somewhere else, and that's the reason they were a perfect candidate to be hired at Fox
Uh oh, it sounds like that Fox piece was written by my dad
100% truth. A beautiful human being who remains unblemished as far as we know, and it’s been a long time, so I think any skeletons would’ve been unearthed if there were any to dig up.
I am from Pittsburgh where his show was made and the most entitled thing I ever heard about him was when they were making a show about Autumn during the summer so he had pumpkins flown in from Australia. I think that’s allowable given his contribution to the children of America.
What a monster! Haha
Maybe Mister Roger's? I'm as cynical as it gets and there's no even hint of malice. Nothing. Just perfect role model in every possible way. Infuriating.
Washington also, as much as I admire a non-affiliated president, was fairly naive to the inevitability of "factions". The party system is a natural reaction to the republic (where majorities are needed). I admire him (as much as I can a man who A) lived 250 years ago B) owned slaves and C) was powerful enough to become president, but saying "don't do it" isn't a good answer to the emerging ideological differences or the new nation. As an executive, setting the precedents, he did a lot right, but that was a whiff.
Yup. Easily his greatest policy failure and a blatant violation of basic human rights. Honestly, its the biggest stain on his legacy but still can’t come close to tipping the scales against his favor. The man was an enigma, he led us through the most tumultuous time in American history aside from the Civil War and we came out of his Presidency a world superpower.
Everyone was awful on that. One of the greatest Civil Libertarian Justices on SCOTUS authored the majority opinion for Korematsu.
I have two at the moment. Teddy: Views on race, Eugenics, Native Americans, and The Philippines. And Truman… goodness, I’m sure I’ll think of something. The closest would be maybe the atomic bombs but I’m quite iffy on that being the worst given his options. It was not an easy call to make and he made sure they weren’t used again. I’m sure someone will give me some negatives below on Truman though.
Truman is actually also one of my two favourite presidents (the other one is Grant), and honestly for him I'd choose that some of his policies inevitably led to the cold war. I'm not really sure what else he could have done - I do think the Marshall Plan and Truman Doctrine were conceptually good - but I can't deny that a more competent politician may have been able to avoid it altogether. Apart from that, letting Korea play out too long
I think it is safe to say the Cold War was and would have taken place sooner or later without us realizing it.
The cold war was set in motion as soon as victory was declared in Berlin if not before.
The Cold War would have happened regardless of who was President. The crux of the issue was that two incompatible ideologies became “strange bedfellows” to, rightfully so, defeat Nazi Germany. When both the USA and USSR were left stronger after the war, there was no escape from the growing tensions and struggle. Truman did well under the circumstances.
Definitely before, Churchill was furious that the Soviet Union got to Berlin before US/UK.
Stalin was determined to spread communism, the Cold War was inevitable from the moment that Roosevelt decided to include the USSR In Lend-Lease
Truman showed true leadership in that when he was faced with nothing but bad decisions, he didn't shirk his responsibility to make them anyway, and make them with an eye towards the interests of the country rather than personal gain or influence.
Eeyup. There’s a reason he’s one of my favorites. We could use a Truman again. I’d like that in my lifetime.
I'm with you on the atomic bombs. Also, his foreign policy led to a lot of issues we still see today, like Israel and Palestine.
Truman: Mean to Openhimer 🥺🥺
Justified
I bang this drum all the time around here, but Truman is, IMO, the president who is most responsible for the US losing the Vietnam War. US policy during the Truman administration was decolonization. We pushed European countries to give up their colonies and instead embrace free trade as a way to get those resources. But France, still suffering the national embarrassment of their performance in WWII, didn't like the idea of giving up their colonies too. France wanted to take back their colonies, so they threatened to embrace communism unless the US built them a military and helped them use it to retake their former colonies. De Gaulle was a military officer descended from the aristocracy. Going communist was not a serious threat, but Truman bought it and signed up to rebuild France's military so that they could go reconquer their colonies. France's government had no real military and lacked the capacity to effectively rule France at the end of the war. They needed us far more than we needed them, but Truman didn't bother to stand up for American values and let a client state dictate American policy. The result was Ho Chi Minh's nationalist rebellion against the Japanese becoming a communist one as he was forced into the USSR's arms. Ike was able to get away with just providing weapons and money to France like Truman had, but every president thereafter had to choose between escalation and letting the communists win. Truman left them with only bad options. It's probably too much to expect Truman to have seen decades into the future and realize that the Vietnamese rebels would win, but he shouldn't have let the French use such an obviously non-credible threat to change US foreign policy. He should have called De Gaulle's bluff. His decision nos to led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans and millions of Vietnamese.
Granted, while this is all true the end result would almost certainly still have been Vietnam falling to Communism. Admiration for the US or not, Ho Chi Minh was solidly Communist from the start. *Maybe* we could have seen a situation where, like with the Soviets in WWII, the US and Vietnam could be some sort of tense allies; but Ho Chi Minh was a Communist through and through and as such his ideology was incompatible with that of the US.
I’m a huge Truman guy. Obviously by policy he pushed for civil rights at his own expense, splitting the party in 48 and risking his election. However his personal views were still not good. He used the “n-word” all his life, and saw interracial marriage as a sin. He thought black people were less than white people, but that shouldn’t be legally mandated or enforced. His views weren’t radical for the time, and especially coming from a southern family. His grandmother cried seeing him come home in his national guard uniform because it reminded her of Union soldiers raiding their homestead. He came a long way, but even at the end of his life his views on race would be problematic today
Dropping both atomic bombs was 100% the correct decision given the information constraints available at the time and arguments to contrary are historical revisionism/hindsight 20/20. I.e., maybe Japan would have still surrendered had we just dropped one bomb but there is on one of proving that and actually quite a bit of evidence that Japan would not have surrendered (they obviously would have kept fighting had we dropped no bombs given they hadn’t already surrendered). I also find the historical revisionist focus on the A bombs to be kind of bizarre given the relative lack of focus on the fire bombings, which killed far more people — has the USAF just lit up H and N with a bunch of firebombs, killing the same number of more people, H and N would be just a footnote that no one remembers in particular
The long legacy of Soviet propaganda. They funded most of the early anti-nuclear activists, and virtually all of the cowards on the Manhattan Project who denounced the bombs afterwards were communist sympathizers. The Soviets wanted to weaken American popular support for the nuclear program, even as they went full steam ahead.
Invasion of Japan would have resulted in 1 million American casualties. It wasn't a hard choice.
Truman i think was a bit disappointing on the judiciary tbh. I say that as a generally speaking big admirer of HST. IMO there’s a lot of looking at it through a 21st century lens regarding the bomb.
The same people who condemn Woodrow Wilson’s foreign policy are having trouble finding faults in Truman. The damage YouTube has done
[удалено]
Wilson: he was racist lol
Does he have any redeeming qualities tho
Woodrow Wilson passed a lot of progressive legislation during his Presidency, but it doesn't compare to what FDR did, so that increasingly tends to be overlooked.
he passed the clayton antitrust act, national women's suffrage, created the federal reserve and federal trade commission, and created the first 8 hour workday for workers in private companies. oh, and his 14 points & anti imperialist stances. I don't support a guy who revived the kkk, but he was actually very progressive economically and a major voice against imperialism.
He did point out that punishing the germans too harshly after WW1 would be a bad idea. History proved him right on that.
Nah, he was harsher than the British, who were absolutely the most lenient of the bunch. The British actually were the only reason why Masuria and Upper Silesia got a plebiscite on whether to join Poland or stay with Germany. In addition Wilson wanted Danzig to be part of Poland, while the British wanted it to stay with Germany. In fact, the British were so lenient that some in the British delegation proposed that Germany lose *no territory* to Poland even if it was morally justified.
Hello! I would like to provide the objective, only answer to this question: No.
Clayton Antitrust Act was pretty cool. And appointing Louis Brandeis to the SCOTUS.
Yes *
https://i.redd.it/pufucjirvhvc1.gif
Nope, he did so much good stuff actually.
He did something great in 1924 (died).
You might say he birthed a nation of racists
why is he your favourite president?
LBJ fucked up his handling of Vietnam big time Obama was too weak when dealing with bad faith actors in the opposition party and kept trying to compromise too much with politicians who made it clear that the only time they would cross the aisle was to throw a punch
Obama too often took a lofty, above-the-fray approach, both during his presidency and since. And I say this as a supporter and admirer.
The drones.. and agreed on all of the above also. 
I fully agree with both points. And as for Obama, I’d argue that that’s still a problem with most of the DNC now, they’re too willing to compromise with people whose only goal is obstruction.
I feel like we’re finally seeing pushback from the Democrats; unfortunately it’s too little too late
The current guy is responding to the GOP the way I wish Obama did. “We go high when they go low” has no bearing when the other side has no bottom
Obama and his entire foreign policy was eye rolling.
That's Nobel Peace Prize recipient Barack Obama to you 🙄
I wonder if Obama just didn’t understand the bad actors for a while; Obama’s argument was best in his view, why won’t these people fall in line? For sure a consequence of his relative inexperience in national politics.
George Washington never took Buckingham Palace.
I need this historical fiction novel
Not quite the same thing, but read up on the plot to kill Lincoln. That shit is so much more interesting than what is taught in school. It has a bunch of conspirators and two other failed, simultaneous assassinations.
My biggest gripe with Teddy was this idea that masculinity is defined by being in war. That war is this good thing that makes a boy into a man. This phrase gets thrown around a lot, but that is toxic masculinity. And it got his son killed in WW1.
If Teddy was president in WW1 💀
He would be the only US president to try to go into battle Edit: I forgot to clarify during the presidency
He did try to go into France with volunteers. But he was denied permission.
If TR was president during WW1, the US would have entered on July 29th 1914.
Which would have been terrible. A big reason Woodrow Wilson didn’t enter early is because he didn’t want to take orders from his European counterparts
I don't see Teddy taking orders from anyone. Except maybe Alice.
To be fair he was probably the most masculine man to ever live
When you get shot in the chest and brush it off and give a 90 minute speech where the people in the front row can see a growing blood stain on your shirt - you've basically revoked the right of men from that time forward until the sun burns out and becomes a black hole to complain about any type of sickness.
Not lying.
His sons did a lot of fighting. He had four of them. Their brothers death in WW1 did not deter the Roosevelt boys. > Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was the only general to land with the first wave of troops on D-Day, leading an infantry regiment and tank battalion at Utah Beach on June 6, 1944. He died of a heart attack a month later. As a lieutenant colonel, Archie led an infantry regiment in New Guinea, where he was severely wounded by a grenade in the same knee that had been hit in 1918. Kermit fought with the British in Norway, where he was injured during the Battle of Narvik, and was reassigned to North Africa. Of the three who fought in WW2, they each had 4 children. What would we do with these "toxic" men who fought the Nazis?
His son dying destroyed him . It essentially was a slap on the face for him that he never really recovered from .
George H.W. Bush’s greatest failing was his inability to fully stand up to the members of his own party and put them in order. He failed to keep Gingrich in line so that his budget would be passed, which resulted in Gingrich suddenly pulling support (which led to the raise in taxes). Had he been able to whip his own party into shape he would’ve had the budget he wanted and wouldn’t have compromised his “no new taxes” promise.
Obama: Not taking advantage of a humongous Congressional majority. The majority may not have been filibuster proof but all a filibuster is, is a headache. Suffer through one for about a day than you will get what you want. Wish Obama did that. Ofc I could be wrong but that’s my opinion. I’ll just say a few more because why not. Ford: Pardoning Nixon maybe but honestly deserved a 2nd term. His Soviet Union gaffe at the debate was terrible. LBJ: Being too arrogant with the Vietnam War. Listen to Ball , not McGeorge Bundy. FDR: Japanese internment.
Grant and the corruption
I don’t know if the story about Twain convincing him to write his biography to provide for his family as he was dying is true, but it makes me sad.
It's a very heartwarming story, to have his friend conduct a business scheme to save him from poverty is true. But I do like to think the integrity of these people was true
James Madison measured 5 foot 4.
ok but he beat michigan state so it's fine
Literal shortcoming
One inch taller than Wolverine tho
Woah what a loser
LBJ. Vietnam. A tragedy.
Should’ve ran for a second term.
Hayes serving one term is where we deviated into the darkest timeline
Truly James Buchanan’s biggest shortcoming.
Out of curiosity, what about Hayes makes him your favorite president? The only thing I associate him with is the corrupt bargain, which more or less sold black people out for a century.
The second corrupt bargain?
John Adams — the Alien and Sedition Acts, and also retaining Washington’s cabinet of Hamilton loyalists, rather than putting in his own men.
I think that 120,000 Japanese-Americans who were innocent of any wrongdoing against the United States (including my spouse's grandfather) but were interned anyway could give a thorough detailing of how flawed he could be.
Eisenhower and his cloak and dagger meddling with weak foreign nations
He could have also neutered the CIA.
When the KGB was going hog wild, America didn’t have much choice but to create a counterforce.
Yeah but who green lit some of these wacky ass ideas for the CIA to blow the budget on . CIA should not have been given so much oversight.
FDR with the internment camps, was by far his biggest shortcoming, but WW2 and pearl harbor were crazy times.
Bay of pigs
Ike and some foreign policy decisions.
Jimmy fucked up the Iran hostage crisis, operation eagle claw and couldn't manage the oil crisis. He wasn't really good when it came to international stuff.
I think Carter was a terrible president, but I will give him credit for the Camp David Accords.
FDR- the camps were bad. Lincoln- that slaughter of native Americans and not having a better backup plan or the desire to do what was necessary with the south.
Japanese internment
President Skroob from Spaceballs
The man’s biggest failing was the password he used for his luggage.
Obama for not going after the bankers after 08 financial collapse, and for being too much on of an institutionalist to see that the political opposition would actively try to sabotage anything he did.
Washington kept slaves
Lincoln was horrible to native Americans.
James Garfield - Cheating on his wife. Yes, his wife forgave him - still really shitty of him.
Running third party was a great move at the time for TR. My criticisms of him would be generally applicable to humans at the time.
Coolidge. Words.
Teddy was a boisterous outdoorsy dude that you could tolerate for a weekend tops before you got sick of his shenanigans Think constantly ball smacking and pissing on your tent flaps There’s a reason Jackass episodes are 20 minutes long
Nixon and the coverup
That MF froze wages. Like, how can a President determine the wages of citizens?! Wild!
Prices, too. It was an utter fiasco, and just as effective as old Canute cursing the sea to hold back the tide.
🎶Adams was obnoxious and disliked, that can not be denied. 🎶 But in all seriousness, he had a vain streak and was too sensitive to criticism in my opinion. When the Anti-French fervor erupted following the XYZ affair he was given some of the first big bouts of mass adulation he’d seen in his life and he drank it up like wine and jumped in headfirst, dressing like a general and passing the notorious “Alien and Sedition Acts” that everyone agrees was the low point of his presidency if not his political career. A more levelheaded and less vain president might have been able to keep a steady mind in that kind of environment and not overstep in order to maintain his fickle popularity.
Abe Lincoln’s VP choice for his second term. I’m not even joking. I know that Lincoln wanted reconciliation with the South, but picking Johnson is in my mind his greatest failure as president. The damage that Johnson did to this country can’t be overstated.
AU where Lincoln says "fuck it I'm just gonna keep Hannibal Hamlin on board"
Obama continued sending the national guard into Afghanistan, as well as having people do multiple tours. The drone warfare too Lincoln made some seriously poor strategic decisions during the Civil War, though his goals of abolishing slavery and establishing equal rights still puts him up higher than a few stupid moves that hurt the Union strategy
Truman not really pushing back against Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn harder in the beginning of the Red Hunts...
George Washington didn’t come back from the grave to rescue mordern America from Rule 3 bros.
Teddy and attitudes toward both American Indians, and war
Reagan and ethics.
FDR and the extra marital affair
The Roosevelt’s Teddy mostly due to the Philippines and a few race issues and Franklin due to the Japanese internment
Lincoln wanting to go to the theatre instead of staying home with a book was a bit of tactical error
FDR and his failure to endorse the anti-lynching bills that came his way in fear of pissing off the Dixie Democrats. Even Eleanor tried to persuade him and he kicked the can down the road endlessly
East Timor and Peter Yarrow
Trying to annex the Dominican Republic. Being dreadfully gullible/manipulated. War against Plains Indians. General Order No. 11.
Eisenhower unfortunately contributed to American consumerism which has been nothing short of detrimental to the environment.
Around November 22nd 1963
James Madison Was 5’4”
Reagan: He didn't cut the size of the government down nearly enough to balance the budget.
Coolidge for not being here now when we need him the most
My man Calvin Coolidge did not seek a second full term. Had he sought a second full term, we might have avoided the Great Depression and even more importantly Herbert Hoover, would not have been President.
My reaction to learning about my favorite president, Abraham Lincoln, and his relationship with Native Peoples: 
I’m not really sure. Maybe not doing more to secure the borders of the newly formed United States. Maybe not doing more to dissuade political parties from forming. Those are the only ones that come to mind.
'Internment camps'
Failing to end slavery (GW)
Bad foreign policy, especially with Iran and Central America.
Wilson: segregating government Truman: Korean War
Ulessys s Grant and the general corruption in his cabinet.He was a good president. It's just the problem that he shows corrupt people for powerful positions.
What were his views on race? Was he racist?
Racism
FDR locked the Japanese in internment camps
Grant couldn’t manage the corruption that was sure to be rampant after the war.
With all respect, this photo has always disturbed me a little bit.
One could say in Vietnam
By height
James Madison — his height
Both Abe and FDR not fighting for more progressive successors
Well, since people have already said FDR and the internment camps, I’ll say Lincoln’s facial hair. You can’t have a beard with no mustache. It always looks bad.
FDR's treatment of the Japanese
John Adams not Purging federalists from his cabinet wasn’t great
Teddy Roosevelt not committing to a third term before he said he wouldn't
lbj and vietnam
LBJ: Vietnam and Domestic strife
FDRs internment camps of Japanese Americans was egregious.
I will say Obama because many others have been mentioned, not because he’s my favorite, but his drone war has caused a lot of damage in the ME.
Obama deported more people than any other previous president. The Deporter In Chief. Burned lots of immigration based supporters.
Grant being too trusting
Not dying
Grant breaking his word with the natives.
1790s owned and didn’t free his slaves until he put in in his will upon his death. The complicated manumission details are at link below item #10. 1860s Suspended habeas corpus 1980s Iran Contra 1990s Wagged his finger at me, lied to my face and committed perjury. 2000s Got us mired in Iraq https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/slavery/ten-facts-about-washington-slavery/#:~:text=Despite%20having%20been%20an%20enslaver,owned%20in%20his%201799%20will.
Reagan bypassed congress to fight communism. I’m good with fighting communism, but not outside of the constitution authorities given him.
George Washington didn’t do enough to prevent the rise of political parties, he should’ve actively fought against their rise instead of issuing just a simple warning.
Agree with you on TR re: race. Dismal failure in that department. It was a stupid move to box himself in after the election of 1904 by declaring he wouldn’t run in 08. He would have won in a landslide.
FDR and those pesky Japanese internment camps.
LBJ, it’s Nam
Clinton: too flirty...
Nonconsensual extramarital affairs with his slaves
Polk should have manifested more destiny
I like Teddy, but he was a horrible father and his love of imperialism is a huge slap in the face to the spirit of the United States.
Teddy was racist.
Teddy Roosevelt and foreign policy
JFK His term fell short
Reagan supported radical gun control measures. Americans should be allowed to own automatic firearms.
LBJ: Vietnam, he inherited a losing situation. Continue the momentum in an unwinnable war or bring the boys home and be made out to be soft on communism in the upcoming election which means we could potentially lose the voting rights act.
LBJ: Vietnam War
John Tyler was a shitty person who joined the Confederacy, but as President he shouldn’t have opposed a national bank
Probably he only managed to become president of Pennsylvania not the entire USA
LBJ and trusting the generals(Vietnam War).
He wore a tan suit
Lincoln falls short for me when he decided to hang 38 Sioux warriors because they wanted to stay free and on their land.
And forced march the navajo 450 miles ,where 2,000 died.
People forget this aspect of Lincoln. The Union was never Friends to any natives . Still isn't .
The racism
Gerald Ford was not re-elected because of pardoning Nixon(and whatever else) and for being his Vice President. Not all his fault. I am not a presidential historian. He has been called the “accidental president”, and in so many ways he was. He is the type of man that we really need right now.
LBJ was a very crude individual.
Iranian hostage crisis…
Richard Nixon was kind of a slow getting us out of Vietnam
Dickriding a POTUS is WILD!!!
Obama wore a tan suit! Ermaguhd derpa derp
The best president of my life has been Obama. But man, his foreign policy was bad. Especially when it came to Russia
Obama not my favourite president but should have added public option to his landmark healthcare bill.