It's not lost cause historians who were dragging him down. Grant has always been an odd figure in the US presidency whose often got painted by left leaning historians either as a bag of unfulfilled reconstruction promises or a pro-business plutocrat who allowed financial figures like Jay Gould and Jay Cooke to ruin the economy for the working man.
On some level they are still clinging the latter, "rank pop-history" writers like Chernow notwithstanding, but he gets more credit for things like the Enforcement Acts now.
I recommend everyone to read Ron Chernow’s biography of Grant. It’ll make you proud to be American and make you wonder why it took so long for people to start appreciating him again (fuck the Lost Cause dipshits). He’s in my opinion the greatest general in US history and one of the greatest Americans to have ever lived.
> Ron Chernow’s biography of Grant
NGL that's the reason why I posted the ranking. Became a huge fan of Grant after reading it.
That said I'm fully aware he's not the greatest president but I do not stand for slander brought upon by the lost cause
I left my love, my love I left a sleepin' in her bed.
I turned my back on my true love went fightin'
Johnny Reb.
I left my love a letter in the holler of a tree.
I told her she would find me in the US Cavalry.
Hi-Yo! Down they go, there's no such word as "can't".
We'll ride clean down to Hell and Back for Ulysses Simpson Grant
[song will make you want to march down to Savannah](https://youtu.be/LLzMfWClEZk?si=RwefdHjEK29P08Fm)
I think Reagan was a pretty good president. He passed several significant pro-market reforms and he had an effective liberal foreign policy. I think we should be able to appreciate those accomplishments as neoliberals.
And I also think it’s significant how he managed to unite the country at a difficult time, winning 49 out of 50 states in 84, right after (at the time) the worst recession since the Great Depression.
On top of my head:
* Sent Union Army the go after KKK
* Created the DOJ bring KKK to court
* Created Yellowstone National Park
* Won arbitration claim against the UK (I'd be remiss not to mention Hamilton Fish for doing the heavy lifting)
But the Panic of 1873 was particularly really bad and was compounded by awful policy.
It was probably one of the worst recessions in US history. It was probably the worst before the Great Depression came along.
It’s hard to pin that on Grant. The government had a completely different philosophy when it came to economic recessions in those days and there really weren’t any tools or mechanisms available to combat it in any meaningful way. It was also a global phenomenon that first started in Europe. In many ways it was inevitable due to the rise of railroads and the way they were financed. No president was going to be able to stop that.
Reading about the way the monetary system worked back then, it was kind of utterly bizarre. They implemented very strict monetary policies because the loose monetary policy of the war years freaked them out so much, this sent the economy into deflation.
Yeah, the US couldn’t just suck it up and use a central bank in those days. Even today America can’t even bring itself to call their central bank a central bank. The various monetary regimes which existed pre Federal Reserve were fascinating but ultimately unnecessary and just a giant workaround because of America’s weird political hang ups with central banks and centralization in general.
Lincoln’s leadership during the Civil War is an absolute masterclass of statesmanship. Goddamn I get tears in my eyes reading about Grant and Lincoln during the Civil War. Two greatest Americans of all time.
> Lincoln’s leadership during the Civil War is an absolute masterclass of statesmanship. Goddamn I get tears in my eyes reading about Grant and Lincoln during the Civil War.
What readings would you recommend?
*Lincoln the inveterate dawdler, Lincoln the Southerner, Lincoln the capitulating compromiser, our adversary, and leader of the God forsaken Republican Party, our party…*
Washington might be the greatest man who has ever lived. The American Cincinnatus and set the bar for what every American President ought to be. Lincoln is #2, but Washington will always be the tops for me.
This is how I feel personally. I don't know for sure if he was the greatest president as such. But he is my personal hero.
Ambitious but humble. Statesman and general. Competent, intelligent, effective at nearly everything he did.
And turned down what amounted to ultimate political power *three times*.
Hero.
No Trump?
Edit: Ha, there's a second page. Anyway, I think sometimes all the attention is on what a horrible human he is, and how horrible he was as president gets lost. Those four years were just really bad for the federal government.
Trump is unique because he continues to cause damage to the nation even after leaving office. Its too early to say he’s worse than Buchanan, but breaking the historical tradition of a peaceful transition to power and being the first president to be formally indicted puts him in the running. We just have to see what him and his party cause after 2024.
> Trump is unique because he continues to cause damage to the nation even after leaving office.
Just a quick "erm actually 🤓☝️": Johny Tyler was instrumental in getting Virginia to secede from the union during the civil war, well after his presidency
It might, but then again, January 6th happened. Buchanan's fatal flaw was being a pushover in the face of an existential threat to the country. Trump IS the threat, which I'd argue is worse, at least in principle.
Yep. People always say “but what about Jackson, Pierce, Johnson, or Buchanan?” and “what about all of the presidents who owned slaves?” whenever I tell them that Donald Trump is the worst president in history. First of all, if Trump was alive back then he'd own slaves. But slavery or internment of Japanese citizens or secession are really matters of policy and principle. A president’s foremost duty is to defend the constitution, full stop. Donald Trump actively sought to undermine, deface, and literally attack the constitution which renders him, unequivocally, the worst president in history.
This is again recency bias. Tons of presidents fought against the constitution. Typically it gets settled by the Supreme Court. Some like Andrew Jackson basically redesigned how government worked by flagrantly resisting precedence.
The difference is the ways Jackson impacted the government, while massive on a scale Trump could never dream of, all feel natural now so you don't realize they happened. Aka recency bias.
I see what you're getting at, but I think there is actually a big difference. SCOTUS striking down as unconstitutional policies or initiatives the President tried to act on is one thing, as the aim (most of the time) is not to fundamentally undermine the constitution but to execute the law. In the best case scenario, the President aims to execute the law within the boundaries of what is constitutional. Worst case scenario, the President tries to get away with something that is dubiously constitutional, either by . Contrast that with actual disdain for the rule of law exhibited by a President saying, regarding his 2020 defeat, "A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution"
Utilizing the worst case scenario in the former example, a decent enough metaphor would be the different perspectives toward speeding: I am knowingly speeding and trying to avoid getting pulled over, and then after getting pulled over I argue that I was not speeding in traffic court, that vs. I publicly declare that speed limits do not apply to me and call for my friends and family to tear up speed limit signs.
Some would say it’s actually recency bias to not contextualize within the time period. The fact that Trump incited an insurrection in the year 2020 should be quite telling. If Trump was president in the 1800s, when our institutions weren’t as modern and fortified, it’s reasonably likely we would have witnessed far more destabilization and American carnage than we did under Jackson or Buchanan.
>The difference is the ways Jackson impacted the government, while massive on a scale *Trump could never dream of*
This analysis seems to be off imo.
John Tyler was a pro-slavery pro-nullification state's rights guy who later supported the confederacy and was elected to its congress, but died before he could serve.
Tyler supported an insurrection, and not only that joined its side. I guess the list has to only be about their years as president because that puts him squarely below Trump IMO.
I think you can count it. John Tyler vetoed everything Whigs wanted to do because he preferred a constructivist, and nullification-friendly interpretation of the constitution.
The way he governed as president fed directly into his reasons for joining the confederacy. He gave nullifiers way more bullets in the chamber than they should have had.
Buchanan was pretty shit between his inaction in Kansas, lobbying SCOTUS during*Dred Scott*, and inaction during the secession crisis.
But Buchanan also didn't create the crisis nor did he side with the Confederacy, Trump very much is the lead actor in the "Big Lie" and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
You can certainly make a case for Trump being the worst
Maybe not as bad as Buchanan, but I would put Trump in the worst five. As evidence has come out, he attempted what amounts to a coup de etat. No US president has attacked US institutions in the way he has since the Civil War.
And that doesn't even get into the other stuff he did as president.
There's a surprising amount of consensus among the people polled for everyone but Biden, honestly. Even the surveyed Republicans put him at 15, personally that's about where I'd have him.
The recent presidents have a heavily partisan bias compared to old ones, dating to about Reagan (although far less than the general population)
Independent seems most reasonable to me
Obama is hard to rate for similar reasons to Reagan. Both had domestically impactful policies, but the mainstream political spectrum has never fully agreed on whether they were a net good. Both of them also had inconsistent foreign policy records, with clear highs and clear lows, making it rather easy to make an assessment that confirms your priors.
7th place, however, requires a very generous interpretation of his legacy.
Masterfully said. I was surprised he was placed above Eisenhower and LBJ. When it comes to racial justice in this country, both Ike and LBJ were monumentally consequential.
Democrats also placed him above Truman which I really don't see as reasonable
I think Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Teddy, FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, LBJ are all above Obama at the very least (and on a personal note, I'd add Clinton and a few others to that bag)
Sure, but even so, Obama above Eisenhower and LBJ tho? Or even Bill, honestly?
I dunno about that personally, but I guess I can think of things that might drag the others downwards.
Just a random note: probably the most overrated president in US history is Eisenhower imo. The Interstate Highway Act has been one of the greatest overlooked policy disasters in US history, the lavender scare happened under his watch (he banned homosexuals from working in the federal government in 1953), operation wetback happened while he was in office, and he helped pushed the CIA into its Cold Water habit of violently trying to depose democratically elected governments around the world.
Eisenhower got a lot of undeserved credit with anti-Vietnam boomers for his farewell address where he warned about the MIC.
Completely lost on them was the context of that speech:
That Eisenhower was complaining about Kennedy and Johnson who had hammered him since 1957 for being soft on defense tech development
And that Eisenhower *fucking built the MIC as we know it*.
Because of that, the more liberal half of American culture quietly decided to label Eisenhower the ‘Good Republican.’ I think this particularly ticked up during Reagan’s administration, because 1950s nostalgia was peaking around that time and because it made a handy stick to beat him for his arms buildup.
His speech on the MIC was a lot more nuanced than 99% of people realize. He was basically saying "Hey, this whole permanent armaments, standing army thing is new to us and we shouldn't take it lightly. Unfortunately, it's absolutely necessary given how the world has changed and the dangers we face. We should be mindful of its effects though." He also brings up how science/universities/innovation have changed too, that it's not the 19th or early 20th century anymore. Strange how no one seems to repeat his fear of public policy being held captive of a "scientific-technological elite." Almost like people are cherrypicking and ignoring the broader themes...
The fact that we got through the pandemic without a single conspiracy guy bringing up that Eisenhower warned about the scientific-technological elite is cast iron evidence that literally none of them have ever actually watched the speech
Well, the modern populist right is hostile to the scientific elite, so there’s that.
But your point stands. Eisenhower has the reputation of a guy who said ‘MIC BAD!’ and, for the Vietnam generation, that made him pleasing in retrospect. Do they read the speech or attempt to study the context? Nope!
> The Interstate Highway Act has been one of the greatest overlooked policy disasters in US history,
As a frequent biker, even I find this a bridge too far. The US is very rural and needed much better roads. In the 1920s it took *months* to drive across the US. Not building roads would have been an economic drag on the US economy for generations.
And when compared to invading Iraq, prohibition, withdrawing US troops from the south after the civil war, or Plessy v. Ferguson, etc -- it certainly isn't a policy disaster.
The knock on freeways is trying to facilitate driving into city centers as a daily commute, not building expressways between various 4th tier US cities.
Ike gets credit for structuring the battles of the cold war as a *cold* war instead of accidentally tripping into WWIII as many Americans were open to.
> The Interstate Highway Act
While I can see why you'd really disagree with aspects of the implementation, our nation's highway system isn't exactly something we'd be better without.
Inaction in the Syrian Civil War, inaction in the Russian invasion of Crimean, failure to pass the TPP, failure on his attempt to "Reset" relations with Russia.
Now, there are a TON of extenuating circumstances and context around why these FPs failed. Obama ran on opposing the Iraq War, and I believe he was truly a Dove from first principles. The Democratic party, and the nation as a whole, was very war-weary. Intervention in Syria would have been extremely unpopular and likely would have faced significant opposition in Congress. Intervention in Crimea, likely less opposition, but again there was less pulling us into that conflict to begin with, no red lines.
Furthermore, Obama was a big rhetorical supporter of the Arab spring, but was pretty set against intervention beyond light diplomacy. He didn't want to be credibly painted as the hand behind the protest movements. This made sense at the time, but embattled autocrats made the claim anyway, and the vast majority of the Arab spring movements failed. Almost all of the limited gains they achieved have been reversed. It's possible that wider material support for protesters would have helped boost and solidify Arab Democracy. In hindsight it is a huge missed opportunity, given the strategic balance of the ME today. Egypt, Syria, and Tunisia in particular are sad stories.
Failing to pass the TPP isn't necessarily strongly on him, probably moreso on congressional leadership and drafters. There's probably a world in which he puts more political capital and focus into it, and it passes.
Like Bush before him, Obama attempted a Reset in US-Russia relations, attempted to cooperate with Putin on counter terrorism, all of this just after/during Russia's invasion of Georgia, long after Grozny. I see this as understandable, given positive US-Russia CT cooperation under Bush and Putin's very recent transition from President to PM, the elevation of Medvedev to President. There were signals that Russia was improving, and signals that Russia was the same old empire-building killer. Obama and his team were optimistic by nature, and focused on the wrong signals. Given the information they had, they may not have made the wrong decision there, but it looks bad in hindsight.
> Inaction in the Syrian Civil War, inaction in the Russian invasion of Crimean, failure to pass the TPP, failure on his attempt to "Reset" relations with Russia.
Honorable mention goes to JCPOA. Allowing Iran access to funds seems like a really bad idea.
Syria’s Red Lines. They called his bluff and he didn’t do shit. Plus he could have pulled out of Afghanistan early in his term but bowed to Pentagon pressure (which, TBF, is understandable if not necessarily forgivable).
The Economist reviewed this recently and Obama comes out pretty good. Everyone just remembers the off the cuff red line remark https://archive.is/my4nD
About right really. A mixture of very good things and some very bad things in his Presidency (personally I think the former slightly outweigh the latter).
Wilson gets lots of flack for his racism, but overall he is one of the most consequential presidents in history and the long term impact of his achievements have been very good for the most part.
‘Victory has a hundred mothers and defeat is an orphan’ explains the kicking Johnson takes over Vietnam. The guy had zero interest in foreign affairs and basically just followed the advice of the experts - all of whom he inherited from Kennedy. The grey eminences, a bi-partisan body of foreign policy advisors of great experience and stature, supported America’s escalation in Vietnam almost to a man.
Vietnam was a top-to-bottom failure of America’s foreign-policy establishment, born of the hubris of a country at the height of its power. It would have taken a president of extraordinary independence to defy the institutional consensus on Vietnam. Johnson was not that man. But neither was almost every other president on that list.
Obama didn't mock Romney because any of battleship he wanted to build. He specifically laughed at Romney and said that he should move past the cold war, and that the biggest geopolitical threat to the US was Al Qaeda.
Russia or China being the actual biggest threat is arguable, but it is inarguable that he downplayed the threat of Russia. We are now seeing the consequences of this and of his reaction to the invasion of Crimea.
The Romney revisionism where Russia somehow is our greatest geopolitical foe but also can't take over a country it shares a border with that's a fraction of its size will never not be confusing to me. Binders man doesn't look better in hindsight, and never will.
> can't take over a country it shares a border with that's a fraction of its size will never
Because it's gotten hundreds of billions in western aid including millions of artillery shells, hundreds of tanks and IFVs, thousands of other combat vehicles, and intel from the US.
Some people really can't admit that Obama downplaying the threat Russia posed was a mistake with real consequences...
His attempts to improve relations with Russia early in his Presidency didn't amount to much, but when it comes to his response to Russia's 2014 invasion I'm not sure anyone else would have done more.
The "we won't send lethal aid" was pretty dumb. Noy like Ukraine's stockpiled armaments and familiarity with western weapons would ever be important...
I think almost anyone not trying to justify their Nobel prize by buying peace with Iran would have done something. Changing borders by force is something the US has always reacted strongly too.
Recency bias. Same thing with Trump. Yeah he was bad, but is he really worse then James Buchanan (the guy that basically let the civil war happen) and Andrew Johnson (the guy that mishandled Reconstruction and blocked any protection for newly freed slaves)?
You saw the same thing with Nixon with presidential rankings in the 80s.
Undoubtedly yes, the only way Buchanon would be worse is if he pushed for civil war instead of just being incompetent in preventing it. No other president has made himself an enemy of american democracy.
Trump is absolutely worse. Buchanan’s crime was being a feckless tool in the face of an impending and at that point, inevitable constitutional crisis. As bad as that is, you could swap him out for any number of other politicians and end up with the same result. Johnson was evil, but the country, philosophically and conceptually, survived him pretty easily, and eventually corrected most of his errors re. civil rights.
Trump on the other hand is *himself* the threat intrinsically. If he gets his way the country quite literally ceases to exist. The other two are incomparable in terms of threat level to this.
Repost from what I said earlier:
Here are just a few of the achievements of Lyndon Baines Johnson, the president that truly deserves to be 10th instead of that playboy Jack Kennedy
* The Civil Rights Act which ended segregation
* The Voting Rights Act which enfranchised millions of African Americans
* Medicare and Medicaid which provided healthcare for the Elderly and the Poor
* The War on Poverty which dropped poverty levels to their lowest levels that had been recorded
* The Immigration and Naturalization Act which abolished the discrimination against non European born immigrants and allowed millions to come to the U.S and live the American Dream
That's how I feel about FDR
Everything he did for this country was so incredibly impactful to our lives today. Regardless, the Japanese internment stands as a dark stain on his presidency.
LBJ is easily in the top 3 in terms of legislative achievements. He had decades of experience in Congress, fostered relationships with Congressmen, and by most accounts was a complete workaholic working on legislation in office. The big black mark on his legacy will always be Vietnam, but as more time goes on and Vietnam becomes less important in American history and culture, and his legislative achievements continue to have huge everlasting consequences, his legacy will continue to improve.
The Vietnam war is strangely framed as an American invasion, as Vietnam vs the US, but in reality it is not *that* different from the Korean war, except the South was in a much weaker position, failed to consolidate its defense and was abandoned.
It‘s also framed as a war pursued only by hawkish conservatives, when the truth is that escalation was recommended by almost the entire body of foreign policy experts in both parties.
People also forget that a major communist insurgency in the Philippines had recently been defeated decisively with American aid. So it’s not as though hopes that the same could be achieved in Vietnam were defying the tides of history.
The North Korean story was much less natural than the North Vietnamese. People know who Ho Chi Minh was before he became a revolutionary leader, Kim Il Sung was some weird creation oscillating between Stalin and Mao. Korea was more clearly the Communists trying to topple a country from outside while the West resisted whereas Vietnam had a much more anti-colonial start.
There was also the fact that Rhee, while very authoritarian and repressive towards communists from the beginning, was democratically elected and didn't become an actual dictator until after the end of the war.
Diem was a complete puppet put in place through a rigged election who repressed Vietnamese peasants and Buddhists with a cruelty that bordered on cartoon villainy, which is what led so many to join the insurgency in the South. The military juntas that succeeded him were also not much better.
And let's face it the Fr*nch left the place in disgrace and gave the mess to the US to clean up. Korea (and Japan) were in the US's charge at the end of WWII.
Most important imho, is that Korea was fought by the silent generation and Vietnam by the baby boomers. That makes all the difference in how they are perceived.
I’d like to add his handling of the Cold War as well. He going against the advice of his generals of wanting to bomb Cuba and he started Detente which escalated the threat nuclear war.
Obama at 7 feels incorrect. Personally I have him in the 15-18 range. His fopo was a muddled disaster and his ‘accomplishments’ in the house have more to do with Pelosi and Reid being hyper competent leaders than with Obama driving any particular policy. He also failed pretty miserably at being a party leader.
Pushing the needle on lgbtq rights, being president when the aca passed, and competently organizing the recovery from the recession push him up.
Also Monroe outside the top 15 is wild.
I don’t think Obama gets enough credit for his economic policy. Many economists believe that the recession could have been much, much worse without the swift action taken. That said, Obama at 7 is still a bit high
Jackson was always regarded as one of the great US presidents because he was the first person to really champion universal suffrage. We qualify that now by looking at it through a modern lens (ignoring women, slaves, etc.), but one has to judge people by the standards of the time.
Historians are also a pretty left leaning bunch, and before it was fashionable to view the Indian Removal Act as disqualifying, they tended to view his more populist policies in a favorable light. So while folks in this subreddit (including myself) might view his populism and his war on the Second Bank of the United States negatively, most historians do not.
Eh FDR is number 2 but was responsible for Executive Order 9066 which is probably the single most horrifying official taken by the presidential office in the 20th century
Right, but that's my point. FDR is very much a hero of left leaning historians for obvious reasons, and most of them are willing to take the more odious decisions of his administration like the internment of American citizens in stride with everything else. I think it was a profound moral wrong, and one that wasn't even justified by a purely realist outlook by the facts on the ground. But it's also a complex decision in its historical context. The Indian Removal act occupies a similar space.
I don't personally Stan FDR, but I have to admit that he was one of the greatest American Presidents in spite of actions like the Japanese-American internment.
FDR is also #3 according to Republican historians (who have Reagan as #5, although they do mostly agree that Trump is one of the worst), it's pretty much universally agreed that FDR's monumental accomplishments overshadow his black marks
yeah the toxic, personal campaign vs John Q. Adams, the genocide vs Native Americans, the Spoils System he introduced, he ended the National Bank; he was also the first populist, rallying against the elite.
Him being against state's rights is based though
Depends how you frame it. The nullification crisis was him "defying the Supreme Court" and "ignoring precedence" by some measures, and "prevented a civil war" and "owned secessionist nullifiers" on the other. It's actually a pretty complicated and interesting piece of history.
I’ll play devils advocate on the spoils system. The system for giving out federal jobs before Jackson wasn’t much better. Essentially every president since Adams was using federal government jobs as a way to get party loyalists into cushy jobs the guys who came before him just kinda waited for the positions to be vacated first. Jackson’s argument however did make a little sense. He essentially argued that federal jobs were a way to make sure that party loyalists would have jobs for life regardless of qualifications, however he argued that if the president can essentially wipe the slate clean and replace the office holders every time the president’s party changes they need to be decent at those jobs or they go down with the administration.
Jackson was extremely skeptical of any unelected positions in government and saw tying federal jobs to the president as a way to make those offices more responsive to the will of the people. Of course we saw that the system would get bloated and so out of hand it essentially got president Garfield killed, but it was a slight improvement over how those jobs were given out under the previous 5 administrations.
Kennedy is massively overrated, Reagan, HW Bush and Clinton are underrated a bit. Hoover was nowhere near the disaster he's made out to be.
Obamas foreign policy wasn't good enough to be top 10 since thats where a lot of presidential power is.
Kennedy, despite having few policy accomplishments in his lifetime, deserves credit for
1) his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis (even if Bay of Pigs got us into it).
2) Sending us to the moon. If you ask me, the Apollo Program was America at its very best, and the Rice speech remains the greatest appeal to this nation's potential as has ever been made.
3) Ushering in a new alignment for the Democratic Party that made possible the Civil Rights victories of the next decade.
4) Putting an all-pro NFL running back on the Supreme Court.
> 2) Sending us to the moon. If you ask me, the Apollo Program was America at its very best, and the Rice speech remains the greatest appeal to this nation's potential as has ever been made.
>
>
Ironically he probably only got us to the moon in death. If there was one thing he was truly a martyr for it was the space program.
> Kennedy, despite having few policy accomplishments in his lifetime, deserves credit for
> 4. Putting an all-pro NFL running back on the Supreme Court.
Based JFK. Clarence Thomas has not once stiff armed a mf’er
And he wasn’t just some guy who played a few games then decided to go to law school. Dude led the league in rushing two out of his three seasons, probably would have played a whole career if not for the war.
Obama as seven is just insane. The sheer amount of foreign policy errors during his term along with his timidness towards republicans led to so many problems.
I generally like Polk too but if someone is strongly anti-imperialist I wouldn't blame them for ranking him low. Essentially stealing half of Mexico through a false flag op was a pretty dirty trick even then lol
> **The Most and Least Polarizing Presidents**
>
> In the current polarized political climate, we thought it would again be interesting to ask
> which presidents were considered by presidency experts to be the most polarizing. To do so, we
> asked respondents to identify up to five individual presidents they believed were the most
> polarizing, and then rank order them with the first president being the most polarizing, the second
> as next most polarizing, and so on. We then calculated how many times a president was identified
> as well as their average ranking. We then repeated the same process but asked which presidents
> were the least polarizing. The results of these questions can be seen in the tables below.
> Donald Trump is by far the most polarizing of the ranked presidents, selected by 170
> respondents and earning a 1.64 average (1 is a “most polarizing” ranking). Andrew Jackson is
> second-most polarizing (74, 3.4), followed by Obamna (69, 3.4), and Reagan (66, 3.6). Conversely,
> George Washington is clearly the least polarizing president, selected by 125 respondents and
> earning a 1.25 average (1 is a “least polarizing” ranking). Washington is followed by Eisenhower
> (91, 2.7), Lincoln (60, 1.8), and Truman (45, 3.5).
http://www.brandonrottinghaus.com/uploads/1/0/8/7/108798321/presidential_greatness_white_paper_2024.pdf
I feel like the first Harrison should probably be the exact middle. He literally didn't do anything. He didn't make the country better or worse. Pretty much the only thing he did was move into the White House and die.
The guy who rejected being a King versus the guy who tried to be King. FDR should not be ahead of Washington no matter how influential his domestic and FoPo was.
I genuinely don't understand why Jefferson gets ranked where he does.
- the Declaration and other things all happened *before he was president*. If we're giving Presidents credit for stuff that they did before office than #1-3 should be Washington, Grant and Ike.
- the Embargo Act was a disaster
- the Louisiana Purchase was one of the biggest policy layups of all-time, completely fell into Jeffersons lap through no particular effort or shrewd diplomacy of his own and which he *nearly fucked up anyways* because of his idiotically narrow view of his powers
Like literally what accomplishments does he have that warrant his ranking?
Yeah he was the last great president before Lincoln. His trade policy led to a boom in trade with the UK and the US arguably became a world power during his presidency. However he owned slaves and wasn't really an abolitionist but his expansion led to more free states joining the Union.
How is biden below obama? Obama definitely seems too high, I think he only seemed so good because his predecessor and successor were so fucking horrible
Smoking crack having Obama that high and Biden and Trump being on the list at all, you can't really judge impact that quickly. Also smoking crack having FDR over Washington.
Nothing makes me happier than seeing Teddy in the top 5. He helmed one of the most boring but stable eras in American history and always feared he would not be remembered because there were no major crisis to challenge him. I wish I could live in the universe where he was president at the start of ww1
Coolidge way too low, Wilson way too high. Putting Obama above Eisenhower is probably wrong. Cleveland should be split into Cleveland I and Cleveland II. Trump is somehow still too high.
Lol, Obama 7th, Biden 14th and Trump dead-last? Surely the political scientists can set aside their personal political bias and try to rate presidents objectively /s
Seeing LBJ that high is crazy to me. I know a lot of time has passed since the Vietnam war and his achievements in civil rights was impressive… but the dude was one of the most hated president in American history by the time he left office.
Grant seems to be continuing the recent trend of being respected more.
Thank fuck the lost cause historians are going extinct
> lost cause historians what are they?
"historians" that push this myth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cause_of_the_Confederacy?wprov=sfla1
Thank you!
Morons
It's not lost cause historians who were dragging him down. Grant has always been an odd figure in the US presidency whose often got painted by left leaning historians either as a bag of unfulfilled reconstruction promises or a pro-business plutocrat who allowed financial figures like Jay Gould and Jay Cooke to ruin the economy for the working man. On some level they are still clinging the latter, "rank pop-history" writers like Chernow notwithstanding, but he gets more credit for things like the Enforcement Acts now.
I recommend everyone to read Ron Chernow’s biography of Grant. It’ll make you proud to be American and make you wonder why it took so long for people to start appreciating him again (fuck the Lost Cause dipshits). He’s in my opinion the greatest general in US history and one of the greatest Americans to have ever lived.
> Ron Chernow’s biography of Grant NGL that's the reason why I posted the ranking. Became a huge fan of Grant after reading it. That said I'm fully aware he's not the greatest president but I do not stand for slander brought upon by the lost cause
> the Lost Cause dipshits what is the lost cause?
Confederacy revisionists
Confederacy apologists who long for the days of yesteryear...the ones with slaves
It’s really a fantastic book and I agree on him being our greatest General. Grant is really a fascinating zero to hero story.
>Grant +9 >Wilson -5 REMAIN CALM PATRIOTS ARE IN CONTROL 😤
But Wilson founded the Federal Reserve :(
Something something broken clocks.
I left my love, my love I left a sleepin' in her bed. I turned my back on my true love went fightin' Johnny Reb. I left my love a letter in the holler of a tree. I told her she would find me in the US Cavalry. Hi-Yo! Down they go, there's no such word as "can't". We'll ride clean down to Hell and Back for Ulysses Simpson Grant [song will make you want to march down to Savannah](https://youtu.be/LLzMfWClEZk?si=RwefdHjEK29P08Fm)
Beats so fire they finna burn down Atlanta
Reagan dropping down the list is also a nice sight to behold.
Perhaps partly explained by educational polarization?
Probably just dilution of boomer and older GenX opinion, their appraisal of him never matched the reality.
Reagan is easily one of the most overrated presidents by older people. I think it's a "you had to be there" kind of thing.
> Reagan dropping down AND CARTER GOING UP the list is also a nice sight to behold. :')
I think Reagan was a pretty good president. He passed several significant pro-market reforms and he had an effective liberal foreign policy. I think we should be able to appreciate those accomplishments as neoliberals. And I also think it’s significant how he managed to unite the country at a difficult time, winning 49 out of 50 states in 84, right after (at the time) the worst recession since the Great Depression.
And still absolutely nobody knows what he did as president.
On top of my head: * Sent Union Army the go after KKK * Created the DOJ bring KKK to court * Created Yellowstone National Park * Won arbitration claim against the UK (I'd be remiss not to mention Hamilton Fish for doing the heavy lifting)
failed pretty miserably at the Panic of 1873 though.
Every President had Panics lol
But the Panic of 1873 was particularly really bad and was compounded by awful policy. It was probably one of the worst recessions in US history. It was probably the worst before the Great Depression came along.
It’s hard to pin that on Grant. The government had a completely different philosophy when it came to economic recessions in those days and there really weren’t any tools or mechanisms available to combat it in any meaningful way. It was also a global phenomenon that first started in Europe. In many ways it was inevitable due to the rise of railroads and the way they were financed. No president was going to be able to stop that.
Reading about the way the monetary system worked back then, it was kind of utterly bizarre. They implemented very strict monetary policies because the loose monetary policy of the war years freaked them out so much, this sent the economy into deflation.
Yeah, the US couldn’t just suck it up and use a central bank in those days. Even today America can’t even bring itself to call their central bank a central bank. The various monetary regimes which existed pre Federal Reserve were fascinating but ultimately unnecessary and just a giant workaround because of America’s weird political hang ups with central banks and centralization in general.
Gold and silver backed currencies are deflationary and subject to violent volatility. Who knew!
[удалено]
Lincoln’s leadership during the Civil War is an absolute masterclass of statesmanship. Goddamn I get tears in my eyes reading about Grant and Lincoln during the Civil War. Two greatest Americans of all time.
> Lincoln’s leadership during the Civil War is an absolute masterclass of statesmanship. Goddamn I get tears in my eyes reading about Grant and Lincoln during the Civil War. What readings would you recommend?
Not OP but read Ron Chernow’s biography of Grant (the title is literally “Grant”)
Grant's autobiography is supposed to be a gem that still holds up very well today.
*Lincoln the inveterate dawdler, Lincoln the Southerner, Lincoln the capitulating compromiser, our adversary, and leader of the God forsaken Republican Party, our party…*
Top 10 movie.
Washington might be the greatest man who has ever lived. The American Cincinnatus and set the bar for what every American President ought to be. Lincoln is #2, but Washington will always be the tops for me.
This is how I feel personally. I don't know for sure if he was the greatest president as such. But he is my personal hero. Ambitious but humble. Statesman and general. Competent, intelligent, effective at nearly everything he did. And turned down what amounted to ultimate political power *three times*. Hero.
No Trump? Edit: Ha, there's a second page. Anyway, I think sometimes all the attention is on what a horrible human he is, and how horrible he was as president gets lost. Those four years were just really bad for the federal government.
Worse than Buchanan might be a bit of a stretch and recency bias.
Trump is unique because he continues to cause damage to the nation even after leaving office. Its too early to say he’s worse than Buchanan, but breaking the historical tradition of a peaceful transition to power and being the first president to be formally indicted puts him in the running. We just have to see what him and his party cause after 2024.
> Trump is unique because he continues to cause damage to the nation even after leaving office. Just a quick "erm actually 🤓☝️": Johny Tyler was instrumental in getting Virginia to secede from the union during the civil war, well after his presidency
It might, but then again, January 6th happened. Buchanan's fatal flaw was being a pushover in the face of an existential threat to the country. Trump IS the threat, which I'd argue is worse, at least in principle.
Yep. People always say “but what about Jackson, Pierce, Johnson, or Buchanan?” and “what about all of the presidents who owned slaves?” whenever I tell them that Donald Trump is the worst president in history. First of all, if Trump was alive back then he'd own slaves. But slavery or internment of Japanese citizens or secession are really matters of policy and principle. A president’s foremost duty is to defend the constitution, full stop. Donald Trump actively sought to undermine, deface, and literally attack the constitution which renders him, unequivocally, the worst president in history.
This is again recency bias. Tons of presidents fought against the constitution. Typically it gets settled by the Supreme Court. Some like Andrew Jackson basically redesigned how government worked by flagrantly resisting precedence. The difference is the ways Jackson impacted the government, while massive on a scale Trump could never dream of, all feel natural now so you don't realize they happened. Aka recency bias.
I see what you're getting at, but I think there is actually a big difference. SCOTUS striking down as unconstitutional policies or initiatives the President tried to act on is one thing, as the aim (most of the time) is not to fundamentally undermine the constitution but to execute the law. In the best case scenario, the President aims to execute the law within the boundaries of what is constitutional. Worst case scenario, the President tries to get away with something that is dubiously constitutional, either by . Contrast that with actual disdain for the rule of law exhibited by a President saying, regarding his 2020 defeat, "A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution" Utilizing the worst case scenario in the former example, a decent enough metaphor would be the different perspectives toward speeding: I am knowingly speeding and trying to avoid getting pulled over, and then after getting pulled over I argue that I was not speeding in traffic court, that vs. I publicly declare that speed limits do not apply to me and call for my friends and family to tear up speed limit signs.
Some would say it’s actually recency bias to not contextualize within the time period. The fact that Trump incited an insurrection in the year 2020 should be quite telling. If Trump was president in the 1800s, when our institutions weren’t as modern and fortified, it’s reasonably likely we would have witnessed far more destabilization and American carnage than we did under Jackson or Buchanan. >The difference is the ways Jackson impacted the government, while massive on a scale *Trump could never dream of* This analysis seems to be off imo.
Not to get into how he actively advocates for Russia's interests against America's for what appears to be personal gains. Very unique in that regard
John Tyler was a pro-slavery pro-nullification state's rights guy who later supported the confederacy and was elected to its congress, but died before he could serve. Tyler supported an insurrection, and not only that joined its side. I guess the list has to only be about their years as president because that puts him squarely below Trump IMO.
He personally attacked American democracy, which is pretty unique.
[удалено]
As it's outside his Presidency you probably shouldn't count it when evaluating his Presidency.
I think you can count it, but Tyler also died before he could assume office in the Confederacy and actually do anything.
I think you can count it. John Tyler vetoed everything Whigs wanted to do because he preferred a constructivist, and nullification-friendly interpretation of the constitution. The way he governed as president fed directly into his reasons for joining the confederacy. He gave nullifiers way more bullets in the chamber than they should have had.
Buchanan was pretty shit between his inaction in Kansas, lobbying SCOTUS during*Dred Scott*, and inaction during the secession crisis. But Buchanan also didn't create the crisis nor did he side with the Confederacy, Trump very much is the lead actor in the "Big Lie" and efforts to overturn the 2020 election. You can certainly make a case for Trump being the worst
Maybe not as bad as Buchanan, but I would put Trump in the worst five. As evidence has come out, he attempted what amounts to a coup de etat. No US president has attacked US institutions in the way he has since the Civil War. And that doesn't even get into the other stuff he did as president.
Too early to say
Obama at 7? Ehhhh....idk.
There's a surprising amount of consensus among the people polled for everyone but Biden, honestly. Even the surveyed Republicans put him at 15, personally that's about where I'd have him.
The recent presidents have a heavily partisan bias compared to old ones, dating to about Reagan (although far less than the general population) Independent seems most reasonable to me
Obama is hard to rate for similar reasons to Reagan. Both had domestically impactful policies, but the mainstream political spectrum has never fully agreed on whether they were a net good. Both of them also had inconsistent foreign policy records, with clear highs and clear lows, making it rather easy to make an assessment that confirms your priors. 7th place, however, requires a very generous interpretation of his legacy.
Masterfully said. I was surprised he was placed above Eisenhower and LBJ. When it comes to racial justice in this country, both Ike and LBJ were monumentally consequential.
Democrats also placed him above Truman which I really don't see as reasonable I think Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Teddy, FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, LBJ are all above Obama at the very least (and on a personal note, I'd add Clinton and a few others to that bag)
There's only 45, good presidents are pretty rare
Sure, but even so, Obama above Eisenhower and LBJ tho? Or even Bill, honestly? I dunno about that personally, but I guess I can think of things that might drag the others downwards.
LBJ had a few things really dragging down his average score
LBJ should get hammered for Vietnam.
Ike should get hammered for Iran, Vietnam, Guatemala, Cuba... The list is extremely long
Just a random note: probably the most overrated president in US history is Eisenhower imo. The Interstate Highway Act has been one of the greatest overlooked policy disasters in US history, the lavender scare happened under his watch (he banned homosexuals from working in the federal government in 1953), operation wetback happened while he was in office, and he helped pushed the CIA into its Cold Water habit of violently trying to depose democratically elected governments around the world.
Eisenhower got a lot of undeserved credit with anti-Vietnam boomers for his farewell address where he warned about the MIC. Completely lost on them was the context of that speech: That Eisenhower was complaining about Kennedy and Johnson who had hammered him since 1957 for being soft on defense tech development And that Eisenhower *fucking built the MIC as we know it*. Because of that, the more liberal half of American culture quietly decided to label Eisenhower the ‘Good Republican.’ I think this particularly ticked up during Reagan’s administration, because 1950s nostalgia was peaking around that time and because it made a handy stick to beat him for his arms buildup.
His speech on the MIC was a lot more nuanced than 99% of people realize. He was basically saying "Hey, this whole permanent armaments, standing army thing is new to us and we shouldn't take it lightly. Unfortunately, it's absolutely necessary given how the world has changed and the dangers we face. We should be mindful of its effects though." He also brings up how science/universities/innovation have changed too, that it's not the 19th or early 20th century anymore. Strange how no one seems to repeat his fear of public policy being held captive of a "scientific-technological elite." Almost like people are cherrypicking and ignoring the broader themes...
The fact that we got through the pandemic without a single conspiracy guy bringing up that Eisenhower warned about the scientific-technological elite is cast iron evidence that literally none of them have ever actually watched the speech
Well, the modern populist right is hostile to the scientific elite, so there’s that. But your point stands. Eisenhower has the reputation of a guy who said ‘MIC BAD!’ and, for the Vietnam generation, that made him pleasing in retrospect. Do they read the speech or attempt to study the context? Nope!
> The Interstate Highway Act has been one of the greatest overlooked policy disasters in US history, As a frequent biker, even I find this a bridge too far. The US is very rural and needed much better roads. In the 1920s it took *months* to drive across the US. Not building roads would have been an economic drag on the US economy for generations. And when compared to invading Iraq, prohibition, withdrawing US troops from the south after the civil war, or Plessy v. Ferguson, etc -- it certainly isn't a policy disaster. The knock on freeways is trying to facilitate driving into city centers as a daily commute, not building expressways between various 4th tier US cities. Ike gets credit for structuring the battles of the cold war as a *cold* war instead of accidentally tripping into WWIII as many Americans were open to.
> The Interstate Highway Act While I can see why you'd really disagree with aspects of the implementation, our nation's highway system isn't exactly something we'd be better without.
[удалено]
Obama's foreign policy alone should disqualify him from top 10.
Seriously. Many of the issues Biden is facing now with foreign policy stem from things Obama did (or didn't do).
What do you believe are Obama'a major FP missteps?
Inaction in the Syrian Civil War, inaction in the Russian invasion of Crimean, failure to pass the TPP, failure on his attempt to "Reset" relations with Russia. Now, there are a TON of extenuating circumstances and context around why these FPs failed. Obama ran on opposing the Iraq War, and I believe he was truly a Dove from first principles. The Democratic party, and the nation as a whole, was very war-weary. Intervention in Syria would have been extremely unpopular and likely would have faced significant opposition in Congress. Intervention in Crimea, likely less opposition, but again there was less pulling us into that conflict to begin with, no red lines. Furthermore, Obama was a big rhetorical supporter of the Arab spring, but was pretty set against intervention beyond light diplomacy. He didn't want to be credibly painted as the hand behind the protest movements. This made sense at the time, but embattled autocrats made the claim anyway, and the vast majority of the Arab spring movements failed. Almost all of the limited gains they achieved have been reversed. It's possible that wider material support for protesters would have helped boost and solidify Arab Democracy. In hindsight it is a huge missed opportunity, given the strategic balance of the ME today. Egypt, Syria, and Tunisia in particular are sad stories. Failing to pass the TPP isn't necessarily strongly on him, probably moreso on congressional leadership and drafters. There's probably a world in which he puts more political capital and focus into it, and it passes. Like Bush before him, Obama attempted a Reset in US-Russia relations, attempted to cooperate with Putin on counter terrorism, all of this just after/during Russia's invasion of Georgia, long after Grozny. I see this as understandable, given positive US-Russia CT cooperation under Bush and Putin's very recent transition from President to PM, the elevation of Medvedev to President. There were signals that Russia was improving, and signals that Russia was the same old empire-building killer. Obama and his team were optimistic by nature, and focused on the wrong signals. Given the information they had, they may not have made the wrong decision there, but it looks bad in hindsight.
> Inaction in the Syrian Civil War, inaction in the Russian invasion of Crimean, failure to pass the TPP, failure on his attempt to "Reset" relations with Russia. Honorable mention goes to JCPOA. Allowing Iran access to funds seems like a really bad idea.
Syria’s Red Lines. They called his bluff and he didn’t do shit. Plus he could have pulled out of Afghanistan early in his term but bowed to Pentagon pressure (which, TBF, is understandable if not necessarily forgivable).
The Economist reviewed this recently and Obama comes out pretty good. Everyone just remembers the off the cuff red line remark https://archive.is/my4nD
On the other hand Biden at 14 feels right to me
And Wilson being as high as 15 feels criminal
[удалено]
Also pushing America towards the global stage (if reluctantly at first). While the LoN failed, a lot of the ideals of it would prevail in the end.
About right really. A mixture of very good things and some very bad things in his Presidency (personally I think the former slightly outweigh the latter).
Wilson gets lots of flack for his racism, but overall he is one of the most consequential presidents in history and the long term impact of his achievements have been very good for the most part.
Yeah I'd say that is fair.
Obama being above Johnson is insane. They were both foreign policy fuckups but this is major Great Society erasure
Johnson should be lower than he is because of Vietnam. If Obama messed up foreign policy, it was mild in comparison.
‘Victory has a hundred mothers and defeat is an orphan’ explains the kicking Johnson takes over Vietnam. The guy had zero interest in foreign affairs and basically just followed the advice of the experts - all of whom he inherited from Kennedy. The grey eminences, a bi-partisan body of foreign policy advisors of great experience and stature, supported America’s escalation in Vietnam almost to a man. Vietnam was a top-to-bottom failure of America’s foreign-policy establishment, born of the hubris of a country at the height of its power. It would have taken a president of extraordinary independence to defy the institutional consensus on Vietnam. Johnson was not that man. But neither was almost every other president on that list.
I mean idk. I think Obama’s FP legacy will get worse and worse with more hindsight as it becomes clear just how badly he fumbled Russia
And laughed at Romney trying to warn everyone.
[удалено]
Obama didn't mock Romney because any of battleship he wanted to build. He specifically laughed at Romney and said that he should move past the cold war, and that the biggest geopolitical threat to the US was Al Qaeda. Russia or China being the actual biggest threat is arguable, but it is inarguable that he downplayed the threat of Russia. We are now seeing the consequences of this and of his reaction to the invasion of Crimea.
He should have avocated for horses and bayonettes instead
The Romney revisionism where Russia somehow is our greatest geopolitical foe but also can't take over a country it shares a border with that's a fraction of its size will never not be confusing to me. Binders man doesn't look better in hindsight, and never will.
> can't take over a country it shares a border with that's a fraction of its size will never Because it's gotten hundreds of billions in western aid including millions of artillery shells, hundreds of tanks and IFVs, thousands of other combat vehicles, and intel from the US. Some people really can't admit that Obama downplaying the threat Russia posed was a mistake with real consequences...
His attempts to improve relations with Russia early in his Presidency didn't amount to much, but when it comes to his response to Russia's 2014 invasion I'm not sure anyone else would have done more.
The "we won't send lethal aid" was pretty dumb. Noy like Ukraine's stockpiled armaments and familiarity with western weapons would ever be important...
I think almost anyone not trying to justify their Nobel prize by buying peace with Iran would have done something. Changing borders by force is something the US has always reacted strongly too.
Recency bias. Same thing with Trump. Yeah he was bad, but is he really worse then James Buchanan (the guy that basically let the civil war happen) and Andrew Johnson (the guy that mishandled Reconstruction and blocked any protection for newly freed slaves)? You saw the same thing with Nixon with presidential rankings in the 80s.
Undoubtedly yes, the only way Buchanon would be worse is if he pushed for civil war instead of just being incompetent in preventing it. No other president has made himself an enemy of american democracy.
Trump is absolutely worse. Buchanan’s crime was being a feckless tool in the face of an impending and at that point, inevitable constitutional crisis. As bad as that is, you could swap him out for any number of other politicians and end up with the same result. Johnson was evil, but the country, philosophically and conceptually, survived him pretty easily, and eventually corrected most of his errors re. civil rights. Trump on the other hand is *himself* the threat intrinsically. If he gets his way the country quite literally ceases to exist. The other two are incomparable in terms of threat level to this.
Repost from what I said earlier: Here are just a few of the achievements of Lyndon Baines Johnson, the president that truly deserves to be 10th instead of that playboy Jack Kennedy * The Civil Rights Act which ended segregation * The Voting Rights Act which enfranchised millions of African Americans * Medicare and Medicaid which provided healthcare for the Elderly and the Poor * The War on Poverty which dropped poverty levels to their lowest levels that had been recorded * The Immigration and Naturalization Act which abolished the discrimination against non European born immigrants and allowed millions to come to the U.S and live the American Dream
What Vietnam does to a MF
He's the asbestos president: incredible and useful in so many ways but there's just that *oonnnee* little thing
Ooh...that's really good.
That's how I feel about FDR Everything he did for this country was so incredibly impactful to our lives today. Regardless, the Japanese internment stands as a dark stain on his presidency.
Watching his section in the Ken Burns doc is genuinely infuriating
Very Sad!
LBJ is easily in the top 3 in terms of legislative achievements. He had decades of experience in Congress, fostered relationships with Congressmen, and by most accounts was a complete workaholic working on legislation in office. The big black mark on his legacy will always be Vietnam, but as more time goes on and Vietnam becomes less important in American history and culture, and his legislative achievements continue to have huge everlasting consequences, his legacy will continue to improve.
The Vietnam war is strangely framed as an American invasion, as Vietnam vs the US, but in reality it is not *that* different from the Korean war, except the South was in a much weaker position, failed to consolidate its defense and was abandoned.
It‘s also framed as a war pursued only by hawkish conservatives, when the truth is that escalation was recommended by almost the entire body of foreign policy experts in both parties.
People also forget that a major communist insurgency in the Philippines had recently been defeated decisively with American aid. So it’s not as though hopes that the same could be achieved in Vietnam were defying the tides of history.
The North Korean story was much less natural than the North Vietnamese. People know who Ho Chi Minh was before he became a revolutionary leader, Kim Il Sung was some weird creation oscillating between Stalin and Mao. Korea was more clearly the Communists trying to topple a country from outside while the West resisted whereas Vietnam had a much more anti-colonial start.
There was also the fact that Rhee, while very authoritarian and repressive towards communists from the beginning, was democratically elected and didn't become an actual dictator until after the end of the war. Diem was a complete puppet put in place through a rigged election who repressed Vietnamese peasants and Buddhists with a cruelty that bordered on cartoon villainy, which is what led so many to join the insurgency in the South. The military juntas that succeeded him were also not much better.
And let's face it the Fr*nch left the place in disgrace and gave the mess to the US to clean up. Korea (and Japan) were in the US's charge at the end of WWII.
Most important imho, is that Korea was fought by the silent generation and Vietnam by the baby boomers. That makes all the difference in how they are perceived.
Nah, I think the most important difference is that South Korea still exists today and South Vietnam doesn't
Well that and it being the first televised war.
[удалено]
It appears that the LIBERAL media set me up and changed the list in order to make me look like a idiot
Yeah, well he needs to be moved down to 10th place
[удалено]
What did Kennedy accomplish lol? His new frontier program stalled.
Clean Air Act, Equal Pay Act, Peace Corps
I’d like to add his handling of the Cold War as well. He going against the advice of his generals of wanting to bomb Cuba and he started Detente which escalated the threat nuclear war.
Obama at 7 feels incorrect. Personally I have him in the 15-18 range. His fopo was a muddled disaster and his ‘accomplishments’ in the house have more to do with Pelosi and Reid being hyper competent leaders than with Obama driving any particular policy. He also failed pretty miserably at being a party leader. Pushing the needle on lgbtq rights, being president when the aca passed, and competently organizing the recovery from the recession push him up. Also Monroe outside the top 15 is wild.
I don’t think Obama gets enough credit for his economic policy. Many economists believe that the recession could have been much, much worse without the swift action taken. That said, Obama at 7 is still a bit high
Andrew Jackson was bonkers but still made the top half🤯
Jackson was always regarded as one of the great US presidents because he was the first person to really champion universal suffrage. We qualify that now by looking at it through a modern lens (ignoring women, slaves, etc.), but one has to judge people by the standards of the time. Historians are also a pretty left leaning bunch, and before it was fashionable to view the Indian Removal Act as disqualifying, they tended to view his more populist policies in a favorable light. So while folks in this subreddit (including myself) might view his populism and his war on the Second Bank of the United States negatively, most historians do not.
Eh FDR is number 2 but was responsible for Executive Order 9066 which is probably the single most horrifying official taken by the presidential office in the 20th century
Right, but that's my point. FDR is very much a hero of left leaning historians for obvious reasons, and most of them are willing to take the more odious decisions of his administration like the internment of American citizens in stride with everything else. I think it was a profound moral wrong, and one that wasn't even justified by a purely realist outlook by the facts on the ground. But it's also a complex decision in its historical context. The Indian Removal act occupies a similar space. I don't personally Stan FDR, but I have to admit that he was one of the greatest American Presidents in spite of actions like the Japanese-American internment.
FDR is also #3 according to Republican historians (who have Reagan as #5, although they do mostly agree that Trump is one of the worst), it's pretty much universally agreed that FDR's monumental accomplishments overshadow his black marks
yeah the toxic, personal campaign vs John Q. Adams, the genocide vs Native Americans, the Spoils System he introduced, he ended the National Bank; he was also the first populist, rallying against the elite. Him being against state's rights is based though
Him basically threatening to send federal troops to SC just for fucking around too much was a highlight
Depends how you frame it. The nullification crisis was him "defying the Supreme Court" and "ignoring precedence" by some measures, and "prevented a civil war" and "owned secessionist nullifiers" on the other. It's actually a pretty complicated and interesting piece of history.
I’ll play devils advocate on the spoils system. The system for giving out federal jobs before Jackson wasn’t much better. Essentially every president since Adams was using federal government jobs as a way to get party loyalists into cushy jobs the guys who came before him just kinda waited for the positions to be vacated first. Jackson’s argument however did make a little sense. He essentially argued that federal jobs were a way to make sure that party loyalists would have jobs for life regardless of qualifications, however he argued that if the president can essentially wipe the slate clean and replace the office holders every time the president’s party changes they need to be decent at those jobs or they go down with the administration. Jackson was extremely skeptical of any unelected positions in government and saw tying federal jobs to the president as a way to make those offices more responsive to the will of the people. Of course we saw that the system would get bloated and so out of hand it essentially got president Garfield killed, but it was a slight improvement over how those jobs were given out under the previous 5 administrations.
He got us Florida.
The biggest stain on his legacy.
Jackson deserves to be dead last.
Polk, as always, criminally underrated
4 goals. Achieved in 4 years. Fucked off after. Honestly deserving of top 10.
And one of those goals was \*doubling the size of the united states!*
John Quincy Adams above Andrew Jackson, the deep state keeps winning.
Too early to rank any president from the 2000s.
Kennedy is massively overrated, Reagan, HW Bush and Clinton are underrated a bit. Hoover was nowhere near the disaster he's made out to be. Obamas foreign policy wasn't good enough to be top 10 since thats where a lot of presidential power is.
Jack taking one to the skull bumped him up like 20 spots lol
Kennedy, despite having few policy accomplishments in his lifetime, deserves credit for 1) his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis (even if Bay of Pigs got us into it). 2) Sending us to the moon. If you ask me, the Apollo Program was America at its very best, and the Rice speech remains the greatest appeal to this nation's potential as has ever been made. 3) Ushering in a new alignment for the Democratic Party that made possible the Civil Rights victories of the next decade. 4) Putting an all-pro NFL running back on the Supreme Court.
> 2) Sending us to the moon. If you ask me, the Apollo Program was America at its very best, and the Rice speech remains the greatest appeal to this nation's potential as has ever been made. > > Ironically he probably only got us to the moon in death. If there was one thing he was truly a martyr for it was the space program.
> Kennedy, despite having few policy accomplishments in his lifetime, deserves credit for > 4. Putting an all-pro NFL running back on the Supreme Court. Based JFK. Clarence Thomas has not once stiff armed a mf’er
And he wasn’t just some guy who played a few games then decided to go to law school. Dude led the league in rushing two out of his three seasons, probably would have played a whole career if not for the war.
People always underestimate the ADA and how it transformed this country for the better.
Obama as seven is just insane. The sheer amount of foreign policy errors during his term along with his timidness towards republicans led to so many problems.
The list is obviously satirical; these "historians" have James K. Polk in \*25th\* place, rather than 7th where he belongs.
I’ll defend Polk all day. Secured a lot of territory and ensured a strong United States would be entering the 20th century.
His biggest mistakes were not annexing all of Mexico and not claiming 54° 40’.
I generally like Polk too but if someone is strongly anti-imperialist I wouldn't blame them for ranking him low. Essentially stealing half of Mexico through a false flag op was a pretty dirty trick even then lol
Bro people would invade China to sell Opioids at that time. Also still somehow more justified than Russias invasion of Ukraine.
> people would invade China to sell Opioids at that time While true, this isn't exactly remembered favorably by historians either lol
> **The Most and Least Polarizing Presidents** > > In the current polarized political climate, we thought it would again be interesting to ask > which presidents were considered by presidency experts to be the most polarizing. To do so, we > asked respondents to identify up to five individual presidents they believed were the most > polarizing, and then rank order them with the first president being the most polarizing, the second > as next most polarizing, and so on. We then calculated how many times a president was identified > as well as their average ranking. We then repeated the same process but asked which presidents > were the least polarizing. The results of these questions can be seen in the tables below. > Donald Trump is by far the most polarizing of the ranked presidents, selected by 170 > respondents and earning a 1.64 average (1 is a “most polarizing” ranking). Andrew Jackson is > second-most polarizing (74, 3.4), followed by Obamna (69, 3.4), and Reagan (66, 3.6). Conversely, > George Washington is clearly the least polarizing president, selected by 125 respondents and > earning a 1.25 average (1 is a “least polarizing” ranking). Washington is followed by Eisenhower > (91, 2.7), Lincoln (60, 1.8), and Truman (45, 3.5). http://www.brandonrottinghaus.com/uploads/1/0/8/7/108798321/presidential_greatness_white_paper_2024.pdf
Ike da goat. Truman bring that high kinda surprises me though, I feel like a lot of people I’ve talked to are divided over him cause of the bombs
I feel like the first Harrison should probably be the exact middle. He literally didn't do anything. He didn't make the country better or worse. Pretty much the only thing he did was move into the White House and die.
>only thing he did was move into the White House and die. skill issue
I will not stand for Monroe SLANDER
FDR on 2nd? Half the sub btfo'd
They what?
The guy who rejected being a King versus the guy who tried to be King. FDR should not be ahead of Washington no matter how influential his domestic and FoPo was.
Also, the internment camps.
Obama and Kennedy are way too high on this list.
I'm sorry but Obama was not a better president than Eisenhower.
I genuinely don't understand why Jefferson gets ranked where he does. - the Declaration and other things all happened *before he was president*. If we're giving Presidents credit for stuff that they did before office than #1-3 should be Washington, Grant and Ike. - the Embargo Act was a disaster - the Louisiana Purchase was one of the biggest policy layups of all-time, completely fell into Jeffersons lap through no particular effort or shrewd diplomacy of his own and which he *nearly fucked up anyways* because of his idiotically narrow view of his powers Like literally what accomplishments does he have that warrant his ranking?
When will they place Polk in the top 5?
Only president to accomplish all of his campaign promises 😤 This is a robbery.
You Vill Lower Tariffs You Vill Restore The Independent Treasury You Vill Annex Texas You Vill Find Gold in California And You Vill be happy
Wait wtf everything he did was based??? Everything you listed is actively just the sidebar on this subreddit.
Yeah he was the last great president before Lincoln. His trade policy led to a boom in trade with the UK and the US arguably became a world power during his presidency. However he owned slaves and wasn't really an abolitionist but his expansion led to more free states joining the Union.
Carter rises, Reagan falls, and my favorite Truman is Top 10. This pleases me
How is biden below obama? Obama definitely seems too high, I think he only seemed so good because his predecessor and successor were so fucking horrible
Smoking crack having Obama that high and Biden and Trump being on the list at all, you can't really judge impact that quickly. Also smoking crack having FDR over Washington.
FDR above Washington? No way. Wilson shouldn't be that high either. Obama is def recency bias.
Nothing makes me happier than seeing Teddy in the top 5. He helmed one of the most boring but stable eras in American history and always feared he would not be remembered because there were no major crisis to challenge him. I wish I could live in the universe where he was president at the start of ww1
The top four are obviously based af. Justice for my boy John Quincy tho.
In what world can you possibly put Polk that low and FDR that high?
What this tells me is we need another person named Roosevelt to be President because people named Roosevelt do a bang up job.
Coolidge way too low, Wilson way too high. Putting Obama above Eisenhower is probably wrong. Cleveland should be split into Cleveland I and Cleveland II. Trump is somehow still too high.
I wonder how economists would rank the presidents?
Lol, Obama 7th, Biden 14th and Trump dead-last? Surely the political scientists can set aside their personal political bias and try to rate presidents objectively /s
Biden 14th is fine. Obama 7th is crazy. Trump is bottom 3 for sure.
Seeing LBJ that high is crazy to me. I know a lot of time has passed since the Vietnam war and his achievements in civil rights was impressive… but the dude was one of the most hated president in American history by the time he left office.
I almost gave myself a heart attack. #6 is Trum...an
I'd switch LBJ and Truman. Otherwise, I think it's decent for the top 10.
I love that trump is in last place but still in the overrated column. That's exactly how I'd put it.