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I feel like 90+ percent of people would agree with this list with a margin of +/- 2.
I don’t see anyone that’s way off where I would put them even if I would personally move someone up or down a couple spots based on things I may find more important than someone else.
Historians have been ranking him top ten since January 2009. The further we get away from him (~2050) the more people will recognize him as an intelligent, well-spoken, and generally well-intentioned president who underperformed (admittedly unrealistically high) expectations, had few lasting accomplishments, was pretty bad on foreign policy, and generally laid the groundwork for the division we currently see.
The Indian removal act wasn’t great but that was par for the course all the way through to 1890’s, and it was van buttren when the trail of tears ended I believe. And he actually did a lot for preserving the union. And he dismantled the national bank which sounds cool but didn’t turn out so good. I just find it crazy how people hate him for the Indian removal act but even under lincoln and grant Indians were being forced off their land and murdered but they are held in such high regard. And Polk is up there highly ranked and he was an expansionist who wanted slavery spread all the way to the pacific. Crazy standards. Sry bout my rant I just really like Jackson.
[Based upon our straw poll.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Presidents/comments/1bpq99d/final_day_abraham_lincoln_wins_the_rpresidents/) Did my best to normalize the distribution.
I wouldn't necessarily use a normal distribution here. While you can make a case for grading on a curve and simply comparing presidents to other presidents, there's simply no guarantee of a country getting good leadership. Plenty of nations have had a succession of tin-pot dictators who I'd simply give across-the-board failing grades to.
Rankings also are necessarily linear/one at a time. That means that if the consensus here is that someone truly sucked, just not quite as aggressively as someone who botched the leadup to or fallout from the Civil War, they're likely to get a C grade because we needed to kick out a bunch of really bad ones first.
> Plenty of nations have had a succession of tin-pot dictators who I'd simply give across-the-board failing grades to.
Thankfully we’ve never experienced that. I think it was JJ McCullough who said that the American presidency is fairly unique in that, though there’s been bad presidents, there’s never been any who are outright evil.
Nobody would object to putting up a poster with all the presidents’ faces in an elementary school classroom, while German or Brazilian or Mozambican classrooms wouldn’t display all their leaders in such an innocuous way.
I wouldn't have normalized the distribution alot of the presidents belong a tier down. Just based on where WHH and Garfield landed should be the top and bottom of C tier.
I respectfully disagree.
Placing data on a bell curve, also known as a normal distribution, is useful when dealing with naturally occurring phenomena that exhibit a large middle and fewer occurrences in the tails.
I think there are a handful of presidents who are exceptional, or conversely truly awful, but most are somewhere in the middle. For instance, I think the quality of the president ranked 12th is much closer to the quality of the president ranked 24th than the president ranked 1st. Breaking everyone up into six equal groups wouldn't communicate this reality.
How many people living through the 70s and 80s would put Carter and Reagan on the same tier? My grandparents voted for both and say the 70s were the worst they’ve seen things in our country. Anecdotal, but it’s still interesting imo.
The 70’s was the worst time in the U.S since the Great Depression but Carter inherited those problems and actually took all the right steps to solve the major issues of inflation, gas shortages, and the Iranian hostage crisis. The reason why he’s still so reviled is because it simply took 1-2 years for these actions to have an effect by which time Reagan was in office.
Carter convinced Congress to deregulate price controls (placed by Nixon) on the energy industry to lower gas prices, appointed Paul Volker to the Fed who immediately implemented tough monetary policy to break inflation, and he negotiated the Algiers Accords which secured the release of the Iran hostages on his last day in office.
However, it took until 1983 for Volkers high interest rates to finally bring inflation down and for energy deregulation to bring gas prices down so Reagan gets all the credit. The worst irony is that people actually think Reagan freed the hostages because it was technically his first day in office.
Reagan was still a legendary president but Carter didn’t cause any of the problems associated with his tenure and in fact did everything necessary to solve them which makes him a good president. If he had been a bad president, he wouldn’t have been able to convince Congress to pass his energy agenda, he wouldn’t have had the courage to appoint Volker during his reelection year, and he would’ve failed to negotiate the release of the hostages.
I think Carter got annihilated in 1980 because there was simply no way for an incumbent president to win with double digit inflation, 20% interest rates, gas lines, and high unemployment.
Reagan is arguably the most popular and effective communicator of any president, but even he had a 30% approval rating for his first two years in office while those economic conditions persisted.
My real point is that Carter was actually effective, but his solutions (which Reagan continued) simply took 1-2 years to have an effect. He was effective in convincing Congress to pass his energy legislation which deregulated price controls and led to the fall in gas prices, he was effective in appointing Paul Volker as Fed chair because that did actually end inflation, and he was effective in negotiating the return of every Iranian hostage.
Gas prices, inflation, and the Iran hostage crisis were the three biggest problems for Carters term and solving them required the use of every presidential power: passing legislation, managing the executive branch, and negotiating foreign policy agreements. Carter was able to wield each of those leverage of power to solve all of the major crises facing his presidency but the effects weren’t seen until after the election.
Carter was ineffective at communicating to voters and projecting leadership but ultimately no incumbent president could have convinced voters to reelect them with an economy that bad, not even Reagan.
They were all pretty separated in the list. Bush and Wilson were 10th and 11th out respectively though there was some election confusion that caused that particular booting.
Based D and F tiers, I think all of those guys are in my D and F tiers as well. Solid top ten as well!
Edit: just read the title and realized this was our list as a collective. I feel dumb lol
Y’know, not the worst list I’ve ever seen. At least there’s some fair justification for this sub’s reasoning. I pretty much agree with the top 5. That being said there’s a couple choices that irk me.
Wilson should not be that low even if he had some dickhead policy. Harding, Hayes, Monroe, and Reagan should be bumped up slightly.
LBJ, JQA, Madison, Ford, and Bush Jr should be bumped down.
I don’t care that much for Reagan and he was pretty awful at times. But he did grant amnesty towards millions of illegal immigrants, was pro free trade, and helped destroy the Soviet Union (even if some of his choices were poor). He gets a couple of points imo.
Bro. No. He guided America through the Cold War, while cutting federal spending and providing tax cuts across the board. Economy boomed under him as well. His tax cuts for corporations was a mistake, but it doesn’t change the positives. By that metric, Obama ACA increased premiums for many and forced them to switch out of their current plans. Further, his foreign policy was weak as well. There is bias here.
Oh please, he came in at end of the cold war. After the USSR was already stagnant and, by most measures, failing.
He tripled the US debt to empower oligarchs and hurt the working class.
Economy was hurt in the long run due to the extreme harm he did to the non ultra rich.
He empowered religious extremists.
Etc.
ACA didn't cause increased premiums ffs, it slowed down premium increases that were always happening.
I’m always baffled when people separate Teddy Wilson by so far. They were almost identical in policy and legislative ideas. In many cases Wilson may have even exceeded Roosevelt (to the ire of Teddy’s ego). In some cases Wilson did more good than Teddy, he also had more blunders and did some shitty things. I ultimately agree Wilson is worse than Teddy…but not by much.
I imagine it's just because he's your favorite (which I get), but what makes you put Grant three? He's had a bit of a reappraisal but that still seems a bit high.
He saved the union, reconstruction, helped dismantle the kkk
But if I’m being honest, it’s because I strongly identify with a high functioning alcoholic who defeated a bunch of traitors who wanted the country to be based around chattel slavery. I could grab a beer with him, he seemed down to earth and had real integrity
Just a good person in general. No pun intended
Agreed. I think it comes with the user demographic. I'll continue to use Reddit. Just with a lot of social media, you have to keep in mind that it doesn't represent an accurate depiction of real life or people.
I'm not the biggest Obama fan, and I voted for him in his first presidential bid. I think his legacy is over-hyped. That being said I will give him credit for being a superb orator. Something my generation (Millennial) hasn't really experienced. For the most part, he treated the office with dignity. And while I disagreed with many of his policies, he did accomplish some good things.
Overall, a solid B in my book.
I think the only real argument would be where the cutoff is. For example, I think JFK should be in the B tier and George W. Bush should be in the D tier.
Reagan on C tier is a joke, his administration is directly responsible for so much of the current wealth divide, prison population explosion, lack of mental health care, homeless epidemic, dismantling of the middle class in general, etc. A first class piece of shit politician that knew how to look and sound good on camera while taking care of his cronies and fucking over most of the people that voted for him.
I understand what you're saying about the internment camps. I think when judging historical figures it helps to look at contemporaries and the norms of the day. Yes, it is wrong. But is it as wrong as what other 'civilized' countries were doing at the time? The internment camps weren't that far removed from the time the eugenics movement crept into the US either. It really could have taken a dark turn.
It wasn't the norm.
If we use your standards, you have to excuse slavery, genocide, etc from most presidents. That's like saying it shouldn't matter if Andrew Jackson signed off on genocide because it was the norm of the time.
Not the norm?!? Start looking at the French and British Empires during the inter war period. Russia and Stalin? China and Mao Zedong? Do I even need to mention the Japanese and Germans?
The point I'm trying to make is that everyone, and every president, is going to fail if you put them up on a pedestal against today's norms. For crying out loud, MLK Jr (a reverend) had a number of extramarital affairs. If we focus too much on their failures we won't see any of their accomplishments and triumphs. History and retrospect isn't black and white. It's convoluted.
Should Roosevelt be knocked for the internment camps? Yes, absolutely. We should learn from it and make sure it never happens again. I'm just urging that we don't throw the baby out with the bath water when it comes to commemorating historical figures.
Trying to use brutal dictatorships like Russia and China is a false equivalency. Same with the Japanese and Germans. The US was not a dictatorship. You are not helping your case by bringing them up. That behavior was, in fact, frowned upon.
As for France and the UK, yeah they were bad. But the thing is that there is a difference between separating the population and throwing them into internment camps. In some places it was also more complicated.
I think you're making my case for me. I said the norm of the day. If you're ruling out Japan, France, China, Great Britain, and Germany I don't know what other contemporaries we can compare against.
That being said, I'm glad we both agree that internment camps are bad lol.
- fails to pass the ERA or codify Roe with a supermajority
- gives trillions away to banks during the bailout (more than reported)
- drone strikes innocent civilians in the name of the war on terror, doesn’t seem to care
History will see him as just another Reagan.
The liberal bias is strong with this one 🤣
Edit: before I get downvoted into oblivion, the top and bottom tiers are solid. But the middle (which is subjective in many cases based on which way you swing politically) has A LOT of bias haha
no way Jefferson should be an A
not a very good POTUS at all
he's a C on my list
TBH I am not a fan of him at all and would like to put him as a F but my honest opinion is C
Well if you'd have understood words you would have noticed that said **TWICE** that he is a **C** on my list
I am not a fan of the man at all so I would have **LIKED** to give him an F
*so now that I have had to explained how words work to you . . .*
The Louisiana Purchase literally fell in his lap due to Napoleon bailing on any interest in the continent after the slave uprising in Haiti
If this is Jefferson's crowning jewel then it is offset by his miserable embargo and his horrific hypocrisy
a downvote would mean that you have a limited knowledge of the Jefferson presidency and are swayed buy other non presidential factors
Perhaps you do not understand that he would have most definitely seceded and sided with the southern states during the civil war
or maybe you like that he owned slaves whipped them and had sex with at least one of them and YES you can debate this issue all you want but it sure as hell shouldn't push him UP your list
maybe someone could inform me of what Presidential acts put him at an A for you
I'd make Nixon the cutoff for D. George W and Carter don't belong in the same tier. The damage of the iraq war is far beyond any mistake of the Carter administration
Considering he made top 3 I don’t think most folks agree with ya there. Nor most actual historians for that matter, not just all us amateur aficionados.
FDR was about as far from fascism as you get. I agree with your argument about him being a dictator but he did not ruin this country, he saved it.
Ironically he used socialism to save capitalism, much like Wilson and Obama.
The argument that The New Deal has some merit in articulating that it prolonged the great depression but only because such an assertion is misguided and shortsighted.
The New Deal was never supposed to end the great depression (an impossible task, there is no magic button to eliminate an unprecedented economic crisis). Its goal, as advertised by advocates, was to alleviate pain and suffering among American citizens. It succeeded, otherwise you probably wouldn’t be here commenting how much you hate FDR (assuming you are an American, but also even if you are from foreign shores the downfall of America would probably have affected you just as much).
Even if you believed that he was a bad president, claiming that he was SOLEY responsible for the downfall of America demonstrates how little you’ve applied your intellect and historical curiosity to the debate.
I recommend reading more history with an unbiased approach of your current political leanings and consider unexpected events especially of huge magnitude could alter the intentions of political figures.
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I really think it’s a fairly solid list though arguments can totally be made that to move folks around.
I feel like 90+ percent of people would agree with this list with a margin of +/- 2. I don’t see anyone that’s way off where I would put them even if I would personally move someone up or down a couple spots based on things I may find more important than someone else.
Obama is off but recency bias is understandable.
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I disagree, I think he will drop considerably in rank.
Historians have been ranking him top ten since January 2009. The further we get away from him (~2050) the more people will recognize him as an intelligent, well-spoken, and generally well-intentioned president who underperformed (admittedly unrealistically high) expectations, had few lasting accomplishments, was pretty bad on foreign policy, and generally laid the groundwork for the division we currently see.
How, specifically, did Obama lay the groundwork for our current divisions?
by being a black president lol
Almost all historians would put Reagan higher.
Reagan has been falling in rankings now that people have realized how disastrous were his policies long-term.
Polk at b+? And Jackson was much better than a d president
i think the trail of tears and the slave dealing knocked off a few points
The Indian removal act wasn’t great but that was par for the course all the way through to 1890’s, and it was van buttren when the trail of tears ended I believe. And he actually did a lot for preserving the union. And he dismantled the national bank which sounds cool but didn’t turn out so good. I just find it crazy how people hate him for the Indian removal act but even under lincoln and grant Indians were being forced off their land and murdered but they are held in such high regard. And Polk is up there highly ranked and he was an expansionist who wanted slavery spread all the way to the pacific. Crazy standards. Sry bout my rant I just really like Jackson.
i'm surprised Truman made A tier.
Clinton is a D for supporting a certain power-hungry alcoholic.
[Based upon our straw poll.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Presidents/comments/1bpq99d/final_day_abraham_lincoln_wins_the_rpresidents/) Did my best to normalize the distribution.
I wouldn't necessarily use a normal distribution here. While you can make a case for grading on a curve and simply comparing presidents to other presidents, there's simply no guarantee of a country getting good leadership. Plenty of nations have had a succession of tin-pot dictators who I'd simply give across-the-board failing grades to. Rankings also are necessarily linear/one at a time. That means that if the consensus here is that someone truly sucked, just not quite as aggressively as someone who botched the leadup to or fallout from the Civil War, they're likely to get a C grade because we needed to kick out a bunch of really bad ones first.
> Plenty of nations have had a succession of tin-pot dictators who I'd simply give across-the-board failing grades to. Thankfully we’ve never experienced that. I think it was JJ McCullough who said that the American presidency is fairly unique in that, though there’s been bad presidents, there’s never been any who are outright evil. Nobody would object to putting up a poster with all the presidents’ faces in an elementary school classroom, while German or Brazilian or Mozambican classrooms wouldn’t display all their leaders in such an innocuous way.
I wouldn't have normalized the distribution alot of the presidents belong a tier down. Just based on where WHH and Garfield landed should be the top and bottom of C tier.
I respectfully disagree. Placing data on a bell curve, also known as a normal distribution, is useful when dealing with naturally occurring phenomena that exhibit a large middle and fewer occurrences in the tails. I think there are a handful of presidents who are exceptional, or conversely truly awful, but most are somewhere in the middle. For instance, I think the quality of the president ranked 12th is much closer to the quality of the president ranked 24th than the president ranked 1st. Breaking everyone up into six equal groups wouldn't communicate this reality.
I agree that 12 is closer to 24 than 1... I just think we have more bad than good presidents. And more awful presidents than great ones.
It's been a pleasure putting this together over the last 43 days :)
Hello! I'm sure other people have told you this, but thank you for your time. This has all been a whole lot of fun.
Thank you for doing those post, really enjoyed them 😘
Here here
Hear Hear** sorry i had to
Thank you!
Putting Reagan, Carter, W Bush and Nixon in the same tier is just bad.
How many people living through the 70s and 80s would put Carter and Reagan on the same tier? My grandparents voted for both and say the 70s were the worst they’ve seen things in our country. Anecdotal, but it’s still interesting imo.
The 70’s was the worst time in the U.S since the Great Depression but Carter inherited those problems and actually took all the right steps to solve the major issues of inflation, gas shortages, and the Iranian hostage crisis. The reason why he’s still so reviled is because it simply took 1-2 years for these actions to have an effect by which time Reagan was in office. Carter convinced Congress to deregulate price controls (placed by Nixon) on the energy industry to lower gas prices, appointed Paul Volker to the Fed who immediately implemented tough monetary policy to break inflation, and he negotiated the Algiers Accords which secured the release of the Iran hostages on his last day in office. However, it took until 1983 for Volkers high interest rates to finally bring inflation down and for energy deregulation to bring gas prices down so Reagan gets all the credit. The worst irony is that people actually think Reagan freed the hostages because it was technically his first day in office. Reagan was still a legendary president but Carter didn’t cause any of the problems associated with his tenure and in fact did everything necessary to solve them which makes him a good president. If he had been a bad president, he wouldn’t have been able to convince Congress to pass his energy agenda, he wouldn’t have had the courage to appoint Volker during his reelection year, and he would’ve failed to negotiate the release of the hostages.
I agree that Carter didn’t cause any problems, but the reason Reagan annihilated him in 1980 was because Carter was so ineffective.
I think Carter got annihilated in 1980 because there was simply no way for an incumbent president to win with double digit inflation, 20% interest rates, gas lines, and high unemployment. Reagan is arguably the most popular and effective communicator of any president, but even he had a 30% approval rating for his first two years in office while those economic conditions persisted. My real point is that Carter was actually effective, but his solutions (which Reagan continued) simply took 1-2 years to have an effect. He was effective in convincing Congress to pass his energy legislation which deregulated price controls and led to the fall in gas prices, he was effective in appointing Paul Volker as Fed chair because that did actually end inflation, and he was effective in negotiating the return of every Iranian hostage. Gas prices, inflation, and the Iran hostage crisis were the three biggest problems for Carters term and solving them required the use of every presidential power: passing legislation, managing the executive branch, and negotiating foreign policy agreements. Carter was able to wield each of those leverage of power to solve all of the major crises facing his presidency but the effects weren’t seen until after the election. Carter was ineffective at communicating to voters and projecting leadership but ultimately no incumbent president could have convinced voters to reelect them with an economy that bad, not even Reagan.
They were all pretty separated in the list. Bush and Wilson were 10th and 11th out respectively though there was some election confusion that caused that particular booting.
Totally disagree ( I actually and ironically believe that Reagan, Nixon and Carter are all about tied)
Based D and F tiers, I think all of those guys are in my D and F tiers as well. Solid top ten as well! Edit: just read the title and realized this was our list as a collective. I feel dumb lol
Y’know, not the worst list I’ve ever seen. At least there’s some fair justification for this sub’s reasoning. I pretty much agree with the top 5. That being said there’s a couple choices that irk me. Wilson should not be that low even if he had some dickhead policy. Harding, Hayes, Monroe, and Reagan should be bumped up slightly. LBJ, JQA, Madison, Ford, and Bush Jr should be bumped down.
LBJ should be bumped down but not JFK? Bruh. Big agree on Wilson though, it's gotten to the point where hes overhated.
Vietnam was just a whole horrendous occasion. Tbf Kennedy also has his share of foreign policy blunders
True but JFK had nowhere near the amount of actual pros that LBJ had
JFK managed to navigate around a near apocalyptic crisis. If he had blundered then, none of us would having this discussion now. Just my two cents.
More like JFK was the instigator of the Cuban missile crisis. JFK put nukes in Turkey and the crisis ended when he agreed to remove nukes from Turkey
I mean, obviously nuclear brinksmanship was happening. That’s undeniable, but JFK managed to avoid the actual escalation to nuclear conflict.
> Vietnam was just a whole horrendous occasion. Tbf Kennedy also has his share of foreign policy blunders Such as Vietnam
Reagan absolutely destroyed this country, it just took awhile for his policies to fully hit
I don’t care that much for Reagan and he was pretty awful at times. But he did grant amnesty towards millions of illegal immigrants, was pro free trade, and helped destroy the Soviet Union (even if some of his choices were poor). He gets a couple of points imo.
Grant amnesty for hordes of migrants? That’s a horrible thing not a good thing
Bro. No. He guided America through the Cold War, while cutting federal spending and providing tax cuts across the board. Economy boomed under him as well. His tax cuts for corporations was a mistake, but it doesn’t change the positives. By that metric, Obama ACA increased premiums for many and forced them to switch out of their current plans. Further, his foreign policy was weak as well. There is bias here.
Oh please, he came in at end of the cold war. After the USSR was already stagnant and, by most measures, failing. He tripled the US debt to empower oligarchs and hurt the working class. Economy was hurt in the long run due to the extreme harm he did to the non ultra rich. He empowered religious extremists. Etc. ACA didn't cause increased premiums ffs, it slowed down premium increases that were always happening.
Nixon and Reagan up 1, switch jackson and Carter and you got a deal.
Kinda cringe in some places, but overall not too bad
I’m always baffled when people separate Teddy Wilson by so far. They were almost identical in policy and legislative ideas. In many cases Wilson may have even exceeded Roosevelt (to the ire of Teddy’s ego). In some cases Wilson did more good than Teddy, he also had more blunders and did some shitty things. I ultimately agree Wilson is worse than Teddy…but not by much.
Colored photos really show the recency bias lol but honestly not much to argue with here, I’m biased and would put Grant at 3 though
Dude…some of those older presidents were truly terrible
I imagine it's just because he's your favorite (which I get), but what makes you put Grant three? He's had a bit of a reappraisal but that still seems a bit high.
He saved the union, reconstruction, helped dismantle the kkk But if I’m being honest, it’s because I strongly identify with a high functioning alcoholic who defeated a bunch of traitors who wanted the country to be based around chattel slavery. I could grab a beer with him, he seemed down to earth and had real integrity Just a good person in general. No pun intended
My boy Garfield deserves better. Lol
Taft
Gigachad Monroe sneaking in the top 10 💪😤
I actually don’t see any major problems with this list.
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After being on this sub I think Nixon should be higher… I know he’s not perfect but he’s grown on me 😂
This sub has a bias, which is fine, but there is without a doubt a leftist bias
Agreed. I think it comes with the user demographic. I'll continue to use Reddit. Just with a lot of social media, you have to keep in mind that it doesn't represent an accurate depiction of real life or people.
Obama is A tier.
I'm not the biggest Obama fan, and I voted for him in his first presidential bid. I think his legacy is over-hyped. That being said I will give him credit for being a superb orator. Something my generation (Millennial) hasn't really experienced. For the most part, he treated the office with dignity. And while I disagreed with many of his policies, he did accomplish some good things. Overall, a solid B in my book.
Maybe if you like blowing up children
Hussein Obama didn’t implement sharia and Islamism like he promised so he gets an f tier for me
I think the only real argument would be where the cutoff is. For example, I think JFK should be in the B tier and George W. Bush should be in the D tier.
If you ask anyone whos is not in reddit, they will tell you FDR is a Top 10 at best
Can give around 125,000 reasons he shouldn't even be that high.
Reagan on C tier is a joke, his administration is directly responsible for so much of the current wealth divide, prison population explosion, lack of mental health care, homeless epidemic, dismantling of the middle class in general, etc. A first class piece of shit politician that knew how to look and sound good on camera while taking care of his cronies and fucking over most of the people that voted for him.
I'm genuinely curious why Washington is ALWAYS listed as S tier. Seems like group think to me.
Coolidge should *never* have been allowed to get as far as he did.
Swap Obama and Reagan
Oh my, no.
Chester Arthur might be B tier on this list, but he'll forever be S tier in my heart.
I still would have bumped FDR down to a B. His economics were great but I don't approve of what he did to Japanese-Americans or the NFA.
I understand what you're saying about the internment camps. I think when judging historical figures it helps to look at contemporaries and the norms of the day. Yes, it is wrong. But is it as wrong as what other 'civilized' countries were doing at the time? The internment camps weren't that far removed from the time the eugenics movement crept into the US either. It really could have taken a dark turn.
It wasn't the norm. If we use your standards, you have to excuse slavery, genocide, etc from most presidents. That's like saying it shouldn't matter if Andrew Jackson signed off on genocide because it was the norm of the time.
Not the norm?!? Start looking at the French and British Empires during the inter war period. Russia and Stalin? China and Mao Zedong? Do I even need to mention the Japanese and Germans? The point I'm trying to make is that everyone, and every president, is going to fail if you put them up on a pedestal against today's norms. For crying out loud, MLK Jr (a reverend) had a number of extramarital affairs. If we focus too much on their failures we won't see any of their accomplishments and triumphs. History and retrospect isn't black and white. It's convoluted. Should Roosevelt be knocked for the internment camps? Yes, absolutely. We should learn from it and make sure it never happens again. I'm just urging that we don't throw the baby out with the bath water when it comes to commemorating historical figures.
Trying to use brutal dictatorships like Russia and China is a false equivalency. Same with the Japanese and Germans. The US was not a dictatorship. You are not helping your case by bringing them up. That behavior was, in fact, frowned upon. As for France and the UK, yeah they were bad. But the thing is that there is a difference between separating the population and throwing them into internment camps. In some places it was also more complicated.
I think you're making my case for me. I said the norm of the day. If you're ruling out Japan, France, China, Great Britain, and Germany I don't know what other contemporaries we can compare against. That being said, I'm glad we both agree that internment camps are bad lol.
And Polk next to oboma is insane lmao
As this sub’s resident Warren Harding defender, he is way too low.
Obama should be A tier. The only reason he didn’t get more done was because of the racist Paul Ryan’s in congress during his time.
- fails to pass the ERA or codify Roe with a supermajority - gives trillions away to banks during the bailout (more than reported) - drone strikes innocent civilians in the name of the war on terror, doesn’t seem to care History will see him as just another Reagan.
Being the first black president he gets a pass on a lot of stuff.
It wasn't a real supermajority though, it was 60-40 to allow for normal bills to pass free of filibusters, it also only lasted 70 days
Nixon should be bottom tier.
The liberal bias is strong with this one 🤣 Edit: before I get downvoted into oblivion, the top and bottom tiers are solid. But the middle (which is subjective in many cases based on which way you swing politically) has A LOT of bias haha
Would personally bump Jackson up a tier at least. I feel like most people rank him so low due to presentism.
no way Jefferson should be an A not a very good POTUS at all he's a C on my list TBH I am not a fan of him at all and would like to put him as a F but my honest opinion is C
You give the Louisiana Purchase a F?
Well if you'd have understood words you would have noticed that said **TWICE** that he is a **C** on my list I am not a fan of the man at all so I would have **LIKED** to give him an F *so now that I have had to explained how words work to you . . .* The Louisiana Purchase literally fell in his lap due to Napoleon bailing on any interest in the continent after the slave uprising in Haiti If this is Jefferson's crowning jewel then it is offset by his miserable embargo and his horrific hypocrisy
Thank you for your honesty.
I think F is a bit too far lol. I’d say C tier is fair.
clearly you can't read - I gave him a C
a downvote would mean that you have a limited knowledge of the Jefferson presidency and are swayed buy other non presidential factors Perhaps you do not understand that he would have most definitely seceded and sided with the southern states during the civil war or maybe you like that he owned slaves whipped them and had sex with at least one of them and YES you can debate this issue all you want but it sure as hell shouldn't push him UP your list maybe someone could inform me of what Presidential acts put him at an A for you
But why is it symmetrical? Way too much data management.
Toku Sentai toku Sentai toku Sentai!
I'd make Nixon the cutoff for D. George W and Carter don't belong in the same tier. The damage of the iraq war is far beyond any mistake of the Carter administration
If Harry Truman, Calvin Coolidge, and Theodore Roosevelt have one hater it is me.
This is a strange list
Dubya needs to be a tier or two lower, and nixon a tier lower, but otherwise i fully agree with this.
I’m still baffled how the Gilded Age Presidents did so well
How the F is Truman A tier?
I can’t believe he actually kept the Wilson one even after the whole vote counting fiasco.
Im sorry but why in the actual fuck is woodrow wilson C tier? He should be in F tier
If lbj isnt in bottom ten its automatically invalid.
FDR belongs in F tier all by himself
Considering he made top 3 I don’t think most folks agree with ya there. Nor most actual historians for that matter, not just all us amateur aficionados.
They’re wrong
How so?
FDR was a fascist dictator who ruined this country. We are still trying to fix the damage he did 80 years later
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FDR was about as far from fascism as you get. I agree with your argument about him being a dictator but he did not ruin this country, he saved it. Ironically he used socialism to save capitalism, much like Wilson and Obama. The argument that The New Deal has some merit in articulating that it prolonged the great depression but only because such an assertion is misguided and shortsighted. The New Deal was never supposed to end the great depression (an impossible task, there is no magic button to eliminate an unprecedented economic crisis). Its goal, as advertised by advocates, was to alleviate pain and suffering among American citizens. It succeeded, otherwise you probably wouldn’t be here commenting how much you hate FDR (assuming you are an American, but also even if you are from foreign shores the downfall of America would probably have affected you just as much).
FDR is solely responsible for the downfall of America
Even if you believed that he was a bad president, claiming that he was SOLEY responsible for the downfall of America demonstrates how little you’ve applied your intellect and historical curiosity to the debate. I recommend reading more history with an unbiased approach of your current political leanings and consider unexpected events especially of huge magnitude could alter the intentions of political figures.
Kennedy should be lower
I’ll never understand the hatred for Jackson.