Atlas ranks the presidents -- week 9 (WORST OF THE WORST)

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I'm having a hard time ranking these.

1. T. Roosevelt - if Andrew Jackson came around in 1900, I feel he would be Teddy
2. McKinley
3. Taft - always kind of thought he was underrated due to Teddy dominating the scene
4. Arthur - spoils system reform
5. Cleveland

3-way tie for 6th for nothing distinguishable about them between Hayes, Harrison, and Garfield.

Why in the world should Andrew Jackson be a Republican if he had come around in 1900?

[John Dule]

1. Teddy
2. Arthur
3. Cleveland
4. Taft
5. McKinley
6. Harrison
7. Garfield
8. Hayes

[StateBoiler]

I'm having a hard time ranking these.

1. T. Roosevelt - if Andrew Jackson came around in 1900, I feel he would be Teddy
2. McKinley
3. Taft - always kind of thought he was underrated due to Teddy dominating the scene
4. Arthur - spoils system reform
5. Cleveland

3-way tie for 6th for nothing distinguishable about them between Hayes, Harrison, and Garfield.

Why in the world should Andrew Jackson be a Republican if he had come around in 1900?

Meant more in terms of character and style of governance.

[GeneralMacArthur]

1. Teddy
2. Arthur
3. Cleveland
4. Taft
5. McKinley
6. Harrison
7. Garfield
8. Hayes

I'm curious how you can simultaneously be a libertarian and think that Roosevelt was a great president?  Roosevelt's biggest accomplishments are interfering in the free market and pursuing an aggressive foreign policy.

[RINO Tom]

1. Teddy
2. Arthur
3. Cleveland
4. Taft
5. McKinley
6. Harrison
7. Garfield
8. Hayes

I'm curious how you can simultaneously be a libertarian and think that Roosevelt was a great president?  Roosevelt's biggest accomplishments are interfering in the free market and pursuing an aggressive foreign policy.

Some people have perspective that allows them to rank leaders and the influences they had on our country rather than using an ideological checklist.  I generally oppose economic redistributionist initiatives, yet I usually rank FDR as the third best President.  Why?  Even if his reforms were misguided (and I believe many were), he provided the leadership and composure under immense pressure to guide our country through the Great Depression and then World War II.  That's more important to me than what he thought about any particular issue.

Additionally, your ideological stances today do not necessarily inform your stances in a past time.  I would oppose some massive infrastructure bill worth billions of dollars with no funding plan today, but does that mean I "do not support infrastructure?"  I certainly would have supported infrastructure spending in the 1840s and 1850s ... because we didn't have any infrastructure!  Lol, Dule could be a libertarian today because he thinks we have already put the appropriate number of "non-libertarian" policies in place (e.g., those championed by Roosevelt) to achieve his preferred balance, and therefore he no longer supports them.

[John Dule]

Lol, Dule could be a libertarian today because he thinks we have already put the appropriate number of "non-libertarian" policies in place (e.g., those championed by Roosevelt) to achieve his preferred balance, and therefore he no longer supports them.

This is a fairly accurate way of looking at it. I'd also say that in many ways, Roosevelt's brand of progressivism saved American capitalism. Sure, we probably wouldn't have had a communist revolution in this country regardless, but given the direction that much of the world was going in at that time Roosevelt represented a proportionate, measured, and well-balanced response to the prevailing leftist winds of the era. He was also a conservationist, and I love me some national parks.

[RINO Tom]

Lol, Dule could be a libertarian today because he thinks we have already put the appropriate number of "non-libertarian" policies in place (e.g., those championed by Roosevelt) to achieve his preferred balance, and therefore he no longer supports them.

This is a fairly accurate way of looking at it. I'd also say that in many ways, Roosevelt's brand of progressivism saved American capitalism. Sure, we probably wouldn't have had a communist revolution in this country regardless, but given the direction that much of the world was going in at that time Roosevelt represented a proportionate, measured, and well-balanced response to the prevailing leftist winds of the era. He was also a conservationist, and I love me some national parks.

I have a very similar outlook on him.

[Gass3268]

1. Theodore Roosevelt
2. William Howard Taft
3. Benjamin Harrison
4. James Abram Garfield
5. Chester Alan Arthur
6. William McKinley
7. Stephen Grover Cleveland
8. Rutherford Birchard Hayes

[Joe Biden 2024]

Roosevelt
McKinley
Garfield
Hayes
Arthur
Cleveland
Harrison
Taft

[GeneralMacArthur]

Week 4 results are in the OP.

Week 4:  America the global superpower
Woodrow Wilson
Warren G. Harding
Calvin Coolidge
Herbert Hoover
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Harry S. Truman
Dwight D. Eisenhower
John F. Kennedy
Lyndon B. Johnson

[OSR stands with Israel]

1. FDR
2. Truman
3. Eisenhower
4. Coolidge
5. JFK
6. Wilson
7. LBJ
8. Harding
9. Hoover

[GeneralMacArthur]

I've always found Hoover really interesting because he's probably the best test case for "what if we just made a ruthless, apolitical businessman president."

Unlike Trump, who was never really a ruthless businessman so much as an aggressive con artist with a crack legal team, Hoover was undeniably extremely successful in his private sector endeavors.  He was able to figure out solutions to extremely complicated problems, manage huge bureaucracies, innovate and execute.  And based on his performance after World War I, he seemed for all the world like a guy who could use those skills for benevolent, humanitarian purposes.

But Hoover really illustrated how that kind of Tony Stark figure just doesn't work as an American president.  There is no benevolent dictator here.  There is no "one guy who makes decisions and everyone else goes along."  You have to convince people.  You have to sell your ideas.  You have to work together to find compromise.  You have to take Congress's input and ideas into account.  And Hoover was completely incapable of doing those things.  He was a grumpy asshole who was used to ruling by fiat.  I'm the genius, I come up with ideas, the rest of you fall in line and do what I say, and everything will work out great.  The history books tell us how that turned out.

Nowadays Hoover is completely forgotten, he's just "some lousy politician who mucked up the great depression."  If you ask most people about him, all they could tell you about is "Hoovervilles" and "I guess he did do the Hoover Dam."  It's a shame because he probably had a wilder life story than even Teddy Roosevelt, the consensus "most interesting president."

[OSR stands with Israel]

I've always found Hoover really interesting because he's probably the best test case for "what if we just made a ruthless, apolitical businessman president."

Unlike Trump, who was never really a ruthless businessman so much as an aggressive con artist with a crack legal team, Hoover was undeniably extremely successful in his private sector endeavors.  He was able to figure out solutions to extremely complicated problems, manage huge bureaucracies, innovate and execute.  And based on his performance after World War I, he seemed for all the world like a guy who could use those skills for benevolent, humanitarian purposes.

But Hoover really illustrated how that kind of Tony Stark figure just doesn't work as an American president.  There is no benevolent dictator here.  There is no "one guy who makes decisions and everyone else goes along."  You have to convince people.  You have to sell your ideas.  You have to work together to find compromise.  You have to take Congress's input and ideas into account.  And Hoover was completely incapable of doing those things.  He was a grumpy asshole who was used to ruling by fiat.  I'm the genius, I come up with ideas, the rest of you fall in line and do what I say, and everything will work out great.  The history books tell us how that turned out.

Also the whole Hoover just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and there wasnt much he could do is bs. His policies literally made things much worse


1. During the banking crises of 1930 he did nothing and let the banks fail which is really made it a depression instead of just another recession

Compared to the decline of roughly one-third in the quantity of
money from late 1930 to early 1933, the decline in the quantity
of money up to October 1930 seems mild—a mere 2.6 percent

http://www.proglocode.unam.mx/sites/proglocode.unam.mx/files/docencia/Milton%20y%20Rose%20Friedman%20-%20Free%20to%20Choose.pdf

2. He appoint hard money guys to the fed particularly Eugene Meyer so the whole blame people give to the Fed for the Depression, well Hoover appointed people like Eugene Meyer who helped cause the catastrophe

3. He signed Smoot Hawley which reduced American imports and exports by 67%!


In many ways the initial crash in 2008 was worse than 1929: https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-2008-crisis-great-depression-analysis-20180915-story.html

https://money.cnn.com/2014/08/27/news/economy/ben-bernanke-great-depression/index.html


Its just that the actions the US Government took during the initial phases in September 2008 is what prevented from it becoming another depression.

[SWE]

FDR
Harding
Eisenhower
Coolidge
JFK
LBJ
Hoover
Wilson
Truman

[Wikipedia delenda est]

1. Franklin D. Roosevelt
2. Lyndon Johnson
3. Harry S. Truman
4. Dwight Eisenhower
5. John F. Kennedy
6. Warren Harding
7. Calvin Coolidge
8. Herbert Hoover
9. Woodrow Wilson

[America Needs R'hllor]

1. Franklin D. Roosevelt
2. Harry S. Truman
3. Woodrow Wilson
4. Lyndon B. Johnson
5. Dwight D. Eisenhower
6. John F. Kennedy
7. Warren G. Harding
8. Calvin Coolidge
9. Herbert Hoover

[Alben Barkley]

1. FDR
2. Truman
3. LBJ
4. Wilson
5. Eisenhower
6. JFK
7. Calvin Coolidge
8. Herbert Hoover
9. Warren G. Harding

Finally, some mostly good presidents. Except 7-9. 1-3 are in my all-time top five, 1-2 being my top two. 4-6 ain’t bad at all either. FDR-LBJ was one of the best periods for presidents in our history. Literally none of them were bad. 1920s Republicans were bad though. I’ve defended Wilson in other threads, but suffice it to say I think he gets a bad rap by many nowadays, but historians justly still rank him highly.

[Alben Barkley]

FDR
Harding
Eisenhower
Coolidge
JFK
LBJ
Hoover
Wilson
Truman

What the... what? The only way I can explain the Truman ranking is if you’re one of those commies who’s butthurt that he replaced Henry Wallace. But that still doesn’t explain the Harding ranking! Did you just randomly order these or...?

[Continential]

FDR
Harding
Eisenhower
Coolidge
JFK
LBJ
Hoover
Wilson
Truman

What the... what? The only way I can explain the Truman ranking is if you’re one of those commies who’s butthurt that he replaced Henry Wallace. But that still doesn’t explain the Harding ranking! Did you just randomly order these or...?

It is because he pardoned Eugene Debs.

[NewYorkExpress]

1. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Between pulling America out of the Great Depression and essentially winning World War II, there's a strong argument that Roosevelt is our greatest President. He's the greatest Democratic President, that's for sure)

2. Dwight Eisenhower (Successfully got us out of the Korean War, and generally did no real harm as President. The only real flaw was picking Nixon as Vice President)

3. John F. Kennedy (Kennedy gets dinged for the Cuban Missile Crisis, but I suspect that if he had survived and defeated Barry Goldwater in 1964, we would not be involved in Vietnam)

4. Herbert Hoover (Hoover isn't really to blame for the Great Depression, and his skills at foreign aid in World War I put him higher on this list)

5. Lyndon Baines Johnson (While the Great Society and the Voting Rights Act getting passed is admirable, both cost Democrats the South, and Johnson got thousands of Americans killed in Vietnam for no reason at all.

6. Harry Truman (See Lyndon Johnson, just with less accomplishments. About the only big thing he did was desegregating the army)

7. Woodrow Wilson (While Wilson's Presidency was the most racist in American history, he is slightly better than the last two Presidents of this period. Still, not getting the Treaty of Versailles ratified stings.)

8. Calvin Coolidge (I personally hold Coolidge's economic policy responsible for the Great Depression)

9. Warren Harding (One of the most corrupt administrations in American history-only Grant and Trump have more corrupt to this point)

[😥]

1. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
2. Lyndon Baines Johnson
3. Harry Truman
4. Dwight Eisenhower
5. John F. Kennedy
6. Woodrow Wilson
7. Calvin Coolidge
8. Herbert Hoover
9. Warren G. Harding

First 5 people in this list are great leaders and most of them are in Top 10 of the best Presidents of USA in history

[StateBoiler]

Eisenhower - easily my favorite post-World War II president
F. Roosevelt
L. Johnson
Truman - 1st president in the country's history that had to try and deal with the post-World War II order of "war is over, us and the Soviets are only powers left in the world, now what?", which means his presidency as far as grading is considerably different from every president prior to him, so I would've cutoff the periods at FDR and have Truman start a new one
Coolidge
Kennedy
Woodrow Wilson - I really hate Wilson
Hoover
Harding

Nowadays Hoover is completely forgotten, he's just "some lousy politician who mucked up the great depression."  If you ask most people about him, all they could tell you about is "Hoovervilles" and "I guess he did do the Hoover Dam."  It's a shame because he probably had a wilder life story than even Teddy Roosevelt, the consensus "most interesting president."

He's probably as close a historical parallel you could find for a president to Jimmy Carter. Almost universally acknowledged bad presidency, very extended post-presidency period (died in October 1964, 31.5 years after he left the office when LBJ was president) where he at least in the time of his life rehabilitated his image somewhat. We're now a long way past his death and no one pays attention to what he did post-presidency. Maybe this is what awaits Carter in the decades ahead.

[StateBoiler]

3. John F. Kennedy (Kennedy gets dinged for the Cuban Missile Crisis, but I suspect that if he had survived and defeated Barry Goldwater in 1964, we would not be involved in Vietnam)

I dispute that take heavily.

[NewYorkExpress]

3. John F. Kennedy (Kennedy gets dinged for the Cuban Missile Crisis, but I suspect that if he had survived and defeated Barry Goldwater in 1964, we would not be involved in Vietnam)

I dispute that take heavily.

LBJ literally went to war in Vietnam to secure his image as a wartime President. I don't think Kennedy cared that much about whether or not he was a wartime President or not.

[ScottieF]

FDR
Truman
LBJ
Eisenhower
JFK
Wilson
Harding
Coolidge
Hoover