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

[RINO Tom]

Objective, "H.W. Brands/History Channel"-Type Ranking
1. George Washington
2. James Monroe
3. Thomas Jefferson
4. James Madison
5. Andrew Jackson
6. John Quincy Adams
7. John Adams
8. Martin Van Buren

My "Personal" Rankings
1. George Washington
2. James Madison
3. James Monroe
4. John Quincy Adams
5. Thomas Jefferson
6. John Adams
7. Martin Van Buren
8. Andrew Jackson

[RINO Tom]

I've been rewatching the History Channel's Ultimate Guide to the Presidents, and I have personally been swayed to once again prefer a ranking of the Presidents that tries to take "my politics" out of it, including modern day biases.  This is the type of thinking that finds people like Jackson and Polk ranked historically much higher than someone like Grant, though the latter looks so much better on the currently-quite-important focus on race issues.  Nevertheless, I'm going to try to stick to the "HW Brands Style" and not my personal preference going forward:

1. Abraham Lincoln (R-IL)
2. James K Polk (D-TN)
3. Ulysses S. Grant (R-IL)
4. Zachary Taylor (W-LA)
5. Andrew Johnson (D-TN)
6. Millard Fillmore (W-NY)
7. John Tyler (W-VA)
8. William Henry Harrison (W-OH)
9. Franklin Pierce (D-NH)
10. James Buchanan (D-PA)

I think it should be rather indisputable that Lincoln ranks #1 here; he was head and shoulders more up to the task of the Presidency than the other men on this list.  Beyond that, I think it's clear that Polk and Grant are far ahead of the rest of the pack, and it will depend on what one values.  Should Polk's incredible efficiency and clearly effective leadership, along with the clear admiration people had for him at the time, outweigh the fact that he was sympathetic (or at least not openly hostile to) Southern interests?  Should Grant's willingness to take on the KKK and reduce its influence enough to outweigh is clear lack of interest in his duties and his administration functioning as a literal corporate welfare scheme?  That's a hard thing to debate.  Beyond those three, I think Pierce and Buchanan are the clear bottom two, as it's hard to argue that both didn't display demonstrable negligence in plunging us into civil war ... between those, honestly, they're just a bunch of weak or flawed men who weren't up to the task.  I look forward to the next group, as it will be quite interesting!

[RINO Tom]

As a slight aside, I strongly recommend the History Channel's Ultimate Guide to the Presidents that I mentioned earlier.  All of the episodes through Woodrow Wilson are on YouTube for free, and that only requires you to purchase three more ... they were $1.99 each on Amazon, so I of course did.

I had already seen it before, but it's easily the best documentary I have seen on the Presidents.  Instead of sharing random trivia about them or giving an overly moralizing narrative that is void of historical context, it really tries to look at how each man shaped the office for better and for worse.  I came away with different perspectives on a few different Presidencies:

Better Than Before: James Madison, Andrew Johnson, John F. Kennedy
Worse Than Before: John Tyler, William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover (who I actually really like, lol)

(My opinion of Buchanan also went even further down of Buchanan, but I already usually rank him last...)

P.S.  For those who have browsed the threads about "party continuity" (i.e., the subject of how the bizarre myth of the two parties "switching" is really ridiculous), the documentary actually does a great job of showing that EVEN if you maintain that the GOP during the Civil War and Reconstruction eras HAD to be a more "liberal" party than the Democrats on the basis of the slavery issue alone (I reject this, but I also digress), there really is no scholarly argument that the GOP isn't clearly the more right wing party post-1876.  Okay, I'll stop spamming now.

[RINO Tom]

As a slight aside, I strongly recommend the History Channel's Ultimate Guide to the Presidents that I mentioned earlier.  All of the episodes through Woodrow Wilson are on YouTube for free, and that only requires you to purchase three more ... they were $1.99 each on Amazon, so I of course did.

I had already seen it before, but it's easily the best documentary I have seen on the Presidents.  Instead of sharing random trivia about them or giving an overly moralizing narrative that is void of historical context, it really tries to look at how each man shaped the office for better and for worse.  I came away with different perspectives on a few different Presidencies:

Better Than Before: James Madison, Andrew Johnson, John F. Kennedy

On those last 2, how? Johnson was admittedly put in a can't win situation of whatever he did, everyone was still going to hate him, but still didn't handle the situation well. Kennedy in contrast is completely lionized in death. If anything him being shot meant historians pass the buck to LBJ for stuff they don't want to blame Kennedy for.

I mean, it's not like my statement implied I thought either was a particularly amazing President (especially Johnson), merely that my opinion of them went up slightly.  I do appreciate that Johnson was more or less trying to implement what he thought would be Lincoln's Reconstruction plan, with a rather unavoidable "Southern bias" that was to be expected.  While morally I would side with the Radical Republicans, he stood up on behalf of the office of the Presidency in a way that - strictly in regard to precedent - I believe he should have.  As for JFK, I was rather unaware of just how much leadership he was forced to show during his short time in office.  Has he been glorified to the extent of being kind of overrated due to his untimely death?  Of course.  However, I do think that he had a rather productive time in office while alive, and my opinion of him went slightly up.  And though you didn't ask about Madison, my opinion has always been sky high of him as a person (he was my "favorite President" growing up, before I looked at them through a more political lens), but I really appreciated how tough of a Presidency he was given and how he managed to not only hold the nation together but lead a birth of our modern patriotism throughout the War of 1812, in the face of a pretty dire wartime situation.

[RINO Tom]

Fighting the Civil War to then not keep the Union together ... riiiiight lol.  I’ll edit this with my ranking in a bit.

[RINO Tom]

Fighting the Civil War to then not keep the Union together ... riiiiight lol.  I’ll edit this with my ranking in a bit.

No, it's fight the Civil War to punish the South. There's no reason they should be allowed to remain states, but there's no reason they should be allowed to leave.

Do you have knowledge of any contemporary of the Civil War who thought in this way about the South?

The way the Radical Reconstructionists treated the South makes me think at least some of them felt that way... 

Then I suggest you read up on them ... the Radical Republicans were a loose coalition that had just about nothing in common except for believing that former Confederate officials and leaders should not hold political office due to having committed treason.  They ranged from progressive reformers who sought to better the lives of Freedmen to religious moralists who feared the wrath of God on America and believed in divinely inspired punishment for traitors to shills for Northern business interests who wanted to keep Southern competition out of the way for a while longer.  None of them wanted the South to become either a colony or, even worse, its own nation.  Even after the Civil War, most Northerners still saw it as a war strictly fought to keep the Union together and saw the eradication of slavery as the icing on the cake.

Anyway, here are my rankings, again with an effort to take a more "historical" view that is as void of my contemporary ideology as is possible:

1. Theodore Roosevelt (R-NY)
2. William McKinley (R-OH)
3. Grover Cleveland (D-NY)
4. William Howard Taft (R-OH)
5. Rutherford B. Hayes (R-OH)
6. James Garfield (R-OH)
7. Chester A. Arthur (R-NY)
8. Benjamin Harrison (R-IN)

My Thoughts
- Roosevelt and McKinley stand out for me.  Given his MASSIVE role in bringing us into the modern era and redefining the Presidency, I have to put TR as #1, but McKinley is a clear #2 for me.
- Cleveland, though I think he is perhaps overrated, seems to be the clear #3, mostly due to unremarkable competition.
- Taft is kind of the default #4, as everyone below him was just so bland in his efforts (or lack thereof) to leave a real Presidential legacy.
- I don't believe Hayes' Presidency should be so heavily weighted by the decision to end Reconstruction ... how was he to know if a Democratic President wouldn't just do the same thing?  Though I'm sure the forum finds it controversial, his decision to maintain law and order during the railroad strikes also set a precedent of the federal government restoring order in times of (admittedly subjective) anarchy ... this carries the good (Brown v. Board) and bad (according to Democrats, President Trump's current initiatives) with it, but it IS significant and was bold.
- The bottom three are pretty much nobodies.  I actually really like Harrison (and I like that his statue is everywhere in Indiana, haha), but the fact is he was one of the least effective Presidents ever.  Arthur was nearly as bad but with less clear negligence, and Garfield goes above them due to being impossible to judge.

[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.

[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.

[RINO Tom]

Again, this is FAR from my "ideological ranking" of these men, which I get probably sounds ridiculous to many on a site like this ... but I find it a more interesting challenge to rank them in a more "historian-like" way.

Tom's Rankings
1. Franklin D. Roosevelt (D-NY)
2. Dwight Eisenhower (R-KS)
3. Harry Truman (D-MO)
4. Lyndon B. Johnson (D-TX)
5. Woodrow Wilson (D-NJ)
6. Calvin Coolidge (R-MA)
7. John F. Kennedy (D-MA)
8. Herbert Hoover (R-CA)
9. Warren Harding (R-OH)

Tom's Ramblings
- It's hard not to rank FDR first, even if you don't like his politics ... and I do not like his politics.  I'd like to think many Democrats would feel similarly about Reagan in the coming group, but I'm pessimistic.
- I have always been a big Ike fan, but I honestly believe he deserves #2 here; he reigned in the Presidency in the post-FDR world in a good way, and he articulated a vision for (politically) conservative use of Executive power that only intervened when necessary (see Brown v. Board enforcement).  Truman gets #3 mostly for making the immensely difficult decision about the A-bomb so soon after taking office.  Additionally, historians have correctly started to rehabilitate him.
- I am no fan of LBJ and definitely not one of Wilson, but these men's accomplishments have shaped our world in nearly immeasurable ways.  I also don't really knock off points for Wilson being a racist or LBJ's Vietnam situation (in addition to quite clearly being a racist, though signing the CRA is more important than that).  LBJ gets the nod over Wilson due to civil rights legislation, mostly.
- I see Coolidge and JFK similarly, in that they both took restrained-but-responsible attitudes toward their power.  I admit that I chose Coolidge on ideological grounds, and I find the narrative that he was to the Great Depression what Buchanan was to the Civil War (i.e., let it happen due to his lack of foresight or lack of concern) ridiculously simplistic and misguided and do not believe the nearly unavoidable crash of 1929 should really bear a bad mark on his Presidency.
- The last two are pretty easy, and I REALLY like both.  Hoover was the most qualified man to ever take office, and by all accounts a fantastic man ... and Harding was my Spirit President, as I totally would have lived out my term exactly like he did (minus, hopefully, the affairs and, definitely, the dying).  Both men were not up to the tasks in front of them, but Hoover was not negligent; Harding was.

For fun, this would be my "personal rankings," taking both ideology, how much I like them and of course a bit of their actual performance as President into account:

(Don't use these rankings ... lol)

1. Dwight Eisenhower (R-KS) - One of the most underrated Presidents of all time and an archetype for what Republicanism must look like in the next several decades.
2. Calvin Coolidge (R-MA) - We REALLY need a Coolidge right about now to save the GOP from itself.
3. Franklin D. Roosevelt (D-NY) - I actually think he did some underrated damage to this country that we're still dealing with, but the leadership he showed was rivaled by few.
4. Herbert Hoover (R-CA) - Iowa!
5. Warren Harding (R-OH) - He and I would have been bros.
6. Harry Truman (D-MO) - Don't like his politics, but I appreciate that he was "just a guy" in a crowd of politics types.
7. John F. Kennedy (D-MA) - You have to respect the presence he commanded, if nothing else.
8. Lyndon B. Johnson (D-TX) - I am of the camp that LBJ was a complete opportunist and find the rewriting of his civil rights attitudes by historians to be wishful thinking ... that said, the guy signed the CRA and VRA, so props.
9. Woodrow Wilson (D-NJ) - Everyone focuses so much on his racism, but Wilson kind of revived the toxic world outlook of your more "snooty" modern liberals that had waned a bit since Jefferson ... nothing to like.

[RINO Tom]

8. Lyndon B. Johnson (D-TX) - I am of the camp that LBJ was a complete opportunist and find the rewriting of his civil rights attitudes by historians to be wishful thinking ... that said, the guy signed the CRA and VRA, so props.

I’m sorry, how is this true? All his advisors told him not push for civil rights legislation, as it was a waste of political capital which would have negative electoral results. He did it because he had a genuine belief in racial equality. His only competition in doing more to advance this is Lincoln.

There are plenty of stories from his contemporaries of him playing the "good cop" on civil rights while other Democratic Senators played the "bad cop," effectively watering down the civil rights legislation of the 1950s, not to mention his infamous "I'll have those n*ggers voting Democratic for 200 years" quote, which always initiates an irate refutation from Democratic partisans, but I have zero reason not to believe he said that.  I think by LBJ's Presidency, it was more than apparent which way the winds were blowing, and the South was really starting to crack for the Democrats, while the votes of Northern Blacks (which had been reliably Democratic for decades at this point) were absolutely essential to the Northern urban support the party relied on for both Congress and the Presidency.  Again, I give the man credit for signing the laws and pushing for them, but it's just odd to me that Democrats have tried to paint him as this truly altruistic man who took a huge political risk ... I'd argue the bigger risk would be kicking the can down the road another ten years and possibly alienating Northern Black voters.  His early career involved opposing civil rights legislation and then supporting watered down versions in the 1950s.  I don't know why it's so controversial that a man born in rural Texas who entered Congress as a segregationist *MIGHT* have been a bit personally racist and seen some political capital in solidifying the Black support that was now absolutely essential for Democrats to win the Northern states necessary to win the White House...

[RINO Tom]

8. Lyndon B. Johnson (D-TX) - I am of the camp that LBJ was a complete opportunist and find the rewriting of his civil rights attitudes by historians to be wishful thinking ... that said, the guy signed the CRA and VRA, so props.

I’m sorry, how is this true? All his advisors told him not push for civil rights legislation, as it was a waste of political capital which would have negative electoral results. He did it because he had a genuine belief in racial equality. His only competition in doing more to advance this is Lincoln.

There are plenty of stories from his contemporaries of him playing the "good cop" on civil rights while other Democratic Senators played the "bad cop," effectively watering down the civil rights legislation of the 1950s, not to mention his infamous "I'll have those n*ggers voting Democratic for 200 years" quote, which always initiates an irate refutation from Democratic partisans, but I have zero reason not to believe he said that.  I think by LBJ's Presidency, it was more than apparent which way the winds were blowing, and the South was really starting to crack for the Democrats, while the votes of Northern Blacks (which had been reliably Democratic for decades at this point) were absolutely essential to the Northern urban support the party relied on for both Congress and the Presidency.  Again, I give the man credit for signing the laws and pushing for them, but it's just odd to me that Democrats have tried to paint him as this truly altruistic man who took a huge political risk ... I'd argue the bigger risk would be kicking the can down the road another ten years and possibly alienating Northern Black voters.  His early career involved opposing civil rights legislation and then supporting watered down versions in the 1950s.  I don't know why it's so controversial that a man born in rural Texas who entered Congress as a segregationist *MIGHT* have been a bit personally racist and seen some political capital in solidifying the Black support that was now absolutely essential for Democrats to win the Northern states necessary to win the White House...

LBJ was a complex and flawed man, insatiably ambitious and craving power. But he appeared to have a genuine belief in social and racial justice, inspired by his religiosity and experience growing up in the Depression. I also have no reason to doubt the infamous n-word comment, but it in no way shows he is racist. The word was one he grew up with and he was known for off-colour language. He is acknowledging the political upside to a bill which carried arguably more considerably downside in that regard.

I won't derail the thread much further, but I think history has overrated how risky it actually was.  The Democrats retained the vast majority of Southern Senate seats for decades to come, the South continued to vote left of the nation for multiple Presidential elections in the coming decades and Democrats solidified Black support to astronomical levels that haven't fallen off since ... it certainly was in some ways risky, but I actually think it was the smartest thing to do in the moment.

I think Truman's 1948 victory proved that Democrats needed Black support at least as much as they needed Southern support, and I think Eisenhower's two landslides (both of which he still lost the Black vote, even with a segregationist VP pick for Stevenson and after enforcing Brown v. Board with the national guard) effectively caused the GOP to abandon any ambition of winning over Black voters.  From what I have read, the Democrats figured they would expand upon their Black support as a way to flip close Northern states in the future and that even if they lost some of the more conservative voters in the South, populist and working class Southern Whites would stick with them to provide a winning coalition in those states still ... and I would say history largely proved them correct.  (I would argue the GOP victories in 1968, 1972 and 1984 tell us very little about the political winds of the time.)

[RINO Tom]

Keeping with my dual rankings theme...

"Official"/"Objective" Rankings
1. Ronald Reagan (R-CA)
2. George H. W. Bush (R-TX)
3. Barack Obama (D-IL)
4. Bill Clinton (D-AR)
5. Gerald Ford (R-MI)
6. George W. Bush (R-TX)
7. Richard Nixon (R-CA)
8. Jimmy Carter (D-GA)

"Personal" Rankings (Don't use this for the average)
1. Ronald Reagan (R-CA)
2. George H. W. Bush (R-TX)
3. Gerald Ford (R-MI)
4. George W. Bush (R-TX)
5. Barack Obama (D-IL)
6. Bill Clinton (D-AR)
7. Richard Nixon (R-CA)
8. Jimmy Carter (D-GA)

Some Ramblings
- I think it's pretty clear that Reagan was the most effective leader and greatest President to hold power in this period ... but that's just me.
- It's hard not to let ideology get too much in the way of #2 through #4.  Bush and Clinton were very effective, and Obama was a mixed bag in this department.  I think Bush has been penalized too much for not winning reelection, and I think his Presidency was quite good.  Obama gets the nod over Clinton for the scandals of Clinton, pure and simple.
- Ford comes next due to not having the accomplishments to be higher but also showing the leadership and resolve in a tumultuous time, putting what he thought was best for the nation over his legacy.
- The last three are all objectively "bad" Presidents, historically speaking, but I personally think Bush had a better Presidency than Carter.  Nixon was hard to rank, but I put him in the middle.  While he disgraced the office, and it is my opinion that he SHOULD be last, his more positive legacies push him a hair past Carter for me.

[RINO Tom]

I believe Mr. Clinton was from Arkansas.

Lol, I had just been reading a passage from a book about how LBJ torpedoed early civil rights legislation and then watered down later bills, so D-TX was on my mind.

[RINO Tom]

Literally LOL at Jimmy Carter making it into this final list before Ronald Reagan ... that is some truly historic irony and a joke, haha.

1. Abraham Lincoln (R-IL)
2. George Washington (NP-VA)
3. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (D-NY)
4. Theodore Roosevelt (R-NY)
5. Dwight D. Eisenhower (R-KS)
6. James Monroe (DR-VA)
7. Thomas Jefferson (DR-VA)
8. James K. Polk (D-TN)
9. Harry S. Truman (D-MO)
10. Lyndon B. Johnson (D-TX)

Obviously, my own top ten rankings would have to include people like Reagan (probably in at #8), McKinley and (though I dislike both) probably Jackson and Wilson.

[RINO Tom]

Imagine thinking it is possible to have an "objective" opinion of Ronald Reagan less than twenty years after the man died. This entire exercise is arbitrary and silly (though enjoyable), so I don't know why some people are pretending there is an inherently correct order outside of maybe the top three.

I mean, agree to disagree.

[RINO Tom]

1. James Monroe (DR-VA)
2. James Madison (DR-VA)
3. Woodrow Wilson (D-NJ)
4. George H.W. Bush (R-TX)
5. Bill Clinton (D-AR)
6. John Quincy Adams (DR-MA)
7. John F. Kennedy (D-MA)
8. John Adams (F-MA)
9. James A. Garfield (R-OH)
10. Jimmy Carter (D-GA)

[RINO Tom]

Interesting group, lol ... Atlas is weird.   Anyway:

"Objective" Top Ten
1. Woodrow Wilson (D-NJ)
2. William McKinley (R-OH)
3. James K. Polk (D-TN)
4. Andrew Jackson (D-TN)
5. Calvin Coolidge (R-MA)
6. Grover Cleveland (D-NY)
7. William Howard Taft (R-OH)
8. Gerald Ford (R-MI)
9. Rutherford B. Hayes (R-OH)
10. James Garfield (R-OH)

If I were to "let my personal bias in" (let's not have this debate again), people like Harding and Bush 43 would be much higher than they are ranked usually, and Presidents I very much dislike like Wilson and Jackson would get the boot.  Alas, the former two were rather ineffective (though I think and hope that history will judge Bush more softly given his good leadership after 9/11), and the latter two were rather effective.

[RINO Tom]

1. Andrew Jackson (D-TN)
2. George W. Bush (R-TX)
3. Richard Nixon (R-CA)
4. Martin Van Buren (D-NY)
5. Herbert Hoover (R-CA)
6. Warren Harding (R-OH)
7. John Tyler (W-VA)
8. William Henry Harrison (W-OH)
9. Benjamin Harrison (R-IN)
10. Andrew Johnson (D-TN)
11. Millard Fillmore (W-NY)
12. Franklin Pierce (D-NH)
13. James Buchanan (D-PA)

Wow, that was hard ... I'll probably change my mind in like ten minutes, lol.

[RINO Tom]

^ I edited the post.  I can't rank a President who isn't done with his term, though, so if you must include Trump ... I give you permission to put him last.