Atlas ranks the presidents -- week 9 (WORST OF THE WORST) (user search)
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  Atlas ranks the presidents -- week 9 (WORST OF THE WORST) (search mode)
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Author Topic: Atlas ranks the presidents -- week 9 (WORST OF THE WORST)  (Read 9629 times)
Alben Barkley
KYWildman
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*****
Posts: 19,282
United States


Political Matrix
E: -2.97, S: -5.74

P P
« on: July 12, 2020, 12:18:49 PM »

1. George Washington
2. Thomas Jefferson
3. James Monroe
4. John Adams
5. James Madison
6. Andrew Jackson
7. John Quincy Adams
8. Martin Van Buren
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Alben Barkley
KYWildman
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 19,282
United States


Political Matrix
E: -2.97, S: -5.74

P P
« Reply #1 on: July 25, 2020, 12:31:32 PM »

1. Abraham Lincoln
2. James Polk
3. Ulysses S. Grant
4. Zachary Taylor
5. William Henry Harrison
6. Millard Fillmore
7. John Tyler
8. Franklin Pierce
9. Andrew Johnson
10. James Buchanan

William Henry Harrison did literally nothing so he’s kind of a blank slate, with no positive or negative impact. That means everyone I rank below him was so bad it would literally have been preferable to have no president at all than them. Tells you how awful some of the presidents of this era were.
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Alben Barkley
KYWildman
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 19,282
United States


Political Matrix
E: -2.97, S: -5.74

P P
« Reply #2 on: July 25, 2020, 02:25:39 PM »

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. Smiley

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. Tongue

I agree with you post-1876 for the most part, though there’s a reason Teddy left to form the “progressive” party. In reality both parties had liberal and conservative wings for most of their history, so it’s an oversimplification to say that either one definitively was THE right or left party at almost any given time in history. And during the Civil War and for the most part Reconstruction, the GOP was the overall more left party. This isn’t really up for much debate. I mean, Marx wrote a letter to Lincoln praising them.

Anyway, if we’re talking documentary recommendations, for the modern era PBS has an extensive documentary covering the life of every US President from FDR to W. Bush, with the exception of Ford, as part of their “American Experience” series. I’ve watched them all, and all are good. The Truman documentary combined with the McCullough biography of him is one of the big reasons I became such a Truman fan. The HW doc also boosted my opinion of him.

I think they have some entries for earlier presidents too but I haven’t watched those.
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Alben Barkley
KYWildman
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 19,282
United States


Political Matrix
E: -2.97, S: -5.74

P P
« Reply #3 on: July 26, 2020, 04:59:20 PM »

Ah, the Gilded Age. Yet another series of mostly mediocre to terrible presidents.

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

It was hard to even rank them because there’s such a steep drop-off between 1 and 2 alone, then another one between 4 and 5. After that they all suck so hard they are pretty much interchangeably bad. Garfield gets points, like William Henry Harrison, for dying before he could do pretty much anything. That means it’s incredibly damning to do worse than him. Hayes ended Reconstruction as part of a corrupt deal to steal an election. Arthur was so bad he ended decades of Republican rule. Harrison was so bad people brought the guy who he beat in the first place back.
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Alben Barkley
KYWildman
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 19,282
United States


Political Matrix
E: -2.97, S: -5.74

P P
« Reply #4 on: August 02, 2020, 04:31:05 PM »

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.
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Alben Barkley
KYWildman
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 19,282
United States


Political Matrix
E: -2.97, S: -5.74

P P
« Reply #5 on: August 02, 2020, 04:32:20 PM »

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...?
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Alben Barkley
KYWildman
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 19,282
United States


Political Matrix
E: -2.97, S: -5.74

P P
« Reply #6 on: August 10, 2020, 10:41:18 AM »

1. Clinton
2. Obama
3. Carter
4. H.W. Bush
5. Ford
6. Nixon
7. Reagan
8. W. Bush
9. Trump

That was easy.
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Alben Barkley
KYWildman
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 19,282
United States


Political Matrix
E: -2.97, S: -5.74

P P
« Reply #7 on: August 16, 2020, 06:09:58 PM »

1. Franklin D. Roosevelt
2. Harry S. Truman
3. Abraham Lincoln
4. Lyndon B. Johnson
5. George Washington
6. Bill Clinton
7. Theodore Roosevelt
8. Woodrow Wilson
9. Thomas Jefferson
10. Dwight D. Eisenhower
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Alben Barkley
KYWildman
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 19,282
United States


Political Matrix
E: -2.97, S: -5.74

P P
« Reply #8 on: September 06, 2020, 11:51:29 PM »

Can you people please just follow the rules?

Take the guys I listed and rank them from best to worst.

It's really hard to combine different rankings when y'all are skipping presidents, adding your own presidents, making your own rules, etc.

Oh sorry, missed the last couple rankings and didn’t realize that’s how we’re doing things now.

Updated to reflect the rules:

Jackson
Van Buren
WH Harrison
Nixon
Benjamin Harrison
Fillmore
Tyler
Pierce
Hoover
W. Bush
Harding
Andrew Johnson
Buchanan
Trump
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