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

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Look, this is my very biased list

1. James Garfield

(big gap)

2. Unironically Rutherford Hayes

3. Theodore Roosevelt, although I am not able to like him as a person

4. Benjamin Harrison

5. Chester Arthur

6. Grover Cleveland. He is an interesting case.

7. William Howard Taft

8. William McKinley

Probably positions 4 to 7 are interchangeable.

8. Rutherford Hayes (Hayes gets special vitriol from me for ending Reconstruction-as far as I'm concerned, the South never should have been let back into the Union.)

Then I suggest you to direct special vitriol to President Lincoln (who wanted to readmit Southern states into the Union) and to President Grant (during whose term Reconstruction ended in most Southern states).

By the way, what do you think should have happened to the South? Have it returned to territory status?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

8. Rutherford Hayes (Hayes gets special vitriol from me for ending Reconstruction-as far as I'm concerned, the South never should have been let back into the Union.)

Then I suggest you to direct special vitriol to President Lincoln (who wanted to readmit Southern states into the Union) and to President Grant (during whose term Reconstruction ended in most Southern states).

By the way, what do you think should have happened to the South? Have it returned to territory status?

Treat them as lower than territory status. They wouldn't be worth the dirt off my shoes.

What is lower than territory status? How can something like that be governed?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

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?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Where is this fiction coming from that Rutherford B. Hayes literally ended Reconstruction? Yeah, he got to be president instead of Tilden, and that ended Reconstruction, but the hard negotiating that went on and how it went down had almost nothing to deal with Hayes the individual. To put in Alfred Hitchcock terms Hayes was the MacGuffin in the episode. President was important but Congress called the shots in this era, the president was not someone that can rule by dictate and his party would follow lockstep behind him.

Yes. Also, it's not like there were much better alternatives on the civil rights front, since President Tilden very likely would have given White Southerners all they wanted enthusiastically, and other alternative was an indefinitely long constitutional crisis.
If anything I think Grant is more to blame for the Compromise of 1877 and for the end of Reconstruction than Hayes, if that makes sense.

[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?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

The original post is really mean with Gilded Age presidents.

Anyway:

1. Lyndon Johnson is probably my favourite president
2. Franklin Roosevelt
3. Harry Truman
4. Dwight Eisenhower
5. Calvin Coolidge
6. John Kennedy
7. Woodrow Wilson
8. Warren Harding
9. Herbert Hoover

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

This is going to be wild.
I am not ranking Trump as his presidency is still ongoing.*

1. Barack Obama
2. George H. W. Bush
3. Bill Clinton
4. Ronald Reagan
5. Richard Nixon
6. Jimmy Carter
7. Gerald Ford
8. George W. Bush

I tried to do this by making a composite index of rankings on various different things (of course it will be still full of bias). To be completely candid, positions 2/3/4 were a tie that I broke based on personality.

*technically Jimmy Carter is constitutionally eligible to become President again, so I have an argument not to rank him either, but that'd be too stupid lmao.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Let me just say that oh dear I can't believe my buddy James Garfield is there and McKinley is not.

Anyway:
1. Honest Abe
2. Landslide Lyndon (not the Greek poster)
3. Fireside Chat Franklin
4. Yorktown George
5. Give 'Em Hell Harry
6. Monticello Tom
7. Bull Moose Teddy
8. "The Last of the Crooked Hats" Monroe
9. General Grant (not the giant sequoia)
10. Hope 'n Change Barack

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

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

Atlas librul bias plz

As I already noted James Garfield also made it before William McKinley and even though I strongly contributed to that, I will admit it is hilarious.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Second tier.
This gets complicated fast. I don't know.

My (bad) rankings:

11. MONROE James
12. MADISON James
13. ADAMS John Quincy
14. TAYLOR Zachary
15. CLINTON Bill
16. BUSH George H. W.
17. REAGAN Ronald
18. ADAMS John
19. KENNEDY John
20. WILSON Woodrow

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Third tier may be the hardest of all (I am sure I will say the same thing of the following tier).

21. Woodrow Wilson
22. James Garfield
23. Rutherford Hayes
24. Grover Cleveland
25. William Howard Taft
26. Richard Nixon
27. Chester Arthur
28. William McKinley
29. Andrew Jackson
30. James Polk

Meh.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

WORST OF THE WORST

Again I don't rank Donald Trump as his presidency is still ongoing.

31. Richard Nixon
32. James Polk
33. Andrew Jackson
34. Benjamin Harrison
35. John Tyler
36. Martin Van Buren
37. Warren Harding
38. William Henry Harrison
39. George Walker Bush
40. Andrew Johnson
41. Franklin Pierce
42. James Buchanan
43. Herbert Hoover

Lol poor Hoover I'm just doing identity politics (again)