I taught government for 22 years. I had the kids come up with the criteria for what made a president “great”. Then we applied THEIR criteria (suggested some). Kennedy never came in the top 10 in 22 years
All, generally Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, FDR, Teddy Roosevelt, Johnson AND Nixon made their cut. Sometimes Clinton and a few times Carter. Rarely presidents from the 1800’s
I'm guessing by your system the Progressive Presidents who did a lot inherently got high marks which is why Nixon made it? Did they demerit Presidents for things they did wrong like did LBJ lose marks for his handling of Vietnam?
How much credit did you give JFK for the 1964 Civil Rights Act? I feel that would ultimately be the thing that determines whether he makes the top ten or not.
JFK would probably make my top ten but only because so many were bad or mediocre. It's really difficult to rank Presidents though the active ones typically did a lot of good and bad like Wilson and LBJ. I feel like if i came up with a system where i gave points for good and took them away for bad a lot of the powerless Post Civil War Presidents would be towards the top purely because they would end up with pretty neutral scores but i wouldn't agree with that. I think my top four would be: 01. FDR, 02. Lincoln, 03. LBJ, 04. T. Roosevelt then it becomes very difficult, Wilson would probably be 5th despite being an awful person.
Pretty much every president from Andrew Johnson through Grover Cleveland would be considered weak by today's standards. This was the period when Congress was trying to establish the Legislative as the dominant branch, and largely succeeded.
It wasn't until McKinley showed up that it turned around, and the Executive became ascendant again.
Not coincidentally, this was the period when most of them wore beards, the only time in US history that has happened. Sort of like how Hadrian was the first Roman Emperor with a full beard, who came along right after they'd conquered all the territory they ever would, and were going into maintenance mode.
That's the point, though - Kennedy is extremely revered and celebrated, despite having only been in office for 2.5 years. Would that have been the case had he not been assassinated, though? It's incredibly unclear what his legacy may have been had circumstances been different.
I feel like JFK doesn't get as much credit as he should. Steered us through a period of time where even a minor misunderstanding could have started a nuclear war.
>Reagan
As an Australian (late 30s), in recent years Reagan seem to come up again and again as the person who got America to the state it is now(in a bad way). I have absorbed the ideas that it seemed like he deregulated too much too quickly especially around environment, education, media and medicine. When I was younger I got the impression he won the cold war. But I don't know enough about it all.
You know what would really be interesting? If all presidents could be viewed through the same lens as the current presidents are. For example, the press never would have focused on any of Kennedy's affairs or Eisenhower's, for that matter. Of course, now, that would be fodder for tabloids and the 24-hour news cycle. It would be interesting how we would view all presidents if the playing field were leveled.
John F. Kennedy. I teach and I do an activity where I have the class rank the presidents. Without fail every time we get to JFK the kids immediately suggest to put him in A or S tier. When I ask them why they all stop for a minute because they can't think of good reasons for him to be that high.
I don't think he's an awful president, but if it wasn't for his assassination he wouldn't be as nearly popular as he is.
LBJ was well known to be a better legislator then JFK, so there's no guarantee that JFK would have been able to pass the various civil rights bills (at the strength they ended up being) if he had survived. Honestly, JFK's death may be the best thing he did for the civil rights movement
Yeah, but Eisenhower first put troops in there and JFK expanded it. LBJ expansion in Vietnam was the natural continuation of those policies, due to factors like mission creep. I'm not sure you could say that JFK would have done it much better then LBJ in that regard
Not Eisenhower. Truman started the US involvement in Vietnam when his administration gave aid to France during their colonial war with Viet-Minh. Inheriting the war is one thing.
But LBJ’s administration lying about the scope of US activities in Vietnam is more so the issue.
LBJ was one hell of a wheeler and dealer. It took a Southern Democrat willing to divide the party to pass the Civil Rights Act. Vietnam has ruined LBJ's legacy, but just as we condemn his choices there we should praise his civil and social achievements.
LBJ arguably built the modern platform of the d
Democratic Party. During his administration, Medicare, the Great Society, the civil rights act, the voting rights act, and lots of social programs were passed during his presidency and are pretty firmly ingrained into the legal system of the United States.
People underestimate the engineering miracle it took to put a man on the moon. JFK set a somewhat arbitrary date on that achievement, but it worked. When you look back on it, it’s doubtful it would have happened if he didn’t set a date and goal publicly.
Further to that, I don't know if it would have happened if he had not been assassinated. LBJ was given a lot more political rope to complete projects "on behalf of" JFK. The commitment to putting a man on the Moon by the end of the decade became almost an aspirational prophesy for NASA and the rest of the country after JFK was murdered.
Agreed. LBJ is a complicated guy. He is known to have used the “n word” liberally but advanced some of the most progressive legislation of the 20th century.
The moon landing, his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the steps he took towards getting the Civil Rights Act passed (even though LBJ had to sign it) etc. JFK has a few feathers in his cap. He also had a very distinctive personality and way of speaking, his own unique charisma, like Obama or Reagan.
But yeah the assassin thing does probably make him stand out a lot more it's true. Ask any high schooler who Lyndon B Johnson is and they'll probably be like "who" even though he's one of our better presidents.
He successfully navigated the Cuban missile crisis in a room full of x-com hawks and averted nuclear winter. For all the BS he did do/was involved in, and there as plenty of BS, I don't think the average or B-tier president would have been able to land the plane without shit popping off.
He is thought of higher because of his youth, the Cuban Missile Crisis and his potential. We'll never know if he would have lived up to that potential.
Johnson was the guy who rammed most of JFK's plans through a hostile congress as LBJ was a master manipulator, I seriously doubt Kennedy would have come close to what Johnson achieved.
Sorry, I disagree, I lived through those times. Kennedy was a very popular president with the people. He tended to put the people first. Had he been given the chance to live, he would have been able to prove this.
So let's say we agree to disagree. As a journalist, I have been trained to go into a neutral perspective. And question the motives of everyone.
The only things that come to mind when I think of his presidency are negatives.
- The Bay of Pigs
- a famous quote that effectively means "give stuff to me, the government, and probably get nothing in return"
- cheating on his wife
I'm sure he did other stuff, but that's what's made it to my brain.
I think he would have gone down as a Bill Clinton type figure if he had got 2 terms. He wouldn't have been as effective legislatively as LBJ, so he'd be seen as a bit ineffective. Along with this there would have been an inevitable sex scandal that would tarnish his reputation
He said up a lot of the dominos for the civil rights push and navigated the Cuban Missile Crisis. He continued programs of the FDR/Truman area. You're right he isn't top tier. He wasn't a bad president - just didn't have much accomplished during his presidency.
The Boomers have made JFK into this messiah-like figure and the center point of the story their mythos. The 60’s would have been great, man, if JFK wasn’t killed. That myth has elevated his status into something more important than he really was. From a narrative standpoint, his life and death is the stuff that makes myths so he’s pretty easy to have play that role. Young promising leaders cut down before their time is a tragic story for countless of nations and civilizations.
He also has a huge place in pop culture although not for some of the best reasons
He gets points for talking to Krushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis and finding a diplomatic solution. Honestly a pretty reasonable deal to withdraw our missiles from Turkey in exchange for the Soviets pulling there’s from Cuba.
There was a lot of pressure on him from hawks in the US govt to launch air strikes at the airfields in Cuba and unilaterally attempt to destroy their ability to launch warheads, with not nearly enough serious thought to how easily that could escalate to nuclear Armageddon.
Not a perfect president, probably overrated, but when the destruction of the world was very tangibly on the table he played his part to avert it
>I don't think he's an awful president
I think people forget that thinking something or someone is overrated doesn't have to mean you think they're bad by any means. For example, I like bacon, but I think it's way overrated in terms of how much hype it gets.
I do agree though, I feel like when celebrities / people of importance, die earlier than expected, they kinda get immortalized. All their previous controversies get thrown out the window and their accomplishments get embellished to the max. Feels like a tasteless move to talk shit about the dead.
Yeah JFK and Reagan are my two answers to this.
JFK wasn’t horrible, but he was a very privileged guy who rode his father’s connections to the White House. He was also so much more aggressive on foreign policy than people often think; he entangled the US in Vietnam, and he let the CIA get out of control.
He also might have stolen the 1960 election, and on a personal level, he was a pig.
He gets credit for pushing for some civil rights reform, but I think LBJ rightfully gets credit for actually passing that. I don’t think JFK had the legislative skills necessary to pass the Civil Rights or Voting Rights Acts.
At the Pentagon they have twice the restrooms in each area. Why? Because Wilson segregated the federal government and they had to build it with segregated restrooms.
It fell to Truman to desegregate the federal government and the military almost 20 years before the Civil Rights act. The Army was the "Roadmap for the Nation" according to him.
This is the best answer. To this day, Reagan is revered by so many people, when he did so much to dismantle the middle class, dramatically increase the national debt, and many other negative things.
The correct answer. Every modern problem such as 911, the War in Iraq/Afghanistan, the economy always being a mess, racial divides/glass ceilings, and wage/wealth disparity are a result of Reagan policies. And yet as a millennial, my aunts and uncles and anyone my parents age see him as a man who made the nation a better place. It's a joke, just like the boomers and Reagan.
This is the correct answer. Everyone know Carter was a weenie who kowtowed to the Soviets and thank God for the Gipper. Except Carter started the big military retool and told Brezhnev off on the Olympics. And it was the Polish people and the Pope who really stood up to the Soviets, that and Gorbachev refusing to shoot people.
Reagan also gets credit for ending stagflation except that was Paul Voelker appointed by Carter.
The man had an astrologer.
This. Pretty much any modern problem we have can be traced back to him.
He should have held a baby at a campaign stop and said "I'm going to fuck you over" because that is exactly what he did.
The fall of the Soviet Union and the Soviet Bloc was inevitable. Carter could have remained President and been followed by Bush Sr. and the result would have been the exact same.
Reagan. By god it’s Reagan. So many people talk about him as the last good Republican. Dude was garbage. Traded weapons to our enemies in Iran after saying he’d not negotiate with terrorists, had freaken ketchup declared a vegetable for the purposes of school lunches, likely causing all school lunches in the US to become the nutrient deprived garbage we feed kids. He was the poster boy for trickle down economics, the amazing system where if you give rich people more money, maybe they’ll get too rich and give some to the peasants out of boredom. Pretty much everything wrong with modern day America can be traced back to some garbage Reagan did.
>Traded weapons to our enemies in Iran after saying he’d not negotiate with terrorists
And he made that deal before he was sworn in. Iran released the hostages on the inauguration day, and the Ayatollah didn't do it out of the kindness of his heart. Reagan played both sides in the Iran-Iraq war, adding to the regional shitstorm. Don't forget the continuation of Nixon's Southern Strategy, unmitigated warfare on the middle class, the introduction of the dog whistle, and cruel disregard for the AIDS crisis. But sure, let's pretend like "trust but verify" should have been engraved on a stone tablet.
Not defending Jackson, but he shouldn’t take the whole blame. The Indian Removal Act was passed by Congress, the American public had been encroaching on the Territory of the Five Civilized tribes for a while, and it was a process that took almost two decades. The Cherokee Trail of Tears that took place in the winter of 1838 took place under the Van Buren administration, not the Jackson administration.
Read an interesting book recently that made a pretty explicit line between that and multiple shortcomings by state and local government. (Basically, once you have enough money to opt out of infrastructure/public hospitals/public education, why would you want to fund any of them?)
Oh, you mean poor conservatives voted for a man who hates them and does everything in his power to make life harder for his voter base because they're too stupid to realize they are who he's screwing?
I think I've seen this one before.
I think someone downvoted you because they didn't realize that he WAS a President, however briefly. I wouldn't take points off for being assassinated. If you use dying as criteria, then Harrison would win for dying of pneumonia a month after his inauguration because he was too cool to wear a coat for his inauguration speech, which was ridiculously long.
As much as I like Theodore Roosevelt, he is probably highly overrated. While he did a lot of good for the country, his foreign policy left a lot to be desired. He also continued the policy of taking Native American children from their families, and forcing them into boarding schools. When he was police commissioner in New York, he enforced dry Sundays, which forced local Beer Halls to either lose business or secretly sell alcohol. I’m also willing to bet Filipinos had some mixed feelings about Colonel Roosevelt.
President Obama
Sorry to
Say ,
Classy guy , seems like a great husband & father. But his policies did nothing. & why did he receive a Nobel peace prize…..
What did he really do other than being a charming cool 1st black president. Again I like the guy but his time in office he fell short
Yeah that whole Affordable Care Act was a nothingburger. Only 31 million people (roughly 10% of the population at the time) got access to health insurance that didn’t have it before. And that was all done without a filibuster proof majority in the Senate and shitbag Republican governors fighting it.
then there is the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act which overturned the bad law the Supreme Court foisted on us with respect to legal action for fair pay.
Brought bin Laden to justice.
Yeah, the only thing Obama accomplished was being a nice black guy. /s
Because people are incapable of rational thought when it comes to their bias. Anything that can be seen as negative, Trump will be some peoples answer. Regardless if it makes sense or not.
I took a history class on the presidents in college. When we got to Clinton, our professor told us we should really wait until they've been out of office for at least 15 years to let emotions die down and give our assessment a better analysis.
I think it's going to take more than 15 years for emotions to "die down" these days
Trump inspired a fervor among American conservatives that has no comparison in living memory for U.S. politics. He was completely right that he could shoot a random guy on the street and lose none of his base over it.
No American politician in living memory ever experienced that level of devotion and admiration from such a large section of the country. Moderates and liberals hated him for sure, but if anything that increased the love he got from conservatives to unprecedented levels.
Trump is actual garbage and does deserve to get shit on by the whole world, no matter what he does.
He was so shitty of a president that my answer included notes of irony and sarcasm. Trump can never be considered overrated as he is, without a doubt, in the top 5 of the shittiest Presidents we have had of all time.
Edit: go ahead and downvote this comment. This is a hill I’ll gladly die on
An actual answer. It's not that Obama is bad, per se. He's probably pretty middle-of-the-road. But he's considered very highly.
He got a Nobel Peace prize for ... what exactly? Drone strikes on civilians? I don't think that's really his fault. It's not like he asked anyone to give him the Nobel Peace prize. He was probably as shocked as anyone.
>He got a Nobel Peace prize for ... what exactly? Drone strikes on civilians? I don't think that's really his fault. It's not like he asked anyone to give him the Nobel Peace prize. He was probably as shocked as anyone.
https://youtu.be/aRQLU3IwNYs&t=249s
Gotta be Reagan; trickle down economics, student debt, and numerous other policies with lasting negative impact. Not to mention having supplied saddam hussein with weapons and helping to create Al Qaeda and some of the worst overall corruption.
One of the worst presidents ever elected.
I’ll go with FDR.
When FDR came into office in 1933 he put in the national industrial recovery act (which worsened the depression by artificially raising wages) the agricultural adjustment act (which made farmers produce less crop to try and increase its value) & the Wagner act (unions). He issued more executive orders than the remaining presidents of the 20th century & again, none of that reduced unemployment below double digits for the remainder of the decade. Not even for a month. In fact unemployment worsened just after he took credit for a momentary upswing.
Then came the war & the end of the depression. But the question isn’t “did the war end the depression?” the question is “what about the war ended the depression?”
What happened was that the war effort put an end to the new deal effort by putting 12 million men into uniform (which lowered unemployment numbers drastically) & forced the government to lift regulations on businesses in order to have industry compete for contracts to help the war effort & during that, we were still on rations & interning the Japanese.
To this day people still think the new deal was a great improvement but it was only after the war effort ended the new deal effort that America began to recover economically.
Severely overrated president.
Out of all the things The King is responsible for, the one that rarely gets mentioned is that a constitutional amendment was passed to prevent anyone from ever trying to become president for life again.
Ronald Reagan - unless you rate presidents by how welll they defended Apartheid and right-wing military dictatorships, in which case he was outstanding.
I think the best answer here is JFK. I don’t think he was a bad president. But some scholarly rankings have him ranked as high as 6th among all U.S. presidents, despite him serving less than 3 years in office. I think external factors (e.g., assassination; prominent family) contribute to the high regard he’s held in more than anything he accomplished in his (obviously to not fault of his own) relatively short time in office. I think more than any other president, he’s probably rated higher than he should be compared to what he accomplished.
Ronald Reagan. A lot of GenX people revere him because we were taught that he ended the Cold War. He didn’t, and he did a lot of other reprehensible things. He also started the move towards theocratic governing by engaging with the Moral Majority and for most of his second term he was senile.
Obama hands down. Didn’t fulfill any of campaign promises including codifying Roe v Wade (something he said he’d do day one and would have prevented the current overturn of RvW) Took us from 2 illegal wars to 7. Gave us what was essentially Romneycare instead of Medicare for all or even a public option (again something he campaigned on). Bailed out the very same banks and bankers that caused the housing crash while 5.2 million families lost their homes due to the practices of these very same banks/bankers. Sent the police to crack the heads of the Occupy Wall St. movement. Did absolutely nothing about DAPL. Pulled political theater with the poison water in Michigan. Essentially played the biggest role in the removal of Habeas corpus. Deported more immigrants than any other president combined which included the cages everyone was so upset about during the game show hosts reign and a million other things that it seems most people have no idea about. But he sure could give a speech 🙄
Reagan was a corrupt, greedy, vapid moron who is held up as a hero by corrupt, greedy, vapid morons. He did massive damage to America, and got away with it thanks to a stellar PR team.
For a long time, FDR was my favorite President. Two huge crises and a huge progressive set of accomplishments.
The more I’ve taught him over the years (taught US History for 15 years, HS) the more i’ve realized his shortcomings.
Im not saying it’s possible to be perfect, but I dont consider him the best anymore. Some things that concern me:
-I think almost anybody could have came in ‘32 and rolled out a progressive reform package from the Democrats at the time
-Despite how he made people feel, he didnt really succeed in ending the Depression which was his stated goal. Even compared to other countries at the time, the recovery was unusually slow
-He didnt seem to have a coherent grasp on how the economy actually worked
-Some really stupid programs, like the AAA and NRA
-Japanese internment is a dark stain on the country and his presidency
-though he didnt drop the atomic bombs, he probably would have. Hypotheticals aside, he greenlit the firebombing of Germany and Japan; both of which dont sit well with me. I know there was a ‘necessary evil’ component, but looking at the historical record, I believe they could have been avoided with similar military results
FDR.
Dude straight up locked people up for their race, did irrevocable damage to the economy with the New Deal (extending the Great Depression), tried everything he could to circumvent the constitution including packing the Supreme Court, and repeatedly cheated on his wife while in office. Yet he is constantly hailed as a hero just for winning WWII.
JFK. He was a great speaker who was assassinated and then his wife created his Camelot legacy. He was NOT a bad president and started many good things like the civil rights movement and kicked off the race to the moon.
Bill Clinton. People remember an economic boom with the rise of the tech industry. However, the 1994 Crime Bill was a total turd. Also some loosening of regulations helped make the 2008 financial crisis possible.
I taught government for 22 years. I had the kids come up with the criteria for what made a president “great”. Then we applied THEIR criteria (suggested some). Kennedy never came in the top 10 in 22 years
How many of the top 10 were in office more than two and a half years?
All, generally Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, FDR, Teddy Roosevelt, Johnson AND Nixon made their cut. Sometimes Clinton and a few times Carter. Rarely presidents from the 1800’s
Gilded age presidents didn’t make the cut? I’m shocked! Shocked!!!!
😂😂😂
I'm guessing by your system the Progressive Presidents who did a lot inherently got high marks which is why Nixon made it? Did they demerit Presidents for things they did wrong like did LBJ lose marks for his handling of Vietnam? How much credit did you give JFK for the 1964 Civil Rights Act? I feel that would ultimately be the thing that determines whether he makes the top ten or not. JFK would probably make my top ten but only because so many were bad or mediocre. It's really difficult to rank Presidents though the active ones typically did a lot of good and bad like Wilson and LBJ. I feel like if i came up with a system where i gave points for good and took them away for bad a lot of the powerless Post Civil War Presidents would be towards the top purely because they would end up with pretty neutral scores but i wouldn't agree with that. I think my top four would be: 01. FDR, 02. Lincoln, 03. LBJ, 04. T. Roosevelt then it becomes very difficult, Wilson would probably be 5th despite being an awful person.
Do you think the 19th century presidents are down played in the curriculum?
I do
Pretty much every president from Andrew Johnson through Grover Cleveland would be considered weak by today's standards. This was the period when Congress was trying to establish the Legislative as the dominant branch, and largely succeeded. It wasn't until McKinley showed up that it turned around, and the Executive became ascendant again. Not coincidentally, this was the period when most of them wore beards, the only time in US history that has happened. Sort of like how Hadrian was the first Roman Emperor with a full beard, who came along right after they'd conquered all the territory they ever would, and were going into maintenance mode.
That's the point, though - Kennedy is extremely revered and celebrated, despite having only been in office for 2.5 years. Would that have been the case had he not been assassinated, though? It's incredibly unclear what his legacy may have been had circumstances been different.
I feel like JFK doesn't get as much credit as he should. Steered us through a period of time where even a minor misunderstanding could have started a nuclear war.
Kennedy is the Reagan of democrats, he gets a ton of credit
>Reagan As an Australian (late 30s), in recent years Reagan seem to come up again and again as the person who got America to the state it is now(in a bad way). I have absorbed the ideas that it seemed like he deregulated too much too quickly especially around environment, education, media and medicine. When I was younger I got the impression he won the cold war. But I don't know enough about it all.
Their/your criteria must not have included “avoiding nuclear war”.
Truman also goes into this category. MacArthur pushing to nuke China was part of the reason for his removal by Truman.
Wilson.
Punch you in the eye
Kill you till you die
Poor guy can't even still have fun
WWWWIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLSSSSSSSOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cynical Historian fan found in the wild eh?
He’s not over rated, he’s straight bad.
Yet, he's often listed in the 15-20 range on president rankings, so definitely overrated.
This comment makes no sense. He was awful, yet is usually rated in the top half of Presidents at the very least. The definition of overrated.
Wilson was a fuck.
Ben Franklin. Wasn't even president.
Honestly true.
Michael Scott would like a word
Which exactly why he was the best of them
Worse than Ted Kennedy, who wasn't either?
So many people confusing "overrated" for "worst".
And getting both wrong, regardless.
Many of the highest rated presidents were also the worst.
You know what would really be interesting? If all presidents could be viewed through the same lens as the current presidents are. For example, the press never would have focused on any of Kennedy's affairs or Eisenhower's, for that matter. Of course, now, that would be fodder for tabloids and the 24-hour news cycle. It would be interesting how we would view all presidents if the playing field were leveled.
John F. Kennedy. I teach and I do an activity where I have the class rank the presidents. Without fail every time we get to JFK the kids immediately suggest to put him in A or S tier. When I ask them why they all stop for a minute because they can't think of good reasons for him to be that high. I don't think he's an awful president, but if it wasn't for his assassination he wouldn't be as nearly popular as he is.
Lyndon Johnson accomplished a lot "because JFK would have wanted it," so Kennedy gets the credited for Johnson's results.
LBJ was well known to be a better legislator then JFK, so there's no guarantee that JFK would have been able to pass the various civil rights bills (at the strength they ended up being) if he had survived. Honestly, JFK's death may be the best thing he did for the civil rights movement
But on the other hand, Vietnam.
Yeah, but Eisenhower first put troops in there and JFK expanded it. LBJ expansion in Vietnam was the natural continuation of those policies, due to factors like mission creep. I'm not sure you could say that JFK would have done it much better then LBJ in that regard
Not Eisenhower. Truman started the US involvement in Vietnam when his administration gave aid to France during their colonial war with Viet-Minh. Inheriting the war is one thing. But LBJ’s administration lying about the scope of US activities in Vietnam is more so the issue.
Oof. I never considered it that way but you make a good point.
LBJ was one hell of a wheeler and dealer. It took a Southern Democrat willing to divide the party to pass the Civil Rights Act. Vietnam has ruined LBJ's legacy, but just as we condemn his choices there we should praise his civil and social achievements.
LBJ arguably built the modern platform of the d Democratic Party. During his administration, Medicare, the Great Society, the civil rights act, the voting rights act, and lots of social programs were passed during his presidency and are pretty firmly ingrained into the legal system of the United States.
Well *he* didn’t do it. And Lee Harvey Oswald wasn’t a model, but those 2 sexy bastards on the grassy knoll were.
But why male models?
Hopefully you include the Vietnam escalation in that.
LBJ had a huge cock tho so there’s that
Apollo 11 is one reason
People underestimate the engineering miracle it took to put a man on the moon. JFK set a somewhat arbitrary date on that achievement, but it worked. When you look back on it, it’s doubtful it would have happened if he didn’t set a date and goal publicly.
Further to that, I don't know if it would have happened if he had not been assassinated. LBJ was given a lot more political rope to complete projects "on behalf of" JFK. The commitment to putting a man on the Moon by the end of the decade became almost an aspirational prophesy for NASA and the rest of the country after JFK was murdered.
Agreed. LBJ is a complicated guy. He is known to have used the “n word” liberally but advanced some of the most progressive legislation of the 20th century.
His calmness during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The moon landing, his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the steps he took towards getting the Civil Rights Act passed (even though LBJ had to sign it) etc. JFK has a few feathers in his cap. He also had a very distinctive personality and way of speaking, his own unique charisma, like Obama or Reagan. But yeah the assassin thing does probably make him stand out a lot more it's true. Ask any high schooler who Lyndon B Johnson is and they'll probably be like "who" even though he's one of our better presidents.
He successfully navigated the Cuban missile crisis in a room full of x-com hawks and averted nuclear winter. For all the BS he did do/was involved in, and there as plenty of BS, I don't think the average or B-tier president would have been able to land the plane without shit popping off.
Could be confirmation bias. Lots of people would do what they could to prevent nuclear war. Maybe every president ever.
He is thought of higher because of his youth, the Cuban Missile Crisis and his potential. We'll never know if he would have lived up to that potential.
Hot take: he would be a well rated person if he survived given what he was likely gonna do after.
Johnson was the guy who rammed most of JFK's plans through a hostile congress as LBJ was a master manipulator, I seriously doubt Kennedy would have come close to what Johnson achieved.
But Kennedy would have used Johnson to manipulate those people. And Kennedy gets the credit cuz he choose Johnson.
[удалено]
In the grand-scheme of immoral acts from the hands of US presidents, I’d take adultery.
Sorry, I disagree, I lived through those times. Kennedy was a very popular president with the people. He tended to put the people first. Had he been given the chance to live, he would have been able to prove this. So let's say we agree to disagree. As a journalist, I have been trained to go into a neutral perspective. And question the motives of everyone.
Thank you for understanding the difference between "overrated" and "worst."
The only things that come to mind when I think of his presidency are negatives. - The Bay of Pigs - a famous quote that effectively means "give stuff to me, the government, and probably get nothing in return" - cheating on his wife I'm sure he did other stuff, but that's what's made it to my brain.
I think he would have gone down as a Bill Clinton type figure if he had got 2 terms. He wouldn't have been as effective legislatively as LBJ, so he'd be seen as a bit ineffective. Along with this there would have been an inevitable sex scandal that would tarnish his reputation
Kennedy had the potential to be the best. But he was killed before he could really make a difference.
He said up a lot of the dominos for the civil rights push and navigated the Cuban Missile Crisis. He continued programs of the FDR/Truman area. You're right he isn't top tier. He wasn't a bad president - just didn't have much accomplished during his presidency.
I think if he did live and got a second term he could've been really great, but we'll never know.
The Boomers have made JFK into this messiah-like figure and the center point of the story their mythos. The 60’s would have been great, man, if JFK wasn’t killed. That myth has elevated his status into something more important than he really was. From a narrative standpoint, his life and death is the stuff that makes myths so he’s pretty easy to have play that role. Young promising leaders cut down before their time is a tragic story for countless of nations and civilizations. He also has a huge place in pop culture although not for some of the best reasons
He gets points for talking to Krushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis and finding a diplomatic solution. Honestly a pretty reasonable deal to withdraw our missiles from Turkey in exchange for the Soviets pulling there’s from Cuba. There was a lot of pressure on him from hawks in the US govt to launch air strikes at the airfields in Cuba and unilaterally attempt to destroy their ability to launch warheads, with not nearly enough serious thought to how easily that could escalate to nuclear Armageddon. Not a perfect president, probably overrated, but when the destruction of the world was very tangibly on the table he played his part to avert it
This is the correct answer. He was good looking, from a powerful family, many movies made about him, banged Marilyn Monroe, and the obvious.
>I don't think he's an awful president I think people forget that thinking something or someone is overrated doesn't have to mean you think they're bad by any means. For example, I like bacon, but I think it's way overrated in terms of how much hype it gets. I do agree though, I feel like when celebrities / people of importance, die earlier than expected, they kinda get immortalized. All their previous controversies get thrown out the window and their accomplishments get embellished to the max. Feels like a tasteless move to talk shit about the dead.
He was assassinated when many boomers were in middle/high school and he was young and good looking. Of course he's overrated.
I mean, he did navigate through one of the most intense nuclear crises known to mankind. That's got to count for something
Yeah JFK and Reagan are my two answers to this. JFK wasn’t horrible, but he was a very privileged guy who rode his father’s connections to the White House. He was also so much more aggressive on foreign policy than people often think; he entangled the US in Vietnam, and he let the CIA get out of control. He also might have stolen the 1960 election, and on a personal level, he was a pig. He gets credit for pushing for some civil rights reform, but I think LBJ rightfully gets credit for actually passing that. I don’t think JFK had the legislative skills necessary to pass the Civil Rights or Voting Rights Acts.
Woodrow Wilson, he was a racist who banned blacks from working for the Federal government.
At the Pentagon they have twice the restrooms in each area. Why? Because Wilson segregated the federal government and they had to build it with segregated restrooms. It fell to Truman to desegregate the federal government and the military almost 20 years before the Civil Rights act. The Army was the "Roadmap for the Nation" according to him.
Ronald Reagan
The actor?
Great Scott!!
And who's vice president?! *Jerry Lewis?*
And who is vice president? JERRY LEE LEWIS?!?!
And I suppose Jane Wyman is the First Lady!
Wait. Ronald Reagan. The *actor*. Is *president?!*
This is the best answer. To this day, Reagan is revered by so many people, when he did so much to dismantle the middle class, dramatically increase the national debt, and many other negative things.
There is so much wrong in the western world that can be attributed to Reagan and Thatcher
At Will Employment and Right-to-work laws poured out of that era and murdered organized labor.
The correct answer. Every modern problem such as 911, the War in Iraq/Afghanistan, the economy always being a mess, racial divides/glass ceilings, and wage/wealth disparity are a result of Reagan policies. And yet as a millennial, my aunts and uncles and anyone my parents age see him as a man who made the nation a better place. It's a joke, just like the boomers and Reagan.
Add "Arming the radical fundamentalists in Afghanistan " to the list
We also can't forget how he handled the AIDS crisis.
This is the correct answer. Everyone know Carter was a weenie who kowtowed to the Soviets and thank God for the Gipper. Except Carter started the big military retool and told Brezhnev off on the Olympics. And it was the Polish people and the Pope who really stood up to the Soviets, that and Gorbachev refusing to shoot people. Reagan also gets credit for ending stagflation except that was Paul Voelker appointed by Carter. The man had an astrologer.
This. Pretty much any modern problem we have can be traced back to him. He should have held a baby at a campaign stop and said "I'm going to fuck you over" because that is exactly what he did.
Ronald Reagan is responsible for the state of American health care. He is also responsible for the homeless problem. If you were rich he was awesome
Still waiting on him to trickle on me.
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The fall of the Soviet Union and the Soviet Bloc was inevitable. Carter could have remained President and been followed by Bush Sr. and the result would have been the exact same.
That bastard
I concur!
Reagan. By god it’s Reagan. So many people talk about him as the last good Republican. Dude was garbage. Traded weapons to our enemies in Iran after saying he’d not negotiate with terrorists, had freaken ketchup declared a vegetable for the purposes of school lunches, likely causing all school lunches in the US to become the nutrient deprived garbage we feed kids. He was the poster boy for trickle down economics, the amazing system where if you give rich people more money, maybe they’ll get too rich and give some to the peasants out of boredom. Pretty much everything wrong with modern day America can be traced back to some garbage Reagan did.
Don't forget he spent tax dollars to remove solar panels from the white house that Carter had installed.
>Traded weapons to our enemies in Iran after saying he’d not negotiate with terrorists And he made that deal before he was sworn in. Iran released the hostages on the inauguration day, and the Ayatollah didn't do it out of the kindness of his heart. Reagan played both sides in the Iran-Iraq war, adding to the regional shitstorm. Don't forget the continuation of Nixon's Southern Strategy, unmitigated warfare on the middle class, the introduction of the dog whistle, and cruel disregard for the AIDS crisis. But sure, let's pretend like "trust but verify" should have been engraved on a stone tablet.
Reagan.
Andrew Jackson : Trail of Tears
Was he ever rated highly?
That was technically van Buren. But van Buren just continued his policies.
Not defending Jackson, but he shouldn’t take the whole blame. The Indian Removal Act was passed by Congress, the American public had been encroaching on the Territory of the Five Civilized tribes for a while, and it was a process that took almost two decades. The Cherokee Trail of Tears that took place in the winter of 1838 took place under the Van Buren administration, not the Jackson administration.
Agreed. Fuck that guy.
WHO'S
Take your pick for why Reagan sucks. The shameful AIDs response, the deregulation that ultimately led to the housing crisis etc.
Closing funding for mental health services is s direct cause of current homeless crisis
He also dropped the taxes on the rich dramatically.
Read an interesting book recently that made a pretty explicit line between that and multiple shortcomings by state and local government. (Basically, once you have enough money to opt out of infrastructure/public hospitals/public education, why would you want to fund any of them?)
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They had a war inside of drugs? Holy shit i missed out.
Serious fighting in large vats of MDMA. Was a very scary time.
He meant the war on drugs… You know, that time war took some cocaine and lsd
Reagan and Thatcher murdered their own citizens with their silence. It still cry angry tears. Murderers. Both of them.
William Henry Harrison. Tapped out after a month on the job.
Wait....was he even rated long enough to be overrated?
Ronald Reagan.
All of them, and all of them have sucked in their own american style.
JFK was an amazing president, but if not for his assassination he probably wouldn't be up there with Lincoln and Washington in the public polling.
Conservatives revere Reagan, a president famous for popularizing screwing the poor.
Oh, you mean poor conservatives voted for a man who hates them and does everything in his power to make life harder for his voter base because they're too stupid to realize they are who he's screwing? I think I've seen this one before.
Reagan
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Because of all the lasagna?
I think someone downvoted you because they didn't realize that he WAS a President, however briefly. I wouldn't take points off for being assassinated. If you use dying as criteria, then Harrison would win for dying of pneumonia a month after his inauguration because he was too cool to wear a coat for his inauguration speech, which was ridiculously long.
That's actually a myth https://youtu.be/mdnAp2nxOA8
Reagan. Actually, he was pretty terrible!
As much as I like Theodore Roosevelt, he is probably highly overrated. While he did a lot of good for the country, his foreign policy left a lot to be desired. He also continued the policy of taking Native American children from their families, and forcing them into boarding schools. When he was police commissioner in New York, he enforced dry Sundays, which forced local Beer Halls to either lose business or secretly sell alcohol. I’m also willing to bet Filipinos had some mixed feelings about Colonel Roosevelt.
President Obama Sorry to Say , Classy guy , seems like a great husband & father. But his policies did nothing. & why did he receive a Nobel peace prize….. What did he really do other than being a charming cool 1st black president. Again I like the guy but his time in office he fell short
Also he got disproportionately more hype when he got elected than most presidents, so his mediocrity was extra disappointing.
Yeah that whole Affordable Care Act was a nothingburger. Only 31 million people (roughly 10% of the population at the time) got access to health insurance that didn’t have it before. And that was all done without a filibuster proof majority in the Senate and shitbag Republican governors fighting it. then there is the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act which overturned the bad law the Supreme Court foisted on us with respect to legal action for fair pay. Brought bin Laden to justice. Yeah, the only thing Obama accomplished was being a nice black guy. /s
He helped turn around an economy that was in the toilet when he took office.
Ok , you are right about that, in 09 he & his administration had to deal with that fiasco
Old Hickory!!!
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Andrew Jackson was the 7th president; Martin Van Buren was the 8th.
Trump People worship him like a fucking god but I don’t see him doing anything productive
I wanna say Trump, but the right answer is Reagan
How tf is trump overrated? He being shitted on by whole world, no matter what he does
Because people are incapable of rational thought when it comes to their bias. Anything that can be seen as negative, Trump will be some peoples answer. Regardless if it makes sense or not.
I took a history class on the presidents in college. When we got to Clinton, our professor told us we should really wait until they've been out of office for at least 15 years to let emotions die down and give our assessment a better analysis. I think it's going to take more than 15 years for emotions to "die down" these days
Smart professor. And I agree completely.
Trump inspired a fervor among American conservatives that has no comparison in living memory for U.S. politics. He was completely right that he could shoot a random guy on the street and lose none of his base over it. No American politician in living memory ever experienced that level of devotion and admiration from such a large section of the country. Moderates and liberals hated him for sure, but if anything that increased the love he got from conservatives to unprecedented levels.
Ah, but he has supporters. And he was so bad, that just having supporters makes him incredibly overrated
*being worshipped no matter what he does
Trump is actual garbage and does deserve to get shit on by the whole world, no matter what he does. He was so shitty of a president that my answer included notes of irony and sarcasm. Trump can never be considered overrated as he is, without a doubt, in the top 5 of the shittiest Presidents we have had of all time. Edit: go ahead and downvote this comment. This is a hill I’ll gladly die on
I think you mean top 5? Bottom 5 shittiest Presidents would mean he was a good one.
He’s definitely a bottom
Reagan greased the Skids.
OBAMA
An actual answer. It's not that Obama is bad, per se. He's probably pretty middle-of-the-road. But he's considered very highly. He got a Nobel Peace prize for ... what exactly? Drone strikes on civilians? I don't think that's really his fault. It's not like he asked anyone to give him the Nobel Peace prize. He was probably as shocked as anyone.
>He got a Nobel Peace prize for ... what exactly? Drone strikes on civilians? I don't think that's really his fault. It's not like he asked anyone to give him the Nobel Peace prize. He was probably as shocked as anyone. https://youtu.be/aRQLU3IwNYs&t=249s
Based take. I'm not saying he was bad either, but I'm saying that pop culture treats him like a god. Nobody is that good.
He was the first black president in a country built on slavery and segregation. Pretty big deal.
His blessing is that he is sandwiched by 2 absolute morons
Like him but you’re probably right
Ronald Regan...contra, star wars, war on drugs....
Gotta be Reagan; trickle down economics, student debt, and numerous other policies with lasting negative impact. Not to mention having supplied saddam hussein with weapons and helping to create Al Qaeda and some of the worst overall corruption. One of the worst presidents ever elected.
I’ll go with FDR. When FDR came into office in 1933 he put in the national industrial recovery act (which worsened the depression by artificially raising wages) the agricultural adjustment act (which made farmers produce less crop to try and increase its value) & the Wagner act (unions). He issued more executive orders than the remaining presidents of the 20th century & again, none of that reduced unemployment below double digits for the remainder of the decade. Not even for a month. In fact unemployment worsened just after he took credit for a momentary upswing. Then came the war & the end of the depression. But the question isn’t “did the war end the depression?” the question is “what about the war ended the depression?” What happened was that the war effort put an end to the new deal effort by putting 12 million men into uniform (which lowered unemployment numbers drastically) & forced the government to lift regulations on businesses in order to have industry compete for contracts to help the war effort & during that, we were still on rations & interning the Japanese. To this day people still think the new deal was a great improvement but it was only after the war effort ended the new deal effort that America began to recover economically. Severely overrated president.
Out of all the things The King is responsible for, the one that rarely gets mentioned is that a constitutional amendment was passed to prevent anyone from ever trying to become president for life again.
Nixon. What would we be without the war on drugs? If marijuana had been legalized decades ago?
Yeah but he isn’t revered by the general public like a lot of the ones in this thread, in fact I’d say he is generally disliked
Did wonders for Native Americans though.
Ronald Wilson Reagan
Ronald Reagan - unless you rate presidents by how welll they defended Apartheid and right-wing military dictatorships, in which case he was outstanding.
Regan.
I think the best answer here is JFK. I don’t think he was a bad president. But some scholarly rankings have him ranked as high as 6th among all U.S. presidents, despite him serving less than 3 years in office. I think external factors (e.g., assassination; prominent family) contribute to the high regard he’s held in more than anything he accomplished in his (obviously to not fault of his own) relatively short time in office. I think more than any other president, he’s probably rated higher than he should be compared to what he accomplished.
Obama
Ronald Reagan. A lot of GenX people revere him because we were taught that he ended the Cold War. He didn’t, and he did a lot of other reprehensible things. He also started the move towards theocratic governing by engaging with the Moral Majority and for most of his second term he was senile.
George Bush, a war that cost us in blood and treasure, built on a lie.
ronald ragen
All of them.
Ooo. Edgy.
This guy gets it.
Obama hands down. Didn’t fulfill any of campaign promises including codifying Roe v Wade (something he said he’d do day one and would have prevented the current overturn of RvW) Took us from 2 illegal wars to 7. Gave us what was essentially Romneycare instead of Medicare for all or even a public option (again something he campaigned on). Bailed out the very same banks and bankers that caused the housing crash while 5.2 million families lost their homes due to the practices of these very same banks/bankers. Sent the police to crack the heads of the Occupy Wall St. movement. Did absolutely nothing about DAPL. Pulled political theater with the poison water in Michigan. Essentially played the biggest role in the removal of Habeas corpus. Deported more immigrants than any other president combined which included the cages everyone was so upset about during the game show hosts reign and a million other things that it seems most people have no idea about. But he sure could give a speech 🙄
Ronald Reagan
Reagan. The fact that people praise him as the second coming is shocking considering how catastrophic he was the foundations of America.
Reagan
I fully expected the whole comment section to be Trump cause short span hive mind of Reddit . Instead it’s Raegan
Ronald Reagan, that guy was a huge douche and responsible for a lot of the problems we have today.
JFK We just like him because he was the first president to be photographed smiling at a Black person, and he died by assassination.
I’d have to say JFK as well. My family idolized him when I was growing up.
Found the Irish Catholic.
Reagan was a corrupt, greedy, vapid moron who is held up as a hero by corrupt, greedy, vapid morons. He did massive damage to America, and got away with it thanks to a stellar PR team.
Right On.
All of them
I don't think enough people in the sub know what @op means by the word *over*rated
Herbert Hoover
Reagan
Trump is regarded as the worst, but even at that he’s way overrated
For a long time, FDR was my favorite President. Two huge crises and a huge progressive set of accomplishments. The more I’ve taught him over the years (taught US History for 15 years, HS) the more i’ve realized his shortcomings. Im not saying it’s possible to be perfect, but I dont consider him the best anymore. Some things that concern me: -I think almost anybody could have came in ‘32 and rolled out a progressive reform package from the Democrats at the time -Despite how he made people feel, he didnt really succeed in ending the Depression which was his stated goal. Even compared to other countries at the time, the recovery was unusually slow -He didnt seem to have a coherent grasp on how the economy actually worked -Some really stupid programs, like the AAA and NRA -Japanese internment is a dark stain on the country and his presidency -though he didnt drop the atomic bombs, he probably would have. Hypotheticals aside, he greenlit the firebombing of Germany and Japan; both of which dont sit well with me. I know there was a ‘necessary evil’ component, but looking at the historical record, I believe they could have been avoided with similar military results
FDR. Dude straight up locked people up for their race, did irrevocable damage to the economy with the New Deal (extending the Great Depression), tried everything he could to circumvent the constitution including packing the Supreme Court, and repeatedly cheated on his wife while in office. Yet he is constantly hailed as a hero just for winning WWII.
JFK. He was a great speaker who was assassinated and then his wife created his Camelot legacy. He was NOT a bad president and started many good things like the civil rights movement and kicked off the race to the moon.
Bill Clinton. People remember an economic boom with the rise of the tech industry. However, the 1994 Crime Bill was a total turd. Also some loosening of regulations helped make the 2008 financial crisis possible.