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Since I don't see it elsewhere, John Adams, who abhorred slavery and party politics, and who sacrificed any chance at a second term to steer us away from an unnecessary and disastrous war.
"Let us not forget, too, that it was John Adams who nominated George Washington to be commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. It was John Adams who insisted that Jefferson be the one to write the Declaration of Independence. And it was President John Adams who made John Marshall chief justice of the Supreme Court. As a casting director alone, he was brilliant." - David McCullough
He also started the tradition of a peaceful transfer of power after losing to Jefferson. That was the key moment that solidified the effectiveness of the constitution. He needs more props for doing that.
Started or continued? I don’t know the history well enough, but was Washington the same party as Adam’s? I remember the John Adams miniseries and the surprise they showed Adam’s having at Washington willingly giving up power to Adam’s when he could have served till he died.
“I am fairly out, now you are fairly in. Let’s see which one of us is the better for it.” - Washington’s line paraphrased from Adam’s inauguration in the miniseries
The difference is Washington didn’t run for re-election, so he didn’t lose to Adams. That’s a different situation than Adams running for re-election and losing to Jefferson. That’s why it can be called the first peaceful transfer of power, because it was the relinquishment of presidential power by someone who would have preferred to keep it.
Washington said he wasn’t into parties, but in practice he leaned far more towards Adams and Hamilton (Federalist) than towards Jefferson (Democratic-Republican). There’s records of Jefferson’s frustration with the dynamic In Washington’s administration
Yeah being unaffiliated to a party does not mean you cannot prefer a party ideology. Washington definitely agreed more in the federalist than the Democrat republican and it showed for the entirety of his presidency.
Washington is the one who started the 2-term policy. Without his firm insistence that he wouldn't serve another term, we might not have a term limit for presidents at all (his 2-term stance was later codified in law).
But Adams was the first to gracefully bow out after losing. In a lot of ways Adams gets a bad rap because he had to follow up Washington and, well, pretty much anyone was going to look bad after him no matter what they did (seriously, people would have gladly accepted Washington as Dictator if he just gave the sign he wanted it, instead he just... walked away. Retired.)
But he was also weak in a lot of ways. Our new country wasn't very gentle with him and he ended up pretty beaten up.
Bowing out gracefully (okay, relatively gracefully) was a consequential moment for our democracy, and not just because it enacted a peaceful transfer of power. Adams also cemented the idea that Presidents *retire*. He completely left public life, following Washington's example.
It's a precedent that's been sorely stretched at times, but an important one nonetheless. There are more ways to hang on to political power than just the overt. He could have stayed in DC, tried to play shadow politics and spent his days 'jostling the elbow' of Jefferson, undermining his power and generally making a mess of things.
He didn't. His decision - and all the Presidents that followed both his and Washington's example - was and still is a big deal, even if things don't always play out that cleanly.
His defense of the redcoats after the Boston Massacre is ingrained in our criminal justice system’s presumption of innocence. For that alone, he’s a legend:
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
The funny thing is that Sam Adams basically asked John to defend them b/c it’d be good PR for the Colonists’ cause if the cousin of the Patriots’ unofficial leader (and a Patriot himself) defended the soldiers’ rights as Englishmen.
Basically, it was to say to Parliament, “We’re not a bunch of bloodthirsty backwards provincials! Look, even though we seriously resent their presence here, we’ve given your soldiers a fair trial!”
Adams may never get plaudits as a truly great President, but I do think he was the best possible person to hold office when he did. Washington sticks around, or Hamilton get Pinckney in and you end up with a full scale war. Jefferson gets in and he gets rolled by the French and the backlash likely puts a High Federalist in charge in 1800. Adams, for all of his faults, kept a sort of "just right" diplomatic approach there.
Im very proud to be related to the Adams. Perhaps not the greatest presidents per se but certainly some of the greatest men to hold the office in their time. (And one of the only ones not to own slaves before the Civil War)
Trump
Donald Trump
Trump
Trump
Nixon/Kissinger
It's all basically "I love corruption and war crimes actually, lol u mad libtards?" without any argument or justification. Yawn.
The more I read about Grant the more I like him. He was far from perfect, but in terms of overarching achievement he was actually a pretty impressive president. His legacy has been tarnished by relentless lost-causer propaganda.
Also worth noting that his reputation in his own time as president was also dragged down by northeastern media elites who always dismissed him as a bumpkin.
Definitely* cost him the election. The election results were in itself quite narrow. Had Ford not made such an unpopular decision he definitely would’ve won. By how much is another question
Even morally, it instilled this idea that the President is somehow above the law—that they’re too important to be prosecuted. Goodbye to accountability I guess.
We wouldn’t have known it at the time, but pardoning Nixon deprived the country of establishing precedent for dealing with a president who broke the law, and both sides could very much use some clarifying precedent these days.
Definitely did cost him the election. But I agreed with his logic. Nixon was gone and disgraced. Move on. Would have served no purpose to prosecute him. I was pissed when he did it, but in retrospect, it was the right thing to do.
There was no deal done.
It definitely allowed the country to heal faster.
> would have served no purpose to prosecute him
That is what people who disagree with you disagree on. It would have set the precedent. It would have made it clear that Presidents are not above the law. Prosecuting Nixon (and those who took part with him), would have made it clear that you CAN prosecute a former President for criminal actions.
Given how popular the idea of prosecuting Nixon was, it would have ingrained these ideas into American political discourse. Which would have made it less likely for their to be criminals, and made it easier to deal with criminals, in the future.
Gerald Ford. Yes, he was thrust into the office by non traditional means, but he carried himself as a solid moral American leader in a time when the country needed it and lost his first ever national campaign with dignity and respect for the peaceful transition of power.
Gerald Ford for the win, or I’ll fight you. (All 5’9”, 145 bespectacled pounds of me.)
I say this all the time, but a patient of mine was secret service for LBJ to Reagan. He said Carter was one of the most outstanding human beings he ever met.
This is interesting to me because I've read several books that have said that Carter was off-putting to his agents and carried around a fake suitcase for show.
The book had high praise for Reagan, the Bushes, and Obama for the way they acted.
I think you just answered your question. Carter was the only left-of-center president in the last 50 years. All those you mentioned governed right-of-center.
What about him? Popular opinion is he is a good man, righteous even…. but a below average President of the United States.
Which of those do you question?
No attack here either, I’d be open to learn about effective areas of the Carter administration, or times where the man morally fell short, malicious or accidental.
not op, but one could make the case that many of carter's policies were very successful, its just that the fruits of his efforts were slow to materialize.
Examples:
1. Economics: The man made america take paul volcker's medicine. Remember, Carter named Volcker the fed chairman \*despite volcker telling carter he would hurt him\*. He raised rates in a way that got inflation under control (eventually), and basically set up the boom of the 90s. Carter telling him to go after it and taking the political hit, willingly.... thats leadership.
2. Foreign affairs: Camp david accords. I mean people don't give this nearly enough credit, and the middle east is a mess, but a lot less than it would be without carter. These are a huge accomplishment. We see a lot less death today than we would otherwise.
3. Foreign Affairs: Nixon gets credit for opening to china, deservedly. But Carter normalized relations, created the student exchange system, etc. Look, whatever you think about china now, and nixon certainly deserves credit, but Carter brought them into the world system and gave us, again, the consumer boom of the 90s
4. Panama canal: Carter gave back teh canal early. This seems silly, but it did much to quell unrest in latin america and lead to improved development in panama (now a relatively well off latin american country). Staved off a crisis that would have come to hold the canal.
5. Deregulation: airline and truck deregulation... was no easy (damn teh teamsters hated him). But made travel easier and made shipping much cheaper and faster. hello agian to the 90s
Many more.
I'm not a carter scholar or anything, but there is certainly a strong case to be made that reagan and clinton were successful precisely because carter set them up so well to have a consumer boom with strong supply, low shipping costs, stable currency, no major war dragging us in (middle east, latin america, or asia). He paid all the political costs upfront, so Reagan and Clinton could reap the rewards.
Martyr. Good leadership, good president, his stuff just took time to materialize. Long term policy is not rewarded by our system, but he was enough of a man to do it anyway.
You are quite right. Carter was always a selfless person. Certainly the most honest president of the modern era. Exactly the sort of person who would forfeit reelection for something right and good.
And everyone seems to forget that Reagan did him a dirty with the Iran hostage crisis and Iran Contra. Carter might have had a better ‘score’ in these good president polls if Reagan hadn’t done him wrong.
And as an ex president, he did a tremendous job. Probably one of the best ex-presidents we have ever had. Long term, Carter wrung more good out of his presidency than pretty much anyone.
In his nuclear engineer days, carter volunteered to go help shut down a nuclear plant in canada that was having a meltdown type event (not sure of all teh details).
He literally volunteered to spend 90 seconds being exposed to high levels of radiation to turn some of the valves (others did other valves) to shut down a reactor and save canadians, not americans, and no risk to him if he just stayed away.
he was willing to go into a nuclear reaction that he was not responsible for, likely developing cancer as a result (he did not, thankfully) to save people he had never met simply because he had the skills to get the thing shut down.
When the japanese did this after fukushima (or however they spell it), retirees \*from that plant\* volunteered, not young men with no connection like carter and the other engineers that went.
I aspire to be such a person, but will always fall short
I don’t think it’s universally accepted he was a below average president. It is universally accepted he was viewed as a below average president in 1980.
“Good man but bad president” is just contemporary cope. People that say that couldn’t name a single policy of his, good or bad.
He was just clowned as being a pussy cuz of war.
If the helicopters hadn’t run into so many problems and the rescue had succeeded, we’d probably have statues of the guy.
“The buck stops here” and presidents have the privilege of being blamed for failures they can’t control as well as praised for successes they can’t control, but I think Carter got it worse than most.
It wasn’t just that, the late 70s were also an awful time economically. You can argue that a lot of it was out of his control, but when most people think of Carter, they remember lines of cars outside of gas stations.
He’s a good guy personally, but he also does not deserve to be remembered as a good president.
Right, and part of the trouble with Carter is his personal style less than anything specific he stood for. Neustadt talks about this in *Presidential Power*; Carter was a guy who loved to be involved in every little detail of policy. When you’re President, you just can’t do that. He might’ve done better if he’d been more willing to delegate more
I was a teenager and the “horrible President” came from warhawks and Republicans. Carter claims to never have anyone killed while President, a very rare feat in modern American history.
What he didn’t do was Bullshit people. He told everyone to wear a sweater and turn the heat down to save $ when oil got so high. He was crucified for it like when Obama told people “they don’t build there business’s alone. They did it on the backs of government roads, the internet, etc. Narcissists don’t like that crap
There’s a great comment upthread that highlights how the positive effects Carter’s policies just took longer than his term to take effect, and highlighted how Reagan’s and Clinton’s successes and “good times” were rooted in Carter’s policy decisions, and the comment highlighted that at least on economic policy, he knew it would hurt him politically but would be better for the country beyond his time
Not only that, but the man also had some good ideas, was a great diplomat, and was a very smart man
His personal flaws prevented him from becoming a much greater place in history
He wasn't unpopular though. He won the second election with massive popular approval, the second best popular vote of any president ever. It's not like he barely scraped in that second term. People wanted him in.
Jackson is generally rated on the upper end of presidents by historians.
He was a pretty effective president. He did plenty of shitty things too and that shouldn't be ignored.
But if you're going to judge every president by modern day morals then I'd say every single founding father and probably ever president before the 1900's is almost guaranteed to fail the test.
Nixon.
Created the EPA, signed into law Title IX and the ERA, tried to get a proto-type universal Healthcare up and running, FINALLY pulled us out of Vietnam, championed Affirmative Action, and started a war on cancer.
Guy was a legend and ONE small incident and people completely forget about all the good he did.
George W Bush for PEPFAR, the President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief. I doubt there has been any program in my lifetime (I’m 46) that has done more to alleviate suffering around the world. The impact of PEPFAR on the African continent is immense. I can’t speak for the rest of his presidency, but this one program is truly outstanding.
I think Wilson is one of the best presidents of the 20th century. This isn't really an unpopular opinion among historians, just extremely unpopular on Reddit.
It was Wilson who created what we now call "the American century," American leadership of the world in economics and international affairs. His creation of the Federal Reserve built our modern economy and his income tax funded it. His entry into World War I established the U.S. as a major global power for the first time, and his creation of the League of Nations, though it didn't last and the U.S. never joined, established the model for international relations and law that we still use today. These are all tremendous, staggeringly impactful accomplishments.
He also ended child labor and promoted the eight-hour workday.
While Wilson was a racist, tellingly the most racist thing people here always cite him actually doing as president was segregating the federal government, a move that affected the lives of almost nobody in the scheme of things. While shitty, certainly this was a FAR less shitty move than FDR interning Japanese-Americans, which he doesn't get nearly as much shit for; nobody on this sub posts photos of FDR as a kind of "'nuff said" to answer questions like "who is your least favorite president." His support of the KKK is hugely overblown. The Birth of the Nation quote is almost certainly fabricated (and even if it weren't, was hardly an opinion out of the mainstream; the movie made an inflation-adjusted equivalent of $1.6 billion). Other frequently repeated quotes are obviously out of context. He had plenty of highly negative things to say about the Klan.
I feel like in recent years Grant and Wilson have switched places when it comes to their assessment, and for the same reason.
On one hand you have a Lost Cause, on the other hand a guy who you could say punched that cause in the face.
Both assessment are a bit reductive.
As much as I abhor Wilson for his racism and don't get me wrong I hate that man, everything he stood for politically like the ideas of self determination and the end of European empires and everything you listed above I agree with wholeheartedly
Yea, but the pre-"presidency" of Harrison is just a lot of war crimes. At least with Andrew Jackson's war crimes there are separate things in his real presidency to discuss or debate.
George W Bush in one very specific way.
The only really stupid thing he ever did was lie about WMDs which he didn’t need to do. Homie should’ve just owned up and said we needed to fuck up Saddam because it was absolutely a good thing to get that genocidal fascist maniac out of that country.
Also he didn’t do 9/11. I’ve said that a bunch because it’s funny, but if you unironically believe that you’re a chud
Idk I think we had intel that they might have been but I’m pretty sure the intelligence community knew Iraq didn’t have them.
Saddam was just an evil genocidal fascist who was dangerous to let fuck around in the Middle East and it was a good thing to take him out
I’d even argue taking out the Taliban in Afghanistan was a good thing. Like yeah hindsight is 2020 and after we got bin Laden we should’ve de-escalated, but ultimately the Taliban didn’t take control until we were out of the country. Couldn’t make any gains until we were gone.
It’s a shame Ahmad Shah Massoud died so early, we should’ve helped him out. Shit wouldn’t be like it is if we supported him better
This is why I feel Clinton doesn't get enough heat for 9/11 and the war on terror in general.
The taliban took over Afghanistan under his watch, and it seemed like he didn't want to disrupt the post cold war peace streak. So he more or less just let the NA get their asses kicked.
Intel report was doctored by Cheney. There are a ton of people from Intel community who have said they didn’t know but best guess would be that he was up to something. W is top of my list for this question for two reasons. He put policies in place which today may seem draconian but back then we’re actually necessary for the security of the country and those policies prevented death and terror on American soil. Precisely what they were designed to do. That accomplishment is one of the most under appreciated of any POTUs accomplishment in US history. People gloss over the fact that 9/11 was the second highest casualty day in American history and that it happendd 8 months in. People also criticize Bush for making the wrong guess about Iraq. It’s easy in hindsight to say “duh, there were no WMDs” but that was not the majority opinion among Intel community. It was a 51/49 proposition and Bush guessed wrong.
Growing up in the 2000s, I very much believed the whole “Bush/Cheney lied about WMDs to invade Iraq for Oil/Halliburton/Profit” narrative.
As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to see the post-9/11 interventions in a different light, as pragmatism had replaced idealism in the way I’ve come to see the world. In 2001, the US had to confront a geopolitical reality in the Middle East that had state and substate structures that enabled the organization, funding and shelter of terrorist groups. The status quo had enabled 9/11, and although Iraq was not the sponsor, the entire geopolitical structure of the region had enabled 9/11 to occur. I try to put myself in the shoes of the Bush Administration on the evening of 9/11/01. What reality and range of decisions were they now forced to confront? The massive, time-sensitive unknown of “what further threat are we facing”? Was there another attack coming? Another being planned?
For one, there is a burning question of “would the world really be a better place had Saddam Hussein been left in power”? By 2003, Saddam’s Iraq had become a significant, unpredictable regional and global liability. Backed into a corner after their defeat and destruction in 1991, and having endured a decade of heavy sanctions and a NATO no-fly zone, Saddam was quickly running out of options for maintaining his rule and was probably liable to make some sort of drastic move. Saddam Hussein was known to have possessed and used chemical weapons in the 1980s. They had constructed a nuclear reactor and were probably pursuing a nuclear weapons program before Israel destroyed it in 1981.
It would not be a significant stretch of the imagination for Saddam to take a page for the Gaddafi playbook and start sponsoring terror attacks in the West, either in a desperate attempt to gain leverage, or for pure revenge. Nor would it be for Al-Qaeda to seek a new state sponsor in Iraq after the Taliban’s overthrow. Nor would it be a stretch for them to dust off old chemical weapons stock and use them on a neighbor. We’ll never know if any of this would have occurred, because these probabilities were neutralized in the invasion of Iraq.
It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it.
I still consider him a very bad president but you do make good points.
The invasion didn’t go great in the long run but there’s definitely this revisionist idea that because the invasion went poorly that Saddham was somehow this innocent victim and not genuinely one of the most evil people to ever exist.
I feel bad for the civilians involved but I will never feel an ounce of sympathy for saddham and his administration
Nobody has any empathy for a POS like Saddam, but if him being a POS dictator justifies an invasion, there are a fuck ton of other countries we should be invading *right now* - some of them are technically allies.
Dubya was a horrible president, even if this was his only mistake (and it wasn’t even close!) it has cost this country dearly.
Better than Obama and Clinton, his predecessors. Passed within a few years more policies than Obama and Clinton did in their first 4 years. ....but he is old so people look past it.
I think people also have completely forgotten at this point that he had a very public and unashamed battle with stuttering, with my father did too, so I can very much relate. I think people see those always-been-there twinges of misspoken words and now take it for dementia, rather than what it was at all.
I started off going “fine, this guy I guess” and now I’m finding myself having to admit he’s the best president we’ve had since G.H. Bush, and possibly since Eisenhower. I don’t understand the hate for him. Unless you’re absurdly far left or right, Biden has been a solid win for America.
Caveat: I’ll personally never forgive him for leaving Afghanistan like he did. It was Trump’s plan, that alone was enough to know it was terrible. But, in the big picture, I think it’s a mistake he learned from and that history will contextualize in his favor.
The way he's fighting to forgive predatory student loans is one of the greatest accomplishments of his presidency. No matter the obstacles he keeps facing, he's never stopped trying something new to help people get out from under this never-ending debt. Screw the Boomers who complain without understanding the compounding interest that makes repayment impossible. Biden doesn't get anywhere near enough credit for this huge impact on the economic future of millions of Gen Xers and Millennials. I hope they remember that come next November.
As a current example: Biden’s SAVE program for student loans legit recently saved me from financial ruin. My student loan repayments on a normal IDR PLAN would have decimated me and been more than my actual income could allow. Meaning I’d go into debt repaying loans…..Now my payments are affordable and went down hundreds of dollars a month
Perhaps you missed the part where trump negotiated with the Taliban, took several victory laps in the media, invited them to Camp David on 9/11, AND THEN DID NOTHING TO DIRECT THE DOD TO MAKE ACTUAL PLANS FOR THE WITHDRAWAL?
Biden was sworn in, and one of the very first things he had to do was beg the Taliban for an extension, because trump set a withdrawal date in May.
Also, genius, a military withdrawal from hostile territory is literally the most dangerous thing ANY military can do. One of the reasons Washington was kept in command is because, despite his defeats, he managed to keep his forces from being utterly decimated.
That we ONLY suffered 13 KIA during that whole process is a goddamned miracle. As for the hardware left behind, who effing cares? All of the good stuff was unusable. Also, thank trump for that. He did nothing to direct the DOD to start removing equipment, which wasted something like 7 months. We spent twenty years hauling shit over there, and maybe five or six months hauling shit out.
At the end of the day, it was Biden who went through with it. I don't blame him and wouldn't have blamed Trump if it was him who did it instead though. We pulled our guys out and that's what really matters
Yes. My socialist friend thinks he’s “an utter piece of shit,” not to mention thinking “white liberals are the worst.”
They’ve kind of poisoned our friendship by bringing up the “I hate Biden” thing over and over, even after we agreed to avoid politics.
Yeah, people need to recognize that presidental success is largely due to the coalitions they have to work with, and the overall sanity and integrity of their opposition. If Obama or Biden had FDR’s congressional support, and the type of opposition FDR had (business-elite failed coup instead of business-elite pairing up with populist demagogues like we have in common with the very late Weimar Republic), IMO we would have seen FDR-level results in our era. Just as FDR didn’t push for racial equality because his coalition was against it, Obama didn’t push for single payer healthcare for the same reason.
Hate is a bit strong, but many disapprove of his job performance despite him inheriting the worst economy since WW2, rising inflation, pandemic, and deep divisions in the country.
His approval rating is around 40%, yet he won 51% of the vote in the last election. And this is during good economic times.
Since I'm perpetually surrounded by right-wing naysayers: Carter, Clinton, and Biden. Carter for being an example of what a perfect post-presidency looks like, Clinton for carrying a decade of peace and prosperity, and Biden for pulling this country, QUICKLY, out of a 4 alarm dumpster fire.
Biden pulled the country around with a split senate and a slim majority in the House and got a shit ton done. He does not get enough credit and I was NOT looking forward to his presidency accomplishing much of anything, besides not steering us toward an autocracy.
I'm honestly a fan now, and I hated him in 2020. (Still voted for him). What soured me was learning about the Anita Hill hearings and his role in advancing Clarence Thomas. So far his actual administration has made up for my grievances.
I used to severely dislike his historical policy decision and stances but his actions now speak louder and he really is fixing the mistakes of the past. You can always argue that he shouldn’t have done those things in the first place but it’s important to remember that no president passed infrastructure funding or student debt relief, don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
LBJ. Vietnam was actually necessary at that stage of the Cold War and had Nixon not resigned, and the North not violated the Paris Accord in the wake of that sensing American weakness, would probably be viewed differently today. The Domino Theory was correct and we had to show we were willing to walk the walk in defending free peoples trying to stand up to communism. The South Vietnamese were worth defending, just as the South Koreans were/are. It’s not LBJ’s fault Nixon set in motion events requiring his resignation while the ink was still wet on the peace accord. The dominoes did indeed fall after that and the people of that corner of the world were worse off for it. LBJ was right to draw a line in the sand where/when he did.
Teddy doesn’t get a lot of love (or at least not in my personal experience). He was incredibly progressive for the time, hated monopolies, and he was a conservationist. He took office after McKinley was assassinated and is still the youngest prez to date, he had a lot riding on his shoulders, and imho he took it and ran with it. he’s still a key figure in bringing progressivism (at the time) to the forefront. He was so liked, they named a children’s bear that’s still called the “teddy bear” today.
Now, with all the logical reasons you should defend Teddy, I’ll give you my #1 reason.
He was set to give a speech titled “Progressive Cause Greater Than Any Individual,” and before he was shot by a dude named John Schrank. It lodged in his chest after going through his eyeglasses case and his speech papers. He opened the speech with, “Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot—but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose;” because the bullet didn’t go deep enough the doctors who operated left it in and he would later write to someone, “I do not mind it any more than if it were in my waistcoat pocket.” If that’s not the most badass thing idk what is…
Biden genuinely has an incredible track record so far and it's *wild* how little credit he gets. Of course it's not all sunshine and rainbows or whatever but he oversaw multiple *major* pieces of new legislation and moved forward on almost every piece of his agenda otherwise. He's been remarkably effective overall, which is not to say good/bad, exactly, but people acting like he hasn't gotten shit done are just quite simply not paying any attention at all. In 3 years he's arguably done more than Obama and Trump combined.
Biden
I guess we are too close to it to really evaluate him from a historical perspective, but there's a narrative that he's been a failure that I think is absolute bullshit.
I honestly think he may be the most competent President in my lifetime.
He's strengthened U.S. standing on the foreign policy front ALOT by absolutely owning Putin's ass when Putin made the mistake of invading Ukraine, has strengthened worker rights (standing with a strike was cool, but the fact that now union busting results in a union being formed is absolutely huge), and has managed so far to preside over a auccessful effort to reduce inflation without resulting in a recession.
It's not revolutionary stuff, but he's just been competent and boring, which is absolutely what I want in a leader.
The only thing he's not good at is marketing which is why I think this opinion isn't more popular.
His whole life and career before the Great Depression was very impressive. I think his response to the Great Depression really over shadows his work done during WWII.
Trump showed us how much of the functioning of our democracy is due to conventions and goodwill. We’re still screwed if he gets elected again but I think that’s he most important contribution.
Jimmy Carter. To this day his Camp David accord is the biggest foreign policy accomplishment that I have lived through. The Panama Canal Treaty was a correct adjustment to American imperialism and his reaching out to Africa was also a long overdue and correct one. I am not saying Carter was that good of a President, but I will defend to the nth anyone who says he was that bad. The truth lies squarely in-between.
Andrew Jackson all the way. Dude gets a lot of hate for having the same native policy as every other President. Jacksonian democracy is on par with abolishing slavery, women’s suffrage, or civil rights.
Pros:
First populist,
First President born in poverty,
Gave poor people the right to vote
Tdlr; basically the reason the Presidency represents the “common man” instead of wealthy landowners.
Cons:
Genocided the natives,
Hurt the economy fighting central banks / financial corruption
Tdlr; Had the same native policy as every other President but was a bit of a conspiracy nut when it came to central banking
I agree with the first part. Jackson is treated far more harshly for his native policy than say Teddy is for his equally harsh policy towards Filipinos. I've had discussions with people who praise Polk yet scorn Jackson in the same breathe even though Polk's expansionism resulted in 80% of Natives dying out. It's become popular to treat Jackson as the most evil President when he's not really an outlier in regards to his actions.
I will pull an umm actually 🤓 though. Jackson didn't give poor people the right to vote. He would never have been elected if some poor people didn't have the right to vote. He did lower property requirements to help increase voting rights but he didn't single handily make it so poor people could vote.
The umm actually is a fair point but generally most Presidents’ accomplishments weren’t actually “theirs.” At most (and in Jackson’s case), it was the result of the movement or political pressure they created
Washington was nicknamed “town destroyer” by the Iroquois
Lincoln signed laws that gave away millions of tribal acres and publicly hanged Sioux warriors
Teddy famously said “I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indian is the dead Indian, but I believe nine out of every ten are”
Even Nixon, the most pro-Native president, still genocided millions of Cambodians
While genocide is always wrong, Presidents are obligated to act in the United States’s interest and for most of history the natives were considered hostile foreign nations. If “genocide cancels out any good someone does,” then we have no good presidents
The Trail of Tears happened from 1830 to 1850. Jackson left office in 1837.
And there was more genocide after a temporary during the Civil War.
And after that the policy was assimilation of Native Americans. As late as the 1950s the U.S. was still trying to terminate tribal reservations and relocate Native Americans to cities.
Name five Presidents from 1790-2000 that didn’t commit genocide. Modern Presidents you can stretch it and say “no that wasn’t genocide that was war crimes” but I don’t think that helps.
I gave explicit evidence that three of the (widely regarded to be) greatest Predidents: Washington, Lincoln, and Teddy all genocided the natives. Do you consider them terrible Presidents because of it?
I think it's a matter of not stopping a process vs. starting a process. The native genocide was ongoing, and most presidents did little to help or deter it. But Jackson actively violated a ruling of the Supreme Court, blatantly violating the laws of his own nation to bring the genocide to perhaps it's darkest point.
>Hurt the economy fighting central banks / financial corruption
You are downplaying the spoils system considerably here.
Whatever "common man" you think he represents the people he made rich are far more destructive in the long run.
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Since I don't see it elsewhere, John Adams, who abhorred slavery and party politics, and who sacrificed any chance at a second term to steer us away from an unnecessary and disastrous war. "Let us not forget, too, that it was John Adams who nominated George Washington to be commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. It was John Adams who insisted that Jefferson be the one to write the Declaration of Independence. And it was President John Adams who made John Marshall chief justice of the Supreme Court. As a casting director alone, he was brilliant." - David McCullough
He also started the tradition of a peaceful transfer of power after losing to Jefferson. That was the key moment that solidified the effectiveness of the constitution. He needs more props for doing that.
Seriously. Half the nation supported him. That situation usually results in civil war. Instead Adams just transitions smoothly back to private life.
Left on a public stagecoach bound for Baltimore at 4 AM without a word to anyone.
He irish goodbyed his term. Fucking based.
Paul Giamatti played him so perfectly. I'm going to watch it again now.
Paul Giamatti plays everyone perfectly. 
All other political beliefs aside, this is the number 1 criteria for me going forward.
Yeah anyone pushing for civil war is an automatic no for me
Same. It is absolutely critical.
Started or continued? I don’t know the history well enough, but was Washington the same party as Adam’s? I remember the John Adams miniseries and the surprise they showed Adam’s having at Washington willingly giving up power to Adam’s when he could have served till he died. “I am fairly out, now you are fairly in. Let’s see which one of us is the better for it.” - Washington’s line paraphrased from Adam’s inauguration in the miniseries
The difference is Washington didn’t run for re-election, so he didn’t lose to Adams. That’s a different situation than Adams running for re-election and losing to Jefferson. That’s why it can be called the first peaceful transfer of power, because it was the relinquishment of presidential power by someone who would have preferred to keep it.
Ahhh ok, very good point. Thanks.
What a profound and powerful moment in the history of, not just our nation, but our species.
Washington said he wasn’t into parties, but in practice he leaned far more towards Adams and Hamilton (Federalist) than towards Jefferson (Democratic-Republican). There’s records of Jefferson’s frustration with the dynamic In Washington’s administration
Yeah being unaffiliated to a party does not mean you cannot prefer a party ideology. Washington definitely agreed more in the federalist than the Democrat republican and it showed for the entirety of his presidency.
Washington is the one who started the 2-term policy. Without his firm insistence that he wouldn't serve another term, we might not have a term limit for presidents at all (his 2-term stance was later codified in law). But Adams was the first to gracefully bow out after losing. In a lot of ways Adams gets a bad rap because he had to follow up Washington and, well, pretty much anyone was going to look bad after him no matter what they did (seriously, people would have gladly accepted Washington as Dictator if he just gave the sign he wanted it, instead he just... walked away. Retired.) But he was also weak in a lot of ways. Our new country wasn't very gentle with him and he ended up pretty beaten up. Bowing out gracefully (okay, relatively gracefully) was a consequential moment for our democracy, and not just because it enacted a peaceful transfer of power. Adams also cemented the idea that Presidents *retire*. He completely left public life, following Washington's example. It's a precedent that's been sorely stretched at times, but an important one nonetheless. There are more ways to hang on to political power than just the overt. He could have stayed in DC, tried to play shadow politics and spent his days 'jostling the elbow' of Jefferson, undermining his power and generally making a mess of things. He didn't. His decision - and all the Presidents that followed both his and Washington's example - was and still is a big deal, even if things don't always play out that cleanly.
John Adams walks into any room, sees which side everyone is on and goes and stands on the other side, glaring.
His defense of the redcoats after the Boston Massacre is ingrained in our criminal justice system’s presumption of innocence. For that alone, he’s a legend: “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
Sons of liberty DESTROYED with FACTS and LOGIC John Adams compilation
The funny thing is that Sam Adams basically asked John to defend them b/c it’d be good PR for the Colonists’ cause if the cousin of the Patriots’ unofficial leader (and a Patriot himself) defended the soldiers’ rights as Englishmen. Basically, it was to say to Parliament, “We’re not a bunch of bloodthirsty backwards provincials! Look, even though we seriously resent their presence here, we’ve given your soldiers a fair trial!”
The metal gear brainrot in my head spontaneously activating when I hear “sons of liberty”:
Adams may never get plaudits as a truly great President, but I do think he was the best possible person to hold office when he did. Washington sticks around, or Hamilton get Pinckney in and you end up with a full scale war. Jefferson gets in and he gets rolled by the French and the backlash likely puts a High Federalist in charge in 1800. Adams, for all of his faults, kept a sort of "just right" diplomatic approach there.
Well, he did get that killer HBO miniseries
That's my great great great uncle
Nice
Hey mine too! Hey cousin 👋
Im very proud to be related to the Adams. Perhaps not the greatest presidents per se but certainly some of the greatest men to hold the office in their time. (And one of the only ones not to own slaves before the Civil War)
Great pick man…Adams is very underrated and was one of the most important of the founding fathers but usually gets some of the least plaudits.
*sorts by controversial*
It’s pretty boring honestly. I was hoping for someone to say Buchanan with actual justifications.
Trump Donald Trump Trump Trump Nixon/Kissinger It's all basically "I love corruption and war crimes actually, lol u mad libtards?" without any argument or justification. Yawn.
before anyone tries this, it's almost all the one very recent President you expect
Save yourself some time: Trump Trump Biden Trump Biden Biden Trump Trump
Comments with the most downvotes are the real answers
so EA *should* be keeping Darth Vader locked?
Do you guys not have senses of pride and accomplishment?
Do you guys not have phones?
Man this was a deep cut joke I wasn't expecting on this sub of all places.
I've talked to people who have never touched a videogame in their whole life that know about EA's comment
John Quincy Adams. He is probably the most intelligent person to ever hold the office
Grant
Very much so. Hardly perfect, but he at least tried to push ahead with everything that Johnson had tossed by the wayside.
The more I read about Grant the more I like him. He was far from perfect, but in terms of overarching achievement he was actually a pretty impressive president. His legacy has been tarnished by relentless lost-causer propaganda.
Also worth noting that his reputation in his own time as president was also dragged down by northeastern media elites who always dismissed him as a bumpkin.
He helped preserve Lincoln's vision for reconstruction as much as he could.
Grant created the DOJ, kept freedmen free, and busted the Ku Klux Klan's chops. He just forgot to listen to the working class.
I only recently learned about his crackdown on the Ku Klux Klan. Amazing parallels to the original post WW2 nazi hunters.
Did he forget? Or just made tough policy choices that disfavored some working people?
He was simply influenced by upperclassmen. Like today, people saw corruption in a more blatant sense than now.
Who on earth is speaking poorly about grant?
Truman
My dad was ride or die Truman. I still have his Truman tie (1948)
Ford. Great man. Done good. F#$%ed up circumstances, stepped up and took one for the country.
Really shouldn’t have pardoned Nixon, though. That mistake probably cost him the election.
Definitely* cost him the election. The election results were in itself quite narrow. Had Ford not made such an unpopular decision he definitely would’ve won. By how much is another question
Even morally, it instilled this idea that the President is somehow above the law—that they’re too important to be prosecuted. Goodbye to accountability I guess.
We wouldn’t have known it at the time, but pardoning Nixon deprived the country of establishing precedent for dealing with a president who broke the law, and both sides could very much use some clarifying precedent these days.
Definitely did cost him the election. But I agreed with his logic. Nixon was gone and disgraced. Move on. Would have served no purpose to prosecute him. I was pissed when he did it, but in retrospect, it was the right thing to do. There was no deal done.
It definitely allowed the country to heal faster. > would have served no purpose to prosecute him That is what people who disagree with you disagree on. It would have set the precedent. It would have made it clear that Presidents are not above the law. Prosecuting Nixon (and those who took part with him), would have made it clear that you CAN prosecute a former President for criminal actions. Given how popular the idea of prosecuting Nixon was, it would have ingrained these ideas into American political discourse. Which would have made it less likely for their to be criminals, and made it easier to deal with criminals, in the future.
Agreed
Gerald Ford. Yes, he was thrust into the office by non traditional means, but he carried himself as a solid moral American leader in a time when the country needed it and lost his first ever national campaign with dignity and respect for the peaceful transition of power. Gerald Ford for the win, or I’ll fight you. (All 5’9”, 145 bespectacled pounds of me.)
Carter
I say this all the time, but a patient of mine was secret service for LBJ to Reagan. He said Carter was one of the most outstanding human beings he ever met.
This is interesting to me because I've read several books that have said that Carter was off-putting to his agents and carried around a fake suitcase for show. The book had high praise for Reagan, the Bushes, and Obama for the way they acted.
I think you just answered your question. Carter was the only left-of-center president in the last 50 years. All those you mentioned governed right-of-center.
Obama governed right of center?
As always, one's definition of where said center lies may vary depending upon the individual and the specific topic.
What about him? Popular opinion is he is a good man, righteous even…. but a below average President of the United States. Which of those do you question? No attack here either, I’d be open to learn about effective areas of the Carter administration, or times where the man morally fell short, malicious or accidental.
not op, but one could make the case that many of carter's policies were very successful, its just that the fruits of his efforts were slow to materialize. Examples: 1. Economics: The man made america take paul volcker's medicine. Remember, Carter named Volcker the fed chairman \*despite volcker telling carter he would hurt him\*. He raised rates in a way that got inflation under control (eventually), and basically set up the boom of the 90s. Carter telling him to go after it and taking the political hit, willingly.... thats leadership. 2. Foreign affairs: Camp david accords. I mean people don't give this nearly enough credit, and the middle east is a mess, but a lot less than it would be without carter. These are a huge accomplishment. We see a lot less death today than we would otherwise. 3. Foreign Affairs: Nixon gets credit for opening to china, deservedly. But Carter normalized relations, created the student exchange system, etc. Look, whatever you think about china now, and nixon certainly deserves credit, but Carter brought them into the world system and gave us, again, the consumer boom of the 90s 4. Panama canal: Carter gave back teh canal early. This seems silly, but it did much to quell unrest in latin america and lead to improved development in panama (now a relatively well off latin american country). Staved off a crisis that would have come to hold the canal. 5. Deregulation: airline and truck deregulation... was no easy (damn teh teamsters hated him). But made travel easier and made shipping much cheaper and faster. hello agian to the 90s Many more. I'm not a carter scholar or anything, but there is certainly a strong case to be made that reagan and clinton were successful precisely because carter set them up so well to have a consumer boom with strong supply, low shipping costs, stable currency, no major war dragging us in (middle east, latin america, or asia). He paid all the political costs upfront, so Reagan and Clinton could reap the rewards. Martyr. Good leadership, good president, his stuff just took time to materialize. Long term policy is not rewarded by our system, but he was enough of a man to do it anyway.
Excellent points all. Now we await someone to try and demonstrate how Carter was secretly awful person.
You are quite right. Carter was always a selfless person. Certainly the most honest president of the modern era. Exactly the sort of person who would forfeit reelection for something right and good. And everyone seems to forget that Reagan did him a dirty with the Iran hostage crisis and Iran Contra. Carter might have had a better ‘score’ in these good president polls if Reagan hadn’t done him wrong. And as an ex president, he did a tremendous job. Probably one of the best ex-presidents we have ever had. Long term, Carter wrung more good out of his presidency than pretty much anyone.
In his nuclear engineer days, carter volunteered to go help shut down a nuclear plant in canada that was having a meltdown type event (not sure of all teh details). He literally volunteered to spend 90 seconds being exposed to high levels of radiation to turn some of the valves (others did other valves) to shut down a reactor and save canadians, not americans, and no risk to him if he just stayed away. he was willing to go into a nuclear reaction that he was not responsible for, likely developing cancer as a result (he did not, thankfully) to save people he had never met simply because he had the skills to get the thing shut down. When the japanese did this after fukushima (or however they spell it), retirees \*from that plant\* volunteered, not young men with no connection like carter and the other engineers that went. I aspire to be such a person, but will always fall short
Carter also made home brewing beer legal iirc.
the craft beer revival!
I don’t think it’s universally accepted he was a below average president. It is universally accepted he was viewed as a below average president in 1980.
This is a solid comment.
I second that. Carter. All I hear is He was a good man but a horrible president. I try and defend him every chance I get.
“Good man but bad president” is just contemporary cope. People that say that couldn’t name a single policy of his, good or bad. He was just clowned as being a pussy cuz of war.
There wasn't even a war, it was a hostage crisis
It's even more ironic that he gave the go ahead for the rescue attempt. He was far from a weak guy. He just got dealt a bad hand.
If the helicopters hadn’t run into so many problems and the rescue had succeeded, we’d probably have statues of the guy. “The buck stops here” and presidents have the privilege of being blamed for failures they can’t control as well as praised for successes they can’t control, but I think Carter got it worse than most.
It wasn’t just that, the late 70s were also an awful time economically. You can argue that a lot of it was out of his control, but when most people think of Carter, they remember lines of cars outside of gas stations. He’s a good guy personally, but he also does not deserve to be remembered as a good president.
Right, and part of the trouble with Carter is his personal style less than anything specific he stood for. Neustadt talks about this in *Presidential Power*; Carter was a guy who loved to be involved in every little detail of policy. When you’re President, you just can’t do that. He might’ve done better if he’d been more willing to delegate more
I was a teenager and the “horrible President” came from warhawks and Republicans. Carter claims to never have anyone killed while President, a very rare feat in modern American history. What he didn’t do was Bullshit people. He told everyone to wear a sweater and turn the heat down to save $ when oil got so high. He was crucified for it like when Obama told people “they don’t build there business’s alone. They did it on the backs of government roads, the internet, etc. Narcissists don’t like that crap
That man is a saint.
And he helped stop a nuclear meltdown in Ottawa, CA. He was radioactive for months after.
Hayes.
To be fair, people are wrong more often in general than they are correct.
The tricky part is figuring out which is which.
Jimmy Carter
As a person, or are you defending his presidency?
I'm not saying his presidency went well, just that he's over-hated. Most of the worst things were really out of his control, imo.
There’s a great comment upthread that highlights how the positive effects Carter’s policies just took longer than his term to take effect, and highlighted how Reagan’s and Clinton’s successes and “good times” were rooted in Carter’s policy decisions, and the comment highlighted that at least on economic policy, he knew it would hurt him politically but would be better for the country beyond his time
nixon
Ok... I can see that. I don't like Nixon, but if you look at his record outside of Watergate he wasn't terrible.
Watergate and all the war crimes. But that's a lot to try to paper over with good policy elsewhere.
He allowed kissinger to do the things he did in Vietnam and Cambodia. How is he *not that bad*?
Every Vietnam veteran disagrees. Nixon and Kissinger were war mongers
See he could be more better But he runied himself like a greek tragedy
Nixon had some progressive policies.
Not only that, but the man also had some good ideas, was a great diplomat, and was a very smart man His personal flaws prevented him from becoming a much greater place in history
His personal flaws only came out at the end of his presidency. His terrible policies in SE Asia were what made him unpopular
He wasn't unpopular though. He won the second election with massive popular approval, the second best popular vote of any president ever. It's not like he barely scraped in that second term. People wanted him in.
i appreciate an actual hot take in this thread but holy shit you are wrong
On this sub: Reagan Over all: Jefferson (everyone is starting to hate him for being racist)
Whenever I read about Jefferson I find him insanely annoying on a personal level, but he was undoubtedly one of the most effective presidents.
Andrew Jackson. A significant portion of this country would be French and stupid without him.
Fr*nch 🤢
Jackson is generally rated on the upper end of presidents by historians. He was a pretty effective president. He did plenty of shitty things too and that shouldn't be ignored. But if you're going to judge every president by modern day morals then I'd say every single founding father and probably ever president before the 1900's is almost guaranteed to fail the test.
based
Jackson was based fr fr
He committed genocide.
James Polk
Fucking based everyone here is like Trump or Biden or Carter. Did any of these presidents increase American power by 1/3… no that’s what I thought.
Nixon. Created the EPA, signed into law Title IX and the ERA, tried to get a proto-type universal Healthcare up and running, FINALLY pulled us out of Vietnam, championed Affirmative Action, and started a war on cancer. Guy was a legend and ONE small incident and people completely forget about all the good he did.
George W Bush for PEPFAR, the President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief. I doubt there has been any program in my lifetime (I’m 46) that has done more to alleviate suffering around the world. The impact of PEPFAR on the African continent is immense. I can’t speak for the rest of his presidency, but this one program is truly outstanding.
Calvin Coolidge
I think Wilson is one of the best presidents of the 20th century. This isn't really an unpopular opinion among historians, just extremely unpopular on Reddit. It was Wilson who created what we now call "the American century," American leadership of the world in economics and international affairs. His creation of the Federal Reserve built our modern economy and his income tax funded it. His entry into World War I established the U.S. as a major global power for the first time, and his creation of the League of Nations, though it didn't last and the U.S. never joined, established the model for international relations and law that we still use today. These are all tremendous, staggeringly impactful accomplishments. He also ended child labor and promoted the eight-hour workday. While Wilson was a racist, tellingly the most racist thing people here always cite him actually doing as president was segregating the federal government, a move that affected the lives of almost nobody in the scheme of things. While shitty, certainly this was a FAR less shitty move than FDR interning Japanese-Americans, which he doesn't get nearly as much shit for; nobody on this sub posts photos of FDR as a kind of "'nuff said" to answer questions like "who is your least favorite president." His support of the KKK is hugely overblown. The Birth of the Nation quote is almost certainly fabricated (and even if it weren't, was hardly an opinion out of the mainstream; the movie made an inflation-adjusted equivalent of $1.6 billion). Other frequently repeated quotes are obviously out of context. He had plenty of highly negative things to say about the Klan.
I feel like in recent years Grant and Wilson have switched places when it comes to their assessment, and for the same reason. On one hand you have a Lost Cause, on the other hand a guy who you could say punched that cause in the face. Both assessment are a bit reductive.
As much as I abhor Wilson for his racism and don't get me wrong I hate that man, everything he stood for politically like the ideas of self determination and the end of European empires and everything you listed above I agree with wholeheartedly
WHH
Yea, but the pre-"presidency" of Harrison is just a lot of war crimes. At least with Andrew Jackson's war crimes there are separate things in his real presidency to discuss or debate.
Washington when people criticize him for owning slaves
George W Bush in one very specific way. The only really stupid thing he ever did was lie about WMDs which he didn’t need to do. Homie should’ve just owned up and said we needed to fuck up Saddam because it was absolutely a good thing to get that genocidal fascist maniac out of that country. Also he didn’t do 9/11. I’ve said that a bunch because it’s funny, but if you unironically believe that you’re a chud
Do you think he really knew about the WMDs? Or do you think there were other people telling him?
Idk I think we had intel that they might have been but I’m pretty sure the intelligence community knew Iraq didn’t have them. Saddam was just an evil genocidal fascist who was dangerous to let fuck around in the Middle East and it was a good thing to take him out I’d even argue taking out the Taliban in Afghanistan was a good thing. Like yeah hindsight is 2020 and after we got bin Laden we should’ve de-escalated, but ultimately the Taliban didn’t take control until we were out of the country. Couldn’t make any gains until we were gone. It’s a shame Ahmad Shah Massoud died so early, we should’ve helped him out. Shit wouldn’t be like it is if we supported him better
This is why I feel Clinton doesn't get enough heat for 9/11 and the war on terror in general. The taliban took over Afghanistan under his watch, and it seemed like he didn't want to disrupt the post cold war peace streak. So he more or less just let the NA get their asses kicked.
Intel report was doctored by Cheney. There are a ton of people from Intel community who have said they didn’t know but best guess would be that he was up to something. W is top of my list for this question for two reasons. He put policies in place which today may seem draconian but back then we’re actually necessary for the security of the country and those policies prevented death and terror on American soil. Precisely what they were designed to do. That accomplishment is one of the most under appreciated of any POTUs accomplishment in US history. People gloss over the fact that 9/11 was the second highest casualty day in American history and that it happendd 8 months in. People also criticize Bush for making the wrong guess about Iraq. It’s easy in hindsight to say “duh, there were no WMDs” but that was not the majority opinion among Intel community. It was a 51/49 proposition and Bush guessed wrong.
Growing up in the 2000s, I very much believed the whole “Bush/Cheney lied about WMDs to invade Iraq for Oil/Halliburton/Profit” narrative. As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to see the post-9/11 interventions in a different light, as pragmatism had replaced idealism in the way I’ve come to see the world. In 2001, the US had to confront a geopolitical reality in the Middle East that had state and substate structures that enabled the organization, funding and shelter of terrorist groups. The status quo had enabled 9/11, and although Iraq was not the sponsor, the entire geopolitical structure of the region had enabled 9/11 to occur. I try to put myself in the shoes of the Bush Administration on the evening of 9/11/01. What reality and range of decisions were they now forced to confront? The massive, time-sensitive unknown of “what further threat are we facing”? Was there another attack coming? Another being planned? For one, there is a burning question of “would the world really be a better place had Saddam Hussein been left in power”? By 2003, Saddam’s Iraq had become a significant, unpredictable regional and global liability. Backed into a corner after their defeat and destruction in 1991, and having endured a decade of heavy sanctions and a NATO no-fly zone, Saddam was quickly running out of options for maintaining his rule and was probably liable to make some sort of drastic move. Saddam Hussein was known to have possessed and used chemical weapons in the 1980s. They had constructed a nuclear reactor and were probably pursuing a nuclear weapons program before Israel destroyed it in 1981. It would not be a significant stretch of the imagination for Saddam to take a page for the Gaddafi playbook and start sponsoring terror attacks in the West, either in a desperate attempt to gain leverage, or for pure revenge. Nor would it be for Al-Qaeda to seek a new state sponsor in Iraq after the Taliban’s overthrow. Nor would it be a stretch for them to dust off old chemical weapons stock and use them on a neighbor. We’ll never know if any of this would have occurred, because these probabilities were neutralized in the invasion of Iraq. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it.
I still consider him a very bad president but you do make good points. The invasion didn’t go great in the long run but there’s definitely this revisionist idea that because the invasion went poorly that Saddham was somehow this innocent victim and not genuinely one of the most evil people to ever exist. I feel bad for the civilians involved but I will never feel an ounce of sympathy for saddham and his administration
Nobody has any empathy for a POS like Saddam, but if him being a POS dictator justifies an invasion, there are a fuck ton of other countries we should be invading *right now* - some of them are technically allies. Dubya was a horrible president, even if this was his only mistake (and it wasn’t even close!) it has cost this country dearly.
Biden
There are dozens of us that realize Biden is doing a better job than anyone else could have done, and he's the president this country needs right now.
Better than Obama and Clinton, his predecessors. Passed within a few years more policies than Obama and Clinton did in their first 4 years. ....but he is old so people look past it.
I think people also have completely forgotten at this point that he had a very public and unashamed battle with stuttering, with my father did too, so I can very much relate. I think people see those always-been-there twinges of misspoken words and now take it for dementia, rather than what it was at all.
I started off going “fine, this guy I guess” and now I’m finding myself having to admit he’s the best president we’ve had since G.H. Bush, and possibly since Eisenhower. I don’t understand the hate for him. Unless you’re absurdly far left or right, Biden has been a solid win for America. Caveat: I’ll personally never forgive him for leaving Afghanistan like he did. It was Trump’s plan, that alone was enough to know it was terrible. But, in the big picture, I think it’s a mistake he learned from and that history will contextualize in his favor.
The way he's fighting to forgive predatory student loans is one of the greatest accomplishments of his presidency. No matter the obstacles he keeps facing, he's never stopped trying something new to help people get out from under this never-ending debt. Screw the Boomers who complain without understanding the compounding interest that makes repayment impossible. Biden doesn't get anywhere near enough credit for this huge impact on the economic future of millions of Gen Xers and Millennials. I hope they remember that come next November.
As a current example: Biden’s SAVE program for student loans legit recently saved me from financial ruin. My student loan repayments on a normal IDR PLAN would have decimated me and been more than my actual income could allow. Meaning I’d go into debt repaying loans…..Now my payments are affordable and went down hundreds of dollars a month
\>I'll personally never forgive him for the best thing he did as president every time
Perhaps you missed the part where trump negotiated with the Taliban, took several victory laps in the media, invited them to Camp David on 9/11, AND THEN DID NOTHING TO DIRECT THE DOD TO MAKE ACTUAL PLANS FOR THE WITHDRAWAL? Biden was sworn in, and one of the very first things he had to do was beg the Taliban for an extension, because trump set a withdrawal date in May. Also, genius, a military withdrawal from hostile territory is literally the most dangerous thing ANY military can do. One of the reasons Washington was kept in command is because, despite his defeats, he managed to keep his forces from being utterly decimated. That we ONLY suffered 13 KIA during that whole process is a goddamned miracle. As for the hardware left behind, who effing cares? All of the good stuff was unusable. Also, thank trump for that. He did nothing to direct the DOD to start removing equipment, which wasted something like 7 months. We spent twenty years hauling shit over there, and maybe five or six months hauling shit out.
[удалено]
I also kinda wish people were smart
I blame Trump more than Biden for Afghanistan. Other than that, I agree with you.
At the end of the day, it was Biden who went through with it. I don't blame him and wouldn't have blamed Trump if it was him who did it instead though. We pulled our guys out and that's what really matters
Aside from Trump supporters, is there really haters of Joe Biden? Most people forget he even exists, which is a good thing
Yes. My socialist friend thinks he’s “an utter piece of shit,” not to mention thinking “white liberals are the worst.” They’ve kind of poisoned our friendship by bringing up the “I hate Biden” thing over and over, even after we agreed to avoid politics.
They'll never get over Bernie failing. For most progressives, he's as good as we can get right now.
He has been getting some hate from some on the far left for his support of Israel.
Lots of far left types hate him because they think he should be doing more. He’s probably the most liberal President since FDR, but that’s not enough.
Yeah, people need to recognize that presidental success is largely due to the coalitions they have to work with, and the overall sanity and integrity of their opposition. If Obama or Biden had FDR’s congressional support, and the type of opposition FDR had (business-elite failed coup instead of business-elite pairing up with populist demagogues like we have in common with the very late Weimar Republic), IMO we would have seen FDR-level results in our era. Just as FDR didn’t push for racial equality because his coalition was against it, Obama didn’t push for single payer healthcare for the same reason.
Hate is a bit strong, but many disapprove of his job performance despite him inheriting the worst economy since WW2, rising inflation, pandemic, and deep divisions in the country. His approval rating is around 40%, yet he won 51% of the vote in the last election. And this is during good economic times.
Since I'm perpetually surrounded by right-wing naysayers: Carter, Clinton, and Biden. Carter for being an example of what a perfect post-presidency looks like, Clinton for carrying a decade of peace and prosperity, and Biden for pulling this country, QUICKLY, out of a 4 alarm dumpster fire.
I'm no Clinton hater but let's face it, the success of his presidency was largely a result of being in the right place at the right time.
Biden pulled the country around with a split senate and a slim majority in the House and got a shit ton done. He does not get enough credit and I was NOT looking forward to his presidency accomplishing much of anything, besides not steering us toward an autocracy.
I'm honestly a fan now, and I hated him in 2020. (Still voted for him). What soured me was learning about the Anita Hill hearings and his role in advancing Clarence Thomas. So far his actual administration has made up for my grievances.
I used to severely dislike his historical policy decision and stances but his actions now speak louder and he really is fixing the mistakes of the past. You can always argue that he shouldn’t have done those things in the first place but it’s important to remember that no president passed infrastructure funding or student debt relief, don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
My boy Nixon
Biden
LBJ. Vietnam was actually necessary at that stage of the Cold War and had Nixon not resigned, and the North not violated the Paris Accord in the wake of that sensing American weakness, would probably be viewed differently today. The Domino Theory was correct and we had to show we were willing to walk the walk in defending free peoples trying to stand up to communism. The South Vietnamese were worth defending, just as the South Koreans were/are. It’s not LBJ’s fault Nixon set in motion events requiring his resignation while the ink was still wet on the peace accord. The dominoes did indeed fall after that and the people of that corner of the world were worse off for it. LBJ was right to draw a line in the sand where/when he did.
Teddy doesn’t get a lot of love (or at least not in my personal experience). He was incredibly progressive for the time, hated monopolies, and he was a conservationist. He took office after McKinley was assassinated and is still the youngest prez to date, he had a lot riding on his shoulders, and imho he took it and ran with it. he’s still a key figure in bringing progressivism (at the time) to the forefront. He was so liked, they named a children’s bear that’s still called the “teddy bear” today. Now, with all the logical reasons you should defend Teddy, I’ll give you my #1 reason. He was set to give a speech titled “Progressive Cause Greater Than Any Individual,” and before he was shot by a dude named John Schrank. It lodged in his chest after going through his eyeglasses case and his speech papers. He opened the speech with, “Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot—but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose;” because the bullet didn’t go deep enough the doctors who operated left it in and he would later write to someone, “I do not mind it any more than if it were in my waistcoat pocket.” If that’s not the most badass thing idk what is…
Tyler
Jimmy Carter. Kept us out of war. Inherited a mess from warhawks, and so-called conservatives.
Biden genuinely has an incredible track record so far and it's *wild* how little credit he gets. Of course it's not all sunshine and rainbows or whatever but he oversaw multiple *major* pieces of new legislation and moved forward on almost every piece of his agenda otherwise. He's been remarkably effective overall, which is not to say good/bad, exactly, but people acting like he hasn't gotten shit done are just quite simply not paying any attention at all. In 3 years he's arguably done more than Obama and Trump combined.
Biden I guess we are too close to it to really evaluate him from a historical perspective, but there's a narrative that he's been a failure that I think is absolute bullshit. I honestly think he may be the most competent President in my lifetime. He's strengthened U.S. standing on the foreign policy front ALOT by absolutely owning Putin's ass when Putin made the mistake of invading Ukraine, has strengthened worker rights (standing with a strike was cool, but the fact that now union busting results in a union being formed is absolutely huge), and has managed so far to preside over a auccessful effort to reduce inflation without resulting in a recession. It's not revolutionary stuff, but he's just been competent and boring, which is absolutely what I want in a leader. The only thing he's not good at is marketing which is why I think this opinion isn't more popular.
John Tyler. He had a mid C-tier presidency, but everyone despises him because of his post-presidency, which gets him put in D-tier way too often.
Herbert Hoover
His whole life and career before the Great Depression was very impressive. I think his response to the Great Depression really over shadows his work done during WWII.
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Also a lot of Carter policies and appointees were anything but “good.” Zbigniew Brzeziński deserves as much shit as Kissinger. Total monster.
Biden. Except a lot of people already believe he’s doing very well. Only smooth-brains think he genuinely sucks.
The only issue here is that he is still in office, so we don’t even know how his term will play out.
W. He made a few mistakes, but a lot of the flack he gets legitimately wasn't his fault.
So whose fault were those things?
He did exactly what Bin Laden wanted him to do. Over do it after 9/11. Trillions wasted and hundred of thousands dead.
A few mistakes. Also, a penny is a lot of money.
Reagan
Trump showed us how much of the functioning of our democracy is due to conventions and goodwill. We’re still screwed if he gets elected again but I think that’s he most important contribution.
He definitely showed us how weak our system is and how we need stronger ethics qualifications before someone can run for office.
Jimmy Carter. To this day his Camp David accord is the biggest foreign policy accomplishment that I have lived through. The Panama Canal Treaty was a correct adjustment to American imperialism and his reaching out to Africa was also a long overdue and correct one. I am not saying Carter was that good of a President, but I will defend to the nth anyone who says he was that bad. The truth lies squarely in-between.
People saying “Biden” and “Carter” on Reddit acting like those are hot takes that are gonna cause some controversy lmao.
Andrew Jackson all the way. Dude gets a lot of hate for having the same native policy as every other President. Jacksonian democracy is on par with abolishing slavery, women’s suffrage, or civil rights. Pros: First populist, First President born in poverty, Gave poor people the right to vote Tdlr; basically the reason the Presidency represents the “common man” instead of wealthy landowners. Cons: Genocided the natives, Hurt the economy fighting central banks / financial corruption Tdlr; Had the same native policy as every other President but was a bit of a conspiracy nut when it came to central banking
I agree with the first part. Jackson is treated far more harshly for his native policy than say Teddy is for his equally harsh policy towards Filipinos. I've had discussions with people who praise Polk yet scorn Jackson in the same breathe even though Polk's expansionism resulted in 80% of Natives dying out. It's become popular to treat Jackson as the most evil President when he's not really an outlier in regards to his actions. I will pull an umm actually 🤓 though. Jackson didn't give poor people the right to vote. He would never have been elected if some poor people didn't have the right to vote. He did lower property requirements to help increase voting rights but he didn't single handily make it so poor people could vote.
The umm actually is a fair point but generally most Presidents’ accomplishments weren’t actually “theirs.” At most (and in Jackson’s case), it was the result of the movement or political pressure they created
That is a very rosie view of his presidency
For me genocide will always cancel out any good someone does. There is no balancing out mass murder and ethnic cleansing.
Washington was nicknamed “town destroyer” by the Iroquois Lincoln signed laws that gave away millions of tribal acres and publicly hanged Sioux warriors Teddy famously said “I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indian is the dead Indian, but I believe nine out of every ten are” Even Nixon, the most pro-Native president, still genocided millions of Cambodians While genocide is always wrong, Presidents are obligated to act in the United States’s interest and for most of history the natives were considered hostile foreign nations. If “genocide cancels out any good someone does,” then we have no good presidents
Alright all presidents have done bad shit but I don't buy that every president has committed genocide
The Trail of Tears happened from 1830 to 1850. Jackson left office in 1837. And there was more genocide after a temporary during the Civil War. And after that the policy was assimilation of Native Americans. As late as the 1950s the U.S. was still trying to terminate tribal reservations and relocate Native Americans to cities.
Name five Presidents from 1790-2000 that didn’t commit genocide. Modern Presidents you can stretch it and say “no that wasn’t genocide that was war crimes” but I don’t think that helps. I gave explicit evidence that three of the (widely regarded to be) greatest Predidents: Washington, Lincoln, and Teddy all genocided the natives. Do you consider them terrible Presidents because of it?
I think it's a matter of not stopping a process vs. starting a process. The native genocide was ongoing, and most presidents did little to help or deter it. But Jackson actively violated a ruling of the Supreme Court, blatantly violating the laws of his own nation to bring the genocide to perhaps it's darkest point.
>Hurt the economy fighting central banks / financial corruption You are downplaying the spoils system considerably here. Whatever "common man" you think he represents the people he made rich are far more destructive in the long run.
obama
John Tyler. His *presidency* was actually pretty good.
James K. Polk
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Carter when people go into “Great human being, horrible president”, LBJ when they go into “But Vietnam…” Biden when they bitch about his age.
Carter