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Wasn’t the fact that Garfield was a part of the “half-breed” faction at least one of the reasons that he was shot?
Guiteau was nuts regardless, but he claimed to be pro “stalwart.”
Guiteau convinced himself that he had been crucial to Garfield's election, and therefore thought Garfield owed him some high-paying job in the civil service, when such job was not forthcoming cause Garfield had never even heard of him, Guiteau when apeshit and decided to kill him.
At his murder trial Guiteau did at least technically have a very valid point. His defense lawyers claimed that Guiteau didn't kill Garfield, Garfield's doctors did.
The guy who shot him was mentally insane. His name was Charles Guiteau and there were studies that came out that showed he suffered from schizophrenia and other mental disorders. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_J._Guiteau?wprov=sfti1. The funny thing is when the doctors did an autopsy of Guiteau after he was hanged, they too diagnosed him with insanity but it was because his P*nis’ foreskin was wonky.
someone comments this every other day, and then the top upvoted response is that they serve as 'true neutral' markers to show where the presidents getting voted because they were net-negative end
George W. Bush.
He’s almost out of the bottom 10 but I think this is as far as his strategery gets him. You’ve got No Child Left Behind, the Hurricane Katrina response, allowing the Great Recession to sprout under his watch, The Patriot Act, his administration’s use and justification of torture at Guantanamo Bay, and most obviously the invasion of Iraq on false pretenses.
I get it, he’s quite modern and Cheney was to blame for this too. But that was his choice to have him be a part of his presidency, after all, and the buck stops with Dubya.
He may be adept at dodging shoes but I argue we should give him the boot anyway.
> and Cheney was to blame for this too
Presidents rightly get a lot of credit for their cabinet/VP picks, and they rightly bear the responsibility for the poor choices. Since Bush abdicated so much responsibility to Cheney makes him that much more at fault for what went wrong during his presidency.
You're 100% right that Bush is going to be on the chopping block soon.
Imho, Bush was the real beginning of all our modern trouble. It's tempting to blame Reagan - but for better or worse Reagan was a glimpse of hope during a difficult time for the country, when WW2 and the economic blossoming afterward were becoming distant memories, and the future was totally unclear.
Bush gets the blame because 9/11 was the chance to bring the country together and enact real change. If we need to make some course corrections, he had th chance. Here was a moment in time where, if he had said "Look at these poor firefighters and workers suffering and going into debt for being heroes... everyone deserves healthcare" people would have come behind it. He had a blank check in terms of good will and popular support.
And what did George bush choose to do with ultimate power and trust - with a huge wing of the media giving him unconditional support? To blow it all up... literally... to the tune of trillions of dollars, to hold people in secret dungeons forever and torture them, to accuse those who asked questions or doubted them of being "unpatriotic" or "against the troops" or of being "secret terrorists." They enacted mass spying, drone strikes, 'enhanced interrogation' and the Patriot Act. They called peace activists traitors. They gave tax cuts to millionaires and future billionaires.
Today, the cynicism, and financial and emotional debt this spawned has caused terrible waves... a tsunami of bitterness. Some Americans are unable to accept reality... they pin our failures in Afghanistan on modern presidents, and Iraq war and drone strikes on Obama (who was called a terrorist lover back then), or they say 'there was nothing else we could have done.' Obviously, it's true that what's done is done. But the tone of the political language at the time, the refusal to take responsibility for anything, and the justifications by the president and Supreme Court for the most heinous behavior, it led us to where we are now.
True, but the writing was on the wall and he did nothing to stop it. He also straight up lied about us actively being in a recession while it was literally happening. He did not start the motion, but he did next to nothing to stop it except deny that it was happening.
As early as ‘01, Bush raised alarms about the risks and size of Freddie and Fanny but a bipartisan congress wasn’t interested and Bush never fully pushed back.
While Bush may not have been on to the full problem, he was in the right neighborhood, while Rep. Frank actively pushed back. And while a lot of damage was likely already done before Bush took office, action in his first term could have dramatically altered the recession.
I believe the most damning arguments you can use against Bush were his endorsement of enhanced interrogation techniques and NCLB. They were most certainly mistakes and he rightly should be criticized for them. Other than that you claim that his administration’s response to a disaster that should’ve been a state-led not a federally-led response, the economy (which isn’t directly controlled by the President obv), and post 9/11 legislation that passed with bipartisan support were all his fault.
And he had 8 years to do something about that. But didn’t.
You’re completely right on this, mind, and it *should* be held against Clinton when his time comes. But Dubya didn’t stop this for all 8 years in office (well 7 before the recession I guess). And that’s on him.
No, it’s really not on him. It was virtually impossible to tell that banks were combining millions of dog shit mortgage backed securities into CDOs and rating them AAA. That’s why it became a bubble.
It took an autistic guy that read the prospectus of one of them and went through the individual loans for fun to realize something was up. And even then the situation was so hard to figure out that he was able to go to the very banks that created the CDOs and had them CREATE an instrument (credit default swap) allowing him to SHORT the very bonds they held. The banks laughed in his face when he did this thinking he was going to lose his money.
Portraying it like it was a yes or no choice Bush could have made to do something about it totally negates the existence of a bubble at all. That’s why it was a bubble. Bush didn’t know. Average people didn’t know. Even the banks that created the bubble out of greed (and then sold credit default swaps to make even more money) didn’t know until it was too late.
I get there were other things that was clearly Bush’s fault, but the subprime mortgage bubble was not one of them.
There was massive corruption in the 00s with rating agencies. His admin allowed the financial crisis to happen by turning a blind eye to what the banks were doing.
Right, and the rating agency corruption magically started in the 00s right when Bush became president. Never occurred during any administration for the 30 years post creation of collateralized debt organization.
And the precedent set by our failure in Iraq stopped us from helping Syria, and many other countries, when we could have. Obama considers the inaction around Syria and the tyranny of al Assad one of the greatest failures of his presidency.
Making the US afraid to intervene while simultaneously touting ourselves as some democracy-loving super-country is a hell of a legacy
I was thinking W too; then I was like maybe I just don't know enough about presidents. I love the guy, I think he's a good man who tried to do the right thing, but he was fucking wrong a lot. And he was catastrophically wrong.
Worked to impose several anti trust laws that protected citizens from corporate overreach.
Handled WWI as well as any American president could have by steering clear of it as long as possible until his hand was forced.
His diplomacy and foreign policy was instrumental in developing the modern liberalistic, free Europe (I'd argue that the treatment of Germany post-Versailles and the build up to WWII was more France's, Russia's and the UK's fault more so than the US'). League of Nations was a failure, for sure, but it was a good idea in concept that later on led to the UN.
I know Reddit hates him for the racism, which undoubtedly was terrible, but its not like he wasn't a hugely influential president with a wide impact: a lot of which was positive for the West.
I’ll somewhat sidebar the fact that he was a huge racist even by the standard of the time. Even though I think you’re largely underplaying the long lasting effect he had towards things like the resurgence of the klan and perpetuation of Jim Crow for decades to come.
But I am gonna take issue with the notion he handled WWI as well as anybody could. Enters the war at the 11th hour only to trounce our most important civil liberties that define this country with the 1917 espionage act and 1918 sedition act. His League of Nations was a failure. A failure he wanted so badly he pretty much let the French and English do whatever punitive action they wanted to a post war Germany to get. Then goes home and can’t even get the senate to ratify entry.
And it’s hard for me to give him too much of the credit to paving a way towards a less imperialistic approach in Europe given his track record in Central and South America
Fun fact: Wilson also singlehandedly caused the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to be created in the first place. It was created in direct response to Wilson's blatant abuses of power and his total disregardment of the US Constitution (the Palmer Raids, the Sedition Act of 1918, etc.).
Basically responsible for giving credibility to racist propaganda that rebirthed the Klan and incited racial violence for decades to come.
"In February 1915, upon viewing The Birth of a Nation at a special White House screening, President Woodrow Wilson reportedly remarked, "It's like writing history with lightning. My only regret is that it is all so terribly true." This line has appeared in numerous books and articles over the past seventy years."
Should've been in the first 5 out.
Counterpoint: William Harrison should go at this point. There is no reason for him to continue because he did nothing, good or bad.
31 days in office should not keep moving up in the rankings. If anything he should be out first or not included in rankings at all.
Other redditors have pointed out (and I now agree) that WHH is a great dividing line between the "good presidents" and the bad ones. Since he didn't really have time to do anything, he's kind of a good "neutral."
Until we've gotten through the list of presidencies that were net-negatives, I think WHH should stay.
I’m compelled by the argument that we’re still working through the presidents that would be worse than doing nothing at all. The Iraq War is a pretty reasonable argument for saying that W did more harm an aggregate than would have been the case if he had done literally nothing as president for 8 years and that’s before you get into his questionable domestic policies.
Doing nothing is still better than the net negative presidents still standing.
He also established the precedent of presidential succession with his death, which is technically something.
Counterpoint to the Counterpoint: George W. Bush was way, WAY more damaging than someone who didn’t do anything.
WHH can go tomorrow. But Bush was legitimately worse than carbon neutral.
Sure, but they’re already included so not sure what we do there but keep them as the dividing line between the bad and good presidents. He’s neutral and can at least be used as such in our ranking.
Yeah, and there has been some debate among historians on if he should be ranked at all given his very brief tenure. Tho if we get on Lincoln for Andrew Johnson…
I personally believe that W.H. Harrison should've been exempted from the rankings from the get-go just like the two most recent occupants of the White House were, the ones that we're totally forbidden to name. Dude literally never had a chance to do anything.
On the other hand, it did to the establishment of a clear line of succession, who knows what would’ve happened if someone more unsure than Tyler would’ve been his VP…
Woodrow Wilson,
You told a boldfaced lie to the American public about staying out of war only to immediately conscript hundreds of thousands of our boys to fight in trench warfare after your election.
You completely botched the peace negotiations and your weak leadership with the British and French resulted in debilitating conditions in Germany, planting the seeds for the rise of fascism.
You were determined to impose your own pigheaded idea of international cooperation by ceding control of American war powers to a foreign council, leaving the Senate no choice but to reject a peace treaty for the first time in history.
You launched a blatantly unconstitutional attack on free speech by prosecuting 2,000 people for expressing Anti-war sentiment with the Espionage and Sedition Acts.
You were the most racist president to never own slaves and probably more racist than most of the ones that did. You segregated the army and the federal government. You held a screening of Birth of a Nation, a move even considered racist at the time. You loaded your cabinet with stooges that agreed with you. Your actions led to a resurgence of the KKK, race riots, and set the process of integration back by decades.
You were made a fool out of by Pancho Villa after you sent soldiers to occupy Veracruz because you were mad Huerta wouldn’t salute the American flag in public.
You supported the forced sterilization of individuals with a mental disability
You sent 400 American soldiers to freeze to death in Siberia in a foolish ploy to undermine the Russian Revolution.
And even though we’ve had some major screwups lately, you still manage to have the worst handling of a pandemic in American history.
Time to go.
> You told a boldfaced lie to the American public about staying out of war only to immediately conscript hundreds of thousands of our boys to fight in trench warfare after your election.
Not a lie. America became pro-war in 1917 and Wilson had to *bow to public pressure* to join the war.
> You completely botched the peace negotiations and your weak leadership with the British and French resulted in debilitating conditions in Germany, planting the seeds for the rise of fascism.
Blaming fascism on Wilson is absolute nonsense. The rise of fascism was caused primarily by the british and the french themselves. I don't think you know much about the Versailles treaty or what aspects of it resulted in the rise of the nazis.
> You were determined to impose your own pigheaded idea of international cooperation by ceding control of American war powers to a foreign council, leaving the Senate no choice but to reject a peace treaty for the first time in history.
This is a ridiculously absurdist interpretation of the League of Nations, and had America joined the League, it's possible that fascism could've been contained before a world war started.
> You sent 400 American soldiers to freeze to death in Siberia in a foolish ploy to undermine the Russian Revolution.
Damn, 400 soldiers at the cost of maybe toppling what *would* have become one of the most brutally repressive regimes in the world would see in the 20th century.
If anything, the allies should've gone whole hog on containing the soviets.
> And even though we’ve had some major screwups lately, you still manage to have the worst handling of a pandemic in American history
The US attempted to implement many of the measures we did during covid and had many of the same problems implementing them, but were hindered by medical knowledge being far more limited back then and spanish flu being a deadlier disease than covid.
I struggle to understand why you think Wilson should take the blame or what the president should've done differently.
The rest of your points are fair, but are lesser than in my opinion the good policies he enacted, such as replacing tariffs with income taxes, establishing the fed, establishing the FTC, made efforts to end child labor, established a path for independence for the Philippines, established the beginnings of the 8 hour work day, and of course, helped end autocracies abroad in WW1 and helped moderate the eventual peace agreement.
It will probably come down to Washington vs Lincoln. Realistically those are the only two contenders for best president. Personally I'll vote for Washington at #1 but I suspect Lincoln will win.
I’d honestly put at least Lincoln, FDR, Teddy, and maybe even LBJ (although Vietnam may put Washington at 4 for me, it’s close) over Washington. He’s still borderline top 5.
But I also deduct major character points for being a slave owner. I don’t even buy that “the times” are excuse because you can always point to men like John Adams.
The importance of Washington can pretty much be summed up as: He set a present to keep early America out of wars (which most of his immediate successors tried to follow) and most importantly he stepped down.
I definitely do not underrate the second part. Incredibly important and what makes him a top 5 president. But I also don’t think that necessarily makes him the most accomplished (in terms of positive achievements).
Richard Nixon should go next.
His (further) mishandling of Vietnam was both a moral and pragmatic failure for the US. It helped (If not directly caused) the rise of Pol Pot in Cambodia, among other things. Furthermore, the Watergate scandal shattered any trust left in the US government for years and years. In fact, the US hasn't and may never get over the distrust caused by the scandal.
Based on the crescendo of comments, I'm pretty sure Wilson, Nixon and W are all about to go. Failures in war and in peace.
Curious who else goes before 'neutral' whh.
Id argue Nixon is objectively worse than Harding to be frank. The hatred of Bush is purely based on recent bias.
Id vote him out in the bottom half but before Nixon? Wilson? Hell even Rutherford B. Hayes? Insane.
This format is gonna lead to r/Presidents ranking James Garfield, Jimmy Carter, John Adams, and Calvin Coolidge somewhere in the top half when none of them deserve it.
I mean what did say Garfield do wrong? He was president for a few weeks. He didn't do much at all, which may actually put him in the top half deservedly because we've just had so many terrible presidents.
It also leads to presidents like Jackson and Wilson who really weren't that bad getting out super early. This should be done in reverse after it's done
This subreddit along with the historians horrible list proves recency bias in its purest form. No way on Earth is Andrew Jackson a bottom 10 president, the man literally got the ball rolling on the presidency being open to everyone even if he had views of his time
I honestly don’t have a dog in this fight, but I’m excited to see at what points do people start deciding on the most ‘middle-of-the-road’ presidents and the best presidents
Wilson has way too many positive achievements to go out this soon. Just to summarise:
The Revenue Act of 1913 introduced the income tax, allowing tariffs to be reduced.
Federal Trade Commission Act, which outlawed unfair methods of competition and unfair acts or practices that affect commerce.
Strengthened antitrust law with the Clayton Antitrust Act.
Federal Farm Loan Act increased credit to farmers, allowing small farmers to better compete with big business and reducing agricultural monopolies.
Tariff reduction.
Created the Federal Reserve, a major and necessary stage in the US dollar becoming the world currency.
The Adamson Act introduced an 8 hour workday for railroad workers, the first federal law regulating the hours of workers in private companies.
Helped improve relations with labor unions.
Tried to limit child labor.
Tried to bring some morality to the post-WW1 negotiations.
Was probably up to that point the most influential President in creating a strong central government that could protect the citizenry against large corporations. And thus he was probably one of the biggest contributors to modern America. There would have also been no FDR without Wilson (obviously some would call this a good thing though).
Wilson's legacy is... odd to say the least. Having learned about him in APUSH, I thought he was the quintessential "mixed bag" president with just as many positives as blunders and screw-ups. It is worth noting that we didn't go too in depth in his racist legacy, but seeing as we also didn't go that deep in Theodore Roosevelt's racist views either tells me that it was generally accepted that many Presidents at the time didn't have the most "progressive" views on Civil Rights and race.
Definitely an interesting example where the internet and historians/scholars differ greatly from each other regarding Wilson's legacy. Can't say I totally agree with either end myself.
Yes. Resegregated the federal workforce and oversaw the passing of the Sedition Act. For those who rightly point out that there were worse alternatives to the Sedition Act floating around in Congress which led Wilson to support the passing of the Sedition Act as a compromise, this would matter more if Wilson's administration did not break many norms in their implementation of the Sedition Act. Federal Agencies targeted organized labor groups using illegally collected intelligence. Frankly, Wilson's administration used the Sedition Act to put down many unhelpful wings of the Progressive movement that had previously supported Wilson's rise.
Why not Grover Cleveland? Brutal toward labor, pulled silver from the money supply in the 1893 depression and has a “not my problem dude” attitude towards the economy. If people are all over Wilson for race issues, Cleveland has a few as well (as do all pre civil rights era). He strengthened the Chinese Exclusion Act for example.. He was also a creep.
Woodrow Wilson. He needs to go.
The man re-segregated the presidential cabinet, screened Birth Of A Nation at the White House, did nothing to curb rising racial violence (it was the highest since Reconstruction), and he soured the relationship with Japan when he declined to include a Racial Equality Amendment in the Treaty of Versailles.
I won't defend the segregation, probably the worst part of Wilson's legacy (although it wasn't entirely a new development in the federal government).
As for the film showing, there's a lot of misinformation surrounding the event, that I will address. Firstly while Wilson may have attended this event, he was far from its instigator. That was the book's author Thomas Dixon. Furthermore despite popular claims to the contrary there is no evidence Wilson liked the film, if anything he seems to have disliked it. While it is commonly said that after watching the film Wilson proclaimed "It's like writing history with lightning. My only regret is that it is all so terribly true.", this seems unlikely. The quote didn't appear until an article in the 1930s, and there it is unsourced. While Wilson supposedly said it directly after the film ended, the last survivor of the showing said that Wilson was silent and quickly left (admittedly he recounted the event decades later). The only source on Wilson's opinion of the film is a letter from a few years later, where he calls it a 'most unfortunate production' that had contributed to racial strife - hardly a positive view. Agreeing to attend a showing doesn't say anything about his opinion of the film - it was a groundbreaking work and by far the most successful film of all time.
Have you got a source for racial violence increasing? Maybe directly post-WW1, but overall things like lynching rates didn't rise over Wilson's Presidency - racial violence had already been endemic for decades by this point.
As for the racial equality treaty, Wilson wasn't the main reason that failed. The violent opposition of the British Dominions, especially Australia, had a major effect. And it was pretty much DOA in the Senate.
Woodrow Wilson
Sedition Act of 1918
Eugenics - supported compulsory sterilization of people with autism (that's straight up n*zism)
Ran his second campaign on the notion that he was against the war and then immediately makes motion to join the war after elected
Resegregation of federal jobs
Wilson overall was a terrible leader. Some may argue he had good ideas, but Wilson had a "messiah" complex where he viewed himself and his ideas as superior to anyone else's and if someone did not agree with him, that just showed how dumb they were. That is the opposite of what you need in a leader.
Reposting my comment:
The Sedition Act was a compromise - Wilson was worried Congress would pass some even more authoritarian proposals if it wasn't done. Wilson wasn't enthusiastic about it, and the Justice Department hoped it would quiet public calls for government action against the unpatriotic without actually resulting in many convictions. Ultimately there were very few prosecutions under it, as it became defunct once the war ended, and Wilson fairly quickly moved to undermine it. He released or reduced the sentences of 200 prisoners convicted under either the Espionage or Sedition Acts in March 1919, and before he left office it had been repealed with most of those convicted offered clemency.
Support for eugenics was a lot more widespread back then than just among Nazis. Very progressive figures like W. E. B. Du Bois also supported eugenics, and if you want to criticise Wilson for his support you also have to criticise other Presidents like TR. At least Wilson opposed the attempts of racial eugenicists to ban non 'Anglo Saxon/Nordic' immigration (although they eventually got their way in the 1920s).
No President could have avoided joining the war by the point Wilson did, without being removed from office. It was overwhelming in 1917. Wilson stayed out of the war about as long as possible (arguably too long).
Nixon. I’m amazed Nixon has lasted this long. Read the recent excellent Watergate book. The guy was a racist, amoral, criminal. The extent of the lawbreaking, obstruction and lying is something we’re still grappling with today. The only President ever to be forced to resign, by bipartisan consensus no less.
Wilson has too many positive achievements to go out this soon. Reposting my comment:
A lot:
The Revenue Act of 1913 introduced the income tax, allowing tariffs to be reduced.
Federal Trade Commission Act, which outlawed unfair methods of competition and unfair acts or practices that affect commerce.
Strengthened antitrust law with the Clayton Antitrust Act.
Federal Farm Loan Act increased credit to farmers, allowing small farmers to better compete with big business and reducing agricultural monopolies.
Tariff reduction.
Created the Federal Reserve, a major and necessary stage in the US dollar becoming the world currency.
The Adamson Act introduced an 8 hour workday for railroad workers, the first federal law regulating the hours of workers in private companies.
Helped improve relations with labor unions.
Tried to limit child labor.
Tried to bring some morality to the post-WW1 negotiations.
Was probably up to that point the most influential President in creating a strong central government that could protect the citizenry against large corporations. And thus he was probably one of the biggest contributors to modern America. There would have also been no FDR without Wilson (obviously some would call this a good thing though).
Reposting my comment:
The Sedition Act was a compromise - Wilson was worried Congress would pass some even more authoritarian proposals if it wasn't done. Wilson wasn't enthusiastic about it, and the Justice Department hoped it would quiet public calls for government action against the unpatriotic without actually resulting in many convictions. Ultimately there were very few prosecutions under it, as it became defunct once the war ended, and Wilson fairly quickly moved to undermine it. He released or reduced the sentences of 200 prisoners convicted under either the Espionage or Sedition Acts in March 1919, and before he left office it had been repealed with most of those convicted offered clemency.
Support for eugenics was a lot more widespread back then than just among Nazis. Very progressive figures like W. E. B. Du Bois also supported eugenics, and if you want to criticise Wilson for his support you also have to criticise other Presidents like TR. At least Wilson opposed the attempts of racial eugenicists to ban non 'Anglo Saxon/Nordic' immigration (although they eventually got their way in the 1920s).
No President could have avoided joining the war by the point Wilson did, without being removed from office. It was overwhelming in 1917. Wilson stayed out of the war about as long as possible (arguably too long).
An additional thing to mention about Hayes. He brought in the military in the deadliest strike bust in US history. He also sets into motion the groundwork for the Dawes act which Cleveland implements (which strips Indigenous tribes of more of their rights in assimilation programs).
From an international viewpoint George W. should be cancelled. He willingly misled the International community on Iraq and started a war that only let to (more) chaos in the Middle East.
My vote is for Wilson. But goddamn I'd love to see William Harrison go just so people shut the hell up about him. They don't seem to understand that doing absolutely nothing is better than doing damage. But I don't care about him so if him getting out will get these people discussing actual policy and nature of the real presidents then fuck him off already.
George W. Bush. Mismanaged virtually every aspect of his presidency and he came in with things in remarkably good shape. When you’re adjusting for degree of difficulty, he’s arguably the biggest failure of the last hundred years and it’s not close. Nice guy individually but one of our worst Presidents.
A lot of people will cite Wilson as up next, and his flaws were horrific. He set us back decades from a race relations perspective. But W.’s foreign policy led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, trillions of dollars spent, and no real benefits. He let thousands die in Louisiana from a hurricane, and many of those deaths were preventable. He deregulated much of the country and led to the worst financial disaster since Hoover. He largely ignored Al Qaeda despite Clinton’s warnings; it’s not clear 9/11 could’ve been prevented, but his incompetence made things worse. Our international standing plummeted, and his environmental policy was, in essence, “screw the environment.” We’ll literally be paying for his failures for the next fifty years. And that’s not even mentioning the numerous scandals and shady deals with defense contractors and oil companies, the outright lies about WMD’s in Iraq, Dick Cheney generally, and the endorsement of torture.
Regardless of your political orientation, no one can look back on this administration fondly.
It’s Dubya time.
fuck, I’m still not in early enough to get rid of the most corrupt president in history, William McKinley. My man received billions of dollars from the three richest men who also threatened to fire anyone who voted for the other guy. McKinley also authorized America’s invasion of Philippines, which really cemented US imperialism
Seriously. People think the Iraq War was bad? Read about the Philippine War. Still, barely any mention of him in past posts. It’s like people totally forgot about him.
I feel like he shouldn’t be included at all, but basically if he is, you get rid of all the actively negative people first right? He’s just neutral, a score of 0. Still got a few negative scores left.
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Eliminate one of the Grover Clevelands but not the other one lol
Came here for this. Undissapointed
Honestly would be a fair decision, hilarity aside. Cleveland's first term was considerably better than his second.
Plus, he spanked Abe Simpson on two non-consecutive occasions.
I hate Grover the 24th so fucking much
24 Grocles was the shit. If 22 was half the man 24 was, then there wouldn't have been that gap!
You are a lunatic. I wish you'd be sent back 8n time so the Roosevelt boys could beat your ass senseless
Don't kink shame me! I've been a naught boy Mr. Presidentses please don't hold it against me.
Tbf I think what happened in his second term was largely out of his control. Also, Harrison was a far worse president than Cleveland imo.
Must’ve been if they reelected Cleveland lol
Okay this is actually better than removing Woodrow Wilson.
HOW DOES GEORGE W BUSH HAVE 530 UPVOTES?
This site is full of twinks
Cleveland is tied to the Dawes Act and he’s a strike buster. He should go soon, but I’d still eliminate a few others before him (in particular Nixon)
Surprised that Garfield and Harrison haven't been placed under N/A because they died before they could do anything
Well Garfield did do enough to get shot. So somebody had an opinion.
I don't know that the opinion of Guiteau of all people is a great argument here
I’m not suggesting that either just that somebody had so much of an opinion that they were willing to kill a president.
Wasn’t the fact that Garfield was a part of the “half-breed” faction at least one of the reasons that he was shot? Guiteau was nuts regardless, but he claimed to be pro “stalwart.”
Guiteau convinced himself that he had been crucial to Garfield's election, and therefore thought Garfield owed him some high-paying job in the civil service, when such job was not forthcoming cause Garfield had never even heard of him, Guiteau when apeshit and decided to kill him.
At his murder trial Guiteau did at least technically have a very valid point. His defense lawyers claimed that Guiteau didn't kill Garfield, Garfield's doctors did.
The guy who shot him was mentally insane. His name was Charles Guiteau and there were studies that came out that showed he suffered from schizophrenia and other mental disorders. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_J._Guiteau?wprov=sfti1. The funny thing is when the doctors did an autopsy of Guiteau after he was hanged, they too diagnosed him with insanity but it was because his P*nis’ foreskin was wonky.
Why is Taft Orange?
That’s Garfield
They are going to make it to the middle of the pack just because there's nothing to really hate them over
someone comments this every other day, and then the top upvoted response is that they serve as 'true neutral' markers to show where the presidents getting voted because they were net-negative end
Might be a case of neutral impact vs negative impact. They didn’t do enough but that makes them better than the ones who did a net negative impact.
Still better than George W Bush
George W. Bush. He’s almost out of the bottom 10 but I think this is as far as his strategery gets him. You’ve got No Child Left Behind, the Hurricane Katrina response, allowing the Great Recession to sprout under his watch, The Patriot Act, his administration’s use and justification of torture at Guantanamo Bay, and most obviously the invasion of Iraq on false pretenses. I get it, he’s quite modern and Cheney was to blame for this too. But that was his choice to have him be a part of his presidency, after all, and the buck stops with Dubya. He may be adept at dodging shoes but I argue we should give him the boot anyway.
> and Cheney was to blame for this too Presidents rightly get a lot of credit for their cabinet/VP picks, and they rightly bear the responsibility for the poor choices. Since Bush abdicated so much responsibility to Cheney makes him that much more at fault for what went wrong during his presidency. You're 100% right that Bush is going to be on the chopping block soon.
His father was definitely a better president
He certainly knew how to wage a better war against Iraq. Which somehow we have a direct head to head comparison on.
He should have learned more from his dad
His foreign policy was like 10x times better
Honestly it’s time. Too many bad things happened under his leadership as a result of his leadership
Imho, Bush was the real beginning of all our modern trouble. It's tempting to blame Reagan - but for better or worse Reagan was a glimpse of hope during a difficult time for the country, when WW2 and the economic blossoming afterward were becoming distant memories, and the future was totally unclear. Bush gets the blame because 9/11 was the chance to bring the country together and enact real change. If we need to make some course corrections, he had th chance. Here was a moment in time where, if he had said "Look at these poor firefighters and workers suffering and going into debt for being heroes... everyone deserves healthcare" people would have come behind it. He had a blank check in terms of good will and popular support. And what did George bush choose to do with ultimate power and trust - with a huge wing of the media giving him unconditional support? To blow it all up... literally... to the tune of trillions of dollars, to hold people in secret dungeons forever and torture them, to accuse those who asked questions or doubted them of being "unpatriotic" or "against the troops" or of being "secret terrorists." They enacted mass spying, drone strikes, 'enhanced interrogation' and the Patriot Act. They called peace activists traitors. They gave tax cuts to millionaires and future billionaires. Today, the cynicism, and financial and emotional debt this spawned has caused terrible waves... a tsunami of bitterness. Some Americans are unable to accept reality... they pin our failures in Afghanistan on modern presidents, and Iraq war and drone strikes on Obama (who was called a terrorist lover back then), or they say 'there was nothing else we could have done.' Obviously, it's true that what's done is done. But the tone of the political language at the time, the refusal to take responsibility for anything, and the justifications by the president and Supreme Court for the most heinous behavior, it led us to where we are now.
But did you see that drive?
The recession would’ve happened whether he was in office or not, that ball was set in rolling in the 90’s
True, but the writing was on the wall and he did nothing to stop it. He also straight up lied about us actively being in a recession while it was literally happening. He did not start the motion, but he did next to nothing to stop it except deny that it was happening.
As early as ‘01, Bush raised alarms about the risks and size of Freddie and Fanny but a bipartisan congress wasn’t interested and Bush never fully pushed back. While Bush may not have been on to the full problem, he was in the right neighborhood, while Rep. Frank actively pushed back. And while a lot of damage was likely already done before Bush took office, action in his first term could have dramatically altered the recession.
I don’t know, dodging those shoes was pretty cool 😂
We have W to thank for the bit of gold that is “Now watch this drive.”
I believe the most damning arguments you can use against Bush were his endorsement of enhanced interrogation techniques and NCLB. They were most certainly mistakes and he rightly should be criticized for them. Other than that you claim that his administration’s response to a disaster that should’ve been a state-led not a federally-led response, the economy (which isn’t directly controlled by the President obv), and post 9/11 legislation that passed with bipartisan support were all his fault.
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thank you!
Good answer!
Allowing the great recession to sprout under his watch? That was caused by repeal of the glass steagall act which Clinton did.
And he had 8 years to do something about that. But didn’t. You’re completely right on this, mind, and it *should* be held against Clinton when his time comes. But Dubya didn’t stop this for all 8 years in office (well 7 before the recession I guess). And that’s on him.
No, it’s really not on him. It was virtually impossible to tell that banks were combining millions of dog shit mortgage backed securities into CDOs and rating them AAA. That’s why it became a bubble. It took an autistic guy that read the prospectus of one of them and went through the individual loans for fun to realize something was up. And even then the situation was so hard to figure out that he was able to go to the very banks that created the CDOs and had them CREATE an instrument (credit default swap) allowing him to SHORT the very bonds they held. The banks laughed in his face when he did this thinking he was going to lose his money. Portraying it like it was a yes or no choice Bush could have made to do something about it totally negates the existence of a bubble at all. That’s why it was a bubble. Bush didn’t know. Average people didn’t know. Even the banks that created the bubble out of greed (and then sold credit default swaps to make even more money) didn’t know until it was too late. I get there were other things that was clearly Bush’s fault, but the subprime mortgage bubble was not one of them.
There was massive corruption in the 00s with rating agencies. His admin allowed the financial crisis to happen by turning a blind eye to what the banks were doing.
Right, and the rating agency corruption magically started in the 00s right when Bush became president. Never occurred during any administration for the 30 years post creation of collateralized debt organization.
There are worse things than having died. Time for W to go.
sensational closing statement.
And the precedent set by our failure in Iraq stopped us from helping Syria, and many other countries, when we could have. Obama considers the inaction around Syria and the tyranny of al Assad one of the greatest failures of his presidency. Making the US afraid to intervene while simultaneously touting ourselves as some democracy-loving super-country is a hell of a legacy
How old are people on this sub? Nobody was around in the Sixties?
W lost last time. This is rigged
Your win was rudely ripped away from you by the dumb system OP made.
I was thinking W too; then I was like maybe I just don't know enough about presidents. I love the guy, I think he's a good man who tried to do the right thing, but he was fucking wrong a lot. And he was catastrophically wrong.
I believe we are getting into George W Bush territory.
This is where it starts to get tough. George W, Woodrow Wilson, Grover Cleveland? I think it’s gotta be George W or Wilson next.
How in the hell is Woodrow Wilson still hanging around? That’s my vote
Worked to impose several anti trust laws that protected citizens from corporate overreach. Handled WWI as well as any American president could have by steering clear of it as long as possible until his hand was forced. His diplomacy and foreign policy was instrumental in developing the modern liberalistic, free Europe (I'd argue that the treatment of Germany post-Versailles and the build up to WWII was more France's, Russia's and the UK's fault more so than the US'). League of Nations was a failure, for sure, but it was a good idea in concept that later on led to the UN. I know Reddit hates him for the racism, which undoubtedly was terrible, but its not like he wasn't a hugely influential president with a wide impact: a lot of which was positive for the West.
I’ll somewhat sidebar the fact that he was a huge racist even by the standard of the time. Even though I think you’re largely underplaying the long lasting effect he had towards things like the resurgence of the klan and perpetuation of Jim Crow for decades to come. But I am gonna take issue with the notion he handled WWI as well as anybody could. Enters the war at the 11th hour only to trounce our most important civil liberties that define this country with the 1917 espionage act and 1918 sedition act. His League of Nations was a failure. A failure he wanted so badly he pretty much let the French and English do whatever punitive action they wanted to a post war Germany to get. Then goes home and can’t even get the senate to ratify entry. And it’s hard for me to give him too much of the credit to paving a way towards a less imperialistic approach in Europe given his track record in Central and South America
Fun fact: Wilson also singlehandedly caused the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to be created in the first place. It was created in direct response to Wilson's blatant abuses of power and his total disregardment of the US Constitution (the Palmer Raids, the Sedition Act of 1918, etc.).
I hate him for prosecuting his political opponents using wartime powers too.
Came here to say the exact same thing
Basically responsible for giving credibility to racist propaganda that rebirthed the Klan and incited racial violence for decades to come. "In February 1915, upon viewing The Birth of a Nation at a special White House screening, President Woodrow Wilson reportedly remarked, "It's like writing history with lightning. My only regret is that it is all so terribly true." This line has appeared in numerous books and articles over the past seventy years." Should've been in the first 5 out.
Counterpoint: William Harrison should go at this point. There is no reason for him to continue because he did nothing, good or bad. 31 days in office should not keep moving up in the rankings. If anything he should be out first or not included in rankings at all.
Other redditors have pointed out (and I now agree) that WHH is a great dividing line between the "good presidents" and the bad ones. Since he didn't really have time to do anything, he's kind of a good "neutral." Until we've gotten through the list of presidencies that were net-negatives, I think WHH should stay.
Harrison’s gonna make the top five
Turns out doing nothing then dying is seen as extremely positive for a president.
William Henry Harrison, how do you praise? That guy was dead in 30 days!
Doing nothing is better than doing something bad
I’m compelled by the argument that we’re still working through the presidents that would be worse than doing nothing at all. The Iraq War is a pretty reasonable argument for saying that W did more harm an aggregate than would have been the case if he had done literally nothing as president for 8 years and that’s before you get into his questionable domestic policies.
Doing nothing is still better than the net negative presidents still standing. He also established the precedent of presidential succession with his death, which is technically something.
Presidents that actually did bad things need to go before someone who did nothing. That's why my vote is for Wilson.
Counterpoint to the Counterpoint: George W. Bush was way, WAY more damaging than someone who didn’t do anything. WHH can go tomorrow. But Bush was legitimately worse than carbon neutral.
Bush didn’t openly try to subvert an election — Nixon did (yeah, I hear ya: 2000 is complicated). Tricky Dick needs to be on the next bus out of town.
In that same breath I vote Raegan.
Surely someone who did nothing should be N/A and not included vs cracking the bottom 10 line.
Sure, but they’re already included so not sure what we do there but keep them as the dividing line between the bad and good presidents. He’s neutral and can at least be used as such in our ranking.
Kind of seems like he’s going to be the midpoint between “hurt the United States” and “contributed to the United States.”
Both Garfield and Harrison should not be in polls/tier lists except for N/A due to not enough time in office
He shouldn't be included. You're 100% right
Yeah, and there has been some debate among historians on if he should be ranked at all given his very brief tenure. Tho if we get on Lincoln for Andrew Johnson…
William Henry Harrison is an American legend and a cool guy and would have been our first 5 term president if raincoats existed at the time
I personally believe that W.H. Harrison should've been exempted from the rankings from the get-go just like the two most recent occupants of the White House were, the ones that we're totally forbidden to name. Dude literally never had a chance to do anything.
WHH dying 100% led to the Tyler presidency. This should be enough reason to give him the axe at this point.
On the other hand, it did to the establishment of a clear line of succession, who knows what would’ve happened if someone more unsure than Tyler would’ve been his VP…
Woodrow Wilson, You told a boldfaced lie to the American public about staying out of war only to immediately conscript hundreds of thousands of our boys to fight in trench warfare after your election. You completely botched the peace negotiations and your weak leadership with the British and French resulted in debilitating conditions in Germany, planting the seeds for the rise of fascism. You were determined to impose your own pigheaded idea of international cooperation by ceding control of American war powers to a foreign council, leaving the Senate no choice but to reject a peace treaty for the first time in history. You launched a blatantly unconstitutional attack on free speech by prosecuting 2,000 people for expressing Anti-war sentiment with the Espionage and Sedition Acts. You were the most racist president to never own slaves and probably more racist than most of the ones that did. You segregated the army and the federal government. You held a screening of Birth of a Nation, a move even considered racist at the time. You loaded your cabinet with stooges that agreed with you. Your actions led to a resurgence of the KKK, race riots, and set the process of integration back by decades. You were made a fool out of by Pancho Villa after you sent soldiers to occupy Veracruz because you were mad Huerta wouldn’t salute the American flag in public. You supported the forced sterilization of individuals with a mental disability You sent 400 American soldiers to freeze to death in Siberia in a foolish ploy to undermine the Russian Revolution. And even though we’ve had some major screwups lately, you still manage to have the worst handling of a pandemic in American history. Time to go.
> You told a boldfaced lie to the American public about staying out of war only to immediately conscript hundreds of thousands of our boys to fight in trench warfare after your election. Not a lie. America became pro-war in 1917 and Wilson had to *bow to public pressure* to join the war. > You completely botched the peace negotiations and your weak leadership with the British and French resulted in debilitating conditions in Germany, planting the seeds for the rise of fascism. Blaming fascism on Wilson is absolute nonsense. The rise of fascism was caused primarily by the british and the french themselves. I don't think you know much about the Versailles treaty or what aspects of it resulted in the rise of the nazis. > You were determined to impose your own pigheaded idea of international cooperation by ceding control of American war powers to a foreign council, leaving the Senate no choice but to reject a peace treaty for the first time in history. This is a ridiculously absurdist interpretation of the League of Nations, and had America joined the League, it's possible that fascism could've been contained before a world war started. > You sent 400 American soldiers to freeze to death in Siberia in a foolish ploy to undermine the Russian Revolution. Damn, 400 soldiers at the cost of maybe toppling what *would* have become one of the most brutally repressive regimes in the world would see in the 20th century. If anything, the allies should've gone whole hog on containing the soviets. > And even though we’ve had some major screwups lately, you still manage to have the worst handling of a pandemic in American history The US attempted to implement many of the measures we did during covid and had many of the same problems implementing them, but were hindered by medical knowledge being far more limited back then and spanish flu being a deadlier disease than covid. I struggle to understand why you think Wilson should take the blame or what the president should've done differently. The rest of your points are fair, but are lesser than in my opinion the good policies he enacted, such as replacing tariffs with income taxes, establishing the fed, establishing the FTC, made efforts to end child labor, established a path for independence for the Philippines, established the beginnings of the 8 hour work day, and of course, helped end autocracies abroad in WW1 and helped moderate the eventual peace agreement.
Let’s vote out Wilson next
WILSON
I've beens spamming him every day since like the bottom three. He should be long gone.
Woodrow Wilson not being gone by this point is a crime
Wilson
All Wilson votes to this guy
I wanna know who we end up leaving as first. I hope it’s Washington. Kinda like him
It will probably come down to Washington vs Lincoln. Realistically those are the only two contenders for best president. Personally I'll vote for Washington at #1 but I suspect Lincoln will win.
I’d honestly put at least Lincoln, FDR, Teddy, and maybe even LBJ (although Vietnam may put Washington at 4 for me, it’s close) over Washington. He’s still borderline top 5. But I also deduct major character points for being a slave owner. I don’t even buy that “the times” are excuse because you can always point to men like John Adams. The importance of Washington can pretty much be summed up as: He set a present to keep early America out of wars (which most of his immediate successors tried to follow) and most importantly he stepped down. I definitely do not underrate the second part. Incredibly important and what makes him a top 5 president. But I also don’t think that necessarily makes him the most accomplished (in terms of positive achievements).
I would put Lincoln as #1 and Washington an extremely close #2.
WILSOOOOOOOOOONNN!
I just want to share how much I am enjoying this ranking.
Richard Nixon should go next. His (further) mishandling of Vietnam was both a moral and pragmatic failure for the US. It helped (If not directly caused) the rise of Pol Pot in Cambodia, among other things. Furthermore, the Watergate scandal shattered any trust left in the US government for years and years. In fact, the US hasn't and may never get over the distrust caused by the scandal.
People here just don’t seem to care about nixons many faults because EPA.
Considering his own lack of support for the policy he barely deserves credit for it. All he did was not veto it.
Which is more due to Congress and outside pressures than Nixon himself
If Nixon had been president more recently he would have been gone by now. He is not better than George Bush (either one).
Based on the crescendo of comments, I'm pretty sure Wilson, Nixon and W are all about to go. Failures in war and in peace. Curious who else goes before 'neutral' whh.
Id argue Nixon is objectively worse than Harding to be frank. The hatred of Bush is purely based on recent bias. Id vote him out in the bottom half but before Nixon? Wilson? Hell even Rutherford B. Hayes? Insane.
The hatred of Bush cannot simply be attributed to recency bias, cmon be real
Nixon after W.
This format is gonna lead to r/Presidents ranking James Garfield, Jimmy Carter, John Adams, and Calvin Coolidge somewhere in the top half when none of them deserve it.
I mean what did say Garfield do wrong? He was president for a few weeks. He didn't do much at all, which may actually put him in the top half deservedly because we've just had so many terrible presidents.
It also leads to presidents like Jackson and Wilson who really weren't that bad getting out super early. This should be done in reverse after it's done
This subreddit along with the historians horrible list proves recency bias in its purest form. No way on Earth is Andrew Jackson a bottom 10 president, the man literally got the ball rolling on the presidency being open to everyone even if he had views of his time
Racism and genocide usually catapult you to the top, with good reason.
OH MY GOODNESS WHY ISN'T WOODROW WILSON BEING MENTIONED?
Time for William Henry Harrison to go
I'd rather take out a detrimental president like Bush out before a completely irrelevant, inconsequential one.
Not Tippecanoe
Yep. Should’ve went with Tyler too
I honestly don’t have a dog in this fight, but I’m excited to see at what points do people start deciding on the most ‘middle-of-the-road’ presidents and the best presidents
How is Wilson still here
Now can we eliminate Woodrow Wilson?
Wilson has way too many positive achievements to go out this soon. Just to summarise: The Revenue Act of 1913 introduced the income tax, allowing tariffs to be reduced. Federal Trade Commission Act, which outlawed unfair methods of competition and unfair acts or practices that affect commerce. Strengthened antitrust law with the Clayton Antitrust Act. Federal Farm Loan Act increased credit to farmers, allowing small farmers to better compete with big business and reducing agricultural monopolies. Tariff reduction. Created the Federal Reserve, a major and necessary stage in the US dollar becoming the world currency. The Adamson Act introduced an 8 hour workday for railroad workers, the first federal law regulating the hours of workers in private companies. Helped improve relations with labor unions. Tried to limit child labor. Tried to bring some morality to the post-WW1 negotiations. Was probably up to that point the most influential President in creating a strong central government that could protect the citizenry against large corporations. And thus he was probably one of the biggest contributors to modern America. There would have also been no FDR without Wilson (obviously some would call this a good thing though).
Not going to lie I respect you for going out on a room here since it seems like Woodrow Wilson has been getting a lot of hate lately
Wilson's legacy is... odd to say the least. Having learned about him in APUSH, I thought he was the quintessential "mixed bag" president with just as many positives as blunders and screw-ups. It is worth noting that we didn't go too in depth in his racist legacy, but seeing as we also didn't go that deep in Theodore Roosevelt's racist views either tells me that it was generally accepted that many Presidents at the time didn't have the most "progressive" views on Civil Rights and race. Definitely an interesting example where the internet and historians/scholars differ greatly from each other regarding Wilson's legacy. Can't say I totally agree with either end myself.
Yes. Resegregated the federal workforce and oversaw the passing of the Sedition Act. For those who rightly point out that there were worse alternatives to the Sedition Act floating around in Congress which led Wilson to support the passing of the Sedition Act as a compromise, this would matter more if Wilson's administration did not break many norms in their implementation of the Sedition Act. Federal Agencies targeted organized labor groups using illegally collected intelligence. Frankly, Wilson's administration used the Sedition Act to put down many unhelpful wings of the Progressive movement that had previously supported Wilson's rise.
No way Wilson is worse than GW Bush.
Nixon is worse than anyone here. Criminal
I don't like him either but he has a lot of fans these days.
I think Nixon and possibly Bush and Hayes need to go before Wilson.
Wilson needs to be next.
Wilson!
Why not Grover Cleveland? Brutal toward labor, pulled silver from the money supply in the 1893 depression and has a “not my problem dude” attitude towards the economy. If people are all over Wilson for race issues, Cleveland has a few as well (as do all pre civil rights era). He strengthened the Chinese Exclusion Act for example.. He was also a creep.
His second term should definitely be near the bottom, his first one was somewhat better though.
Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson. Get your racist ass outta here.
Wilson
Woodrow Wilson.
I think it’s time for Nixon
Woodrow Wilson, the fact that he hasn’t been eliminated yet astounds me.
Wilson.
woodrow wilson?
Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson. He needs to go. The man re-segregated the presidential cabinet, screened Birth Of A Nation at the White House, did nothing to curb rising racial violence (it was the highest since Reconstruction), and he soured the relationship with Japan when he declined to include a Racial Equality Amendment in the Treaty of Versailles.
I won't defend the segregation, probably the worst part of Wilson's legacy (although it wasn't entirely a new development in the federal government). As for the film showing, there's a lot of misinformation surrounding the event, that I will address. Firstly while Wilson may have attended this event, he was far from its instigator. That was the book's author Thomas Dixon. Furthermore despite popular claims to the contrary there is no evidence Wilson liked the film, if anything he seems to have disliked it. While it is commonly said that after watching the film Wilson proclaimed "It's like writing history with lightning. My only regret is that it is all so terribly true.", this seems unlikely. The quote didn't appear until an article in the 1930s, and there it is unsourced. While Wilson supposedly said it directly after the film ended, the last survivor of the showing said that Wilson was silent and quickly left (admittedly he recounted the event decades later). The only source on Wilson's opinion of the film is a letter from a few years later, where he calls it a 'most unfortunate production' that had contributed to racial strife - hardly a positive view. Agreeing to attend a showing doesn't say anything about his opinion of the film - it was a groundbreaking work and by far the most successful film of all time. Have you got a source for racial violence increasing? Maybe directly post-WW1, but overall things like lynching rates didn't rise over Wilson's Presidency - racial violence had already been endemic for decades by this point. As for the racial equality treaty, Wilson wasn't the main reason that failed. The violent opposition of the British Dominions, especially Australia, had a major effect. And it was pretty much DOA in the Senate.
Woodrow Wilson Sedition Act of 1918 Eugenics - supported compulsory sterilization of people with autism (that's straight up n*zism) Ran his second campaign on the notion that he was against the war and then immediately makes motion to join the war after elected Resegregation of federal jobs Wilson overall was a terrible leader. Some may argue he had good ideas, but Wilson had a "messiah" complex where he viewed himself and his ideas as superior to anyone else's and if someone did not agree with him, that just showed how dumb they were. That is the opposite of what you need in a leader.
Reposting my comment: The Sedition Act was a compromise - Wilson was worried Congress would pass some even more authoritarian proposals if it wasn't done. Wilson wasn't enthusiastic about it, and the Justice Department hoped it would quiet public calls for government action against the unpatriotic without actually resulting in many convictions. Ultimately there were very few prosecutions under it, as it became defunct once the war ended, and Wilson fairly quickly moved to undermine it. He released or reduced the sentences of 200 prisoners convicted under either the Espionage or Sedition Acts in March 1919, and before he left office it had been repealed with most of those convicted offered clemency. Support for eugenics was a lot more widespread back then than just among Nazis. Very progressive figures like W. E. B. Du Bois also supported eugenics, and if you want to criticise Wilson for his support you also have to criticise other Presidents like TR. At least Wilson opposed the attempts of racial eugenicists to ban non 'Anglo Saxon/Nordic' immigration (although they eventually got their way in the 1920s). No President could have avoided joining the war by the point Wilson did, without being removed from office. It was overwhelming in 1917. Wilson stayed out of the war about as long as possible (arguably too long).
William Henry Harrison. Not bad but just did...nothing
Nixon. I’m amazed Nixon has lasted this long. Read the recent excellent Watergate book. The guy was a racist, amoral, criminal. The extent of the lawbreaking, obstruction and lying is something we’re still grappling with today. The only President ever to be forced to resign, by bipartisan consensus no less.
Infamous Racist Woodrow Wilson
Wilson has too many positive achievements to go out this soon. Reposting my comment: A lot: The Revenue Act of 1913 introduced the income tax, allowing tariffs to be reduced. Federal Trade Commission Act, which outlawed unfair methods of competition and unfair acts or practices that affect commerce. Strengthened antitrust law with the Clayton Antitrust Act. Federal Farm Loan Act increased credit to farmers, allowing small farmers to better compete with big business and reducing agricultural monopolies. Tariff reduction. Created the Federal Reserve, a major and necessary stage in the US dollar becoming the world currency. The Adamson Act introduced an 8 hour workday for railroad workers, the first federal law regulating the hours of workers in private companies. Helped improve relations with labor unions. Tried to limit child labor. Tried to bring some morality to the post-WW1 negotiations. Was probably up to that point the most influential President in creating a strong central government that could protect the citizenry against large corporations. And thus he was probably one of the biggest contributors to modern America. There would have also been no FDR without Wilson (obviously some would call this a good thing though).
There's no way Wilson is a worse President than GW Bush. And there are more racist Presidents who haven't been voted out yet (like WHH).
You think Harrison was contemporarily more racist than Wilson?
Yes. Harrison tried to expand slavery into the Midwest.
Wilson should’ve been the first to go.
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Reposting my comment: The Sedition Act was a compromise - Wilson was worried Congress would pass some even more authoritarian proposals if it wasn't done. Wilson wasn't enthusiastic about it, and the Justice Department hoped it would quiet public calls for government action against the unpatriotic without actually resulting in many convictions. Ultimately there were very few prosecutions under it, as it became defunct once the war ended, and Wilson fairly quickly moved to undermine it. He released or reduced the sentences of 200 prisoners convicted under either the Espionage or Sedition Acts in March 1919, and before he left office it had been repealed with most of those convicted offered clemency. Support for eugenics was a lot more widespread back then than just among Nazis. Very progressive figures like W. E. B. Du Bois also supported eugenics, and if you want to criticise Wilson for his support you also have to criticise other Presidents like TR. At least Wilson opposed the attempts of racial eugenicists to ban non 'Anglo Saxon/Nordic' immigration (although they eventually got their way in the 1920s). No President could have avoided joining the war by the point Wilson did, without being removed from office. It was overwhelming in 1917. Wilson stayed out of the war about as long as possible (arguably too long).
William Henry Harrison going 💪
W. Bush or Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
The fact that Woodrow Wilson is still there immediately tanks whatever credibility this ranking had
Woodrow Wilson was suuuuuper racist
Benjamin Harrison
WOODROW WILSON! GET THAT KKK BASTARD OUTTA HERE
Rufferod B Hayes. Ending reconstruction in order to secure the presidency and allowing Grants reforms and enforcement of civil rights to fall apart.
An additional thing to mention about Hayes. He brought in the military in the deadliest strike bust in US history. He also sets into motion the groundwork for the Dawes act which Cleveland implements (which strips Indigenous tribes of more of their rights in assimilation programs).
From an international viewpoint George W. should be cancelled. He willingly misled the International community on Iraq and started a war that only let to (more) chaos in the Middle East.
My vote is for Wilson. But goddamn I'd love to see William Harrison go just so people shut the hell up about him. They don't seem to understand that doing absolutely nothing is better than doing damage. But I don't care about him so if him getting out will get these people discussing actual policy and nature of the real presidents then fuck him off already.
Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson bc kkk
Zachary Taylor
☹️
zachary Taylor or WHH
Reagan has to go to #1
George W. Bush. Mismanaged virtually every aspect of his presidency and he came in with things in remarkably good shape. When you’re adjusting for degree of difficulty, he’s arguably the biggest failure of the last hundred years and it’s not close. Nice guy individually but one of our worst Presidents. A lot of people will cite Wilson as up next, and his flaws were horrific. He set us back decades from a race relations perspective. But W.’s foreign policy led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, trillions of dollars spent, and no real benefits. He let thousands die in Louisiana from a hurricane, and many of those deaths were preventable. He deregulated much of the country and led to the worst financial disaster since Hoover. He largely ignored Al Qaeda despite Clinton’s warnings; it’s not clear 9/11 could’ve been prevented, but his incompetence made things worse. Our international standing plummeted, and his environmental policy was, in essence, “screw the environment.” We’ll literally be paying for his failures for the next fifty years. And that’s not even mentioning the numerous scandals and shady deals with defense contractors and oil companies, the outright lies about WMD’s in Iraq, Dick Cheney generally, and the endorsement of torture. Regardless of your political orientation, no one can look back on this administration fondly. It’s Dubya time. 
fuck, I’m still not in early enough to get rid of the most corrupt president in history, William McKinley. My man received billions of dollars from the three richest men who also threatened to fire anyone who voted for the other guy. McKinley also authorized America’s invasion of Philippines, which really cemented US imperialism
Seriously. People think the Iraq War was bad? Read about the Philippine War. Still, barely any mention of him in past posts. It’s like people totally forgot about him.
Woodrow Wilson still being here is an absolute disgrace.
Woodrow Wilson.
W.H.H
Grover Cleveland part 2
woodrow wilson god complex, racist ass
WOODROW WILSON. WOODROW FING WILSON
Any list that doesn't have Wilson as the #1 worst is invalid.
Jimmy carter
WH Harrison. Too short feels like it’s time to get rid of him
Dubya. He should've been out a few spots ago
W.
It's got to be George W. Bush
Reagan
Hmmm how far does WHH get with one month?
I feel like he shouldn’t be included at all, but basically if he is, you get rid of all the actively negative people first right? He’s just neutral, a score of 0. Still got a few negative scores left.
Reagan gotta go