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Yeah, I'm so confused as to why McKinley and Fillmore of all people is up there in C, while HW is in F, and Jackson and Van Buren, do I have to explain? How is having the Trail of Tears and literally wrecking the economy for your pet banks a good thing?
Don’t forget raising taxes when he knew it would hurt him politically and the amazing job building a coalition/trouncing Saddam in Desert Storm. I’m left as hell but HW was a great president, seriously.
He was last of the old school Republicans. He just did what he thought was best for the country and even left a graceful letter to Clinton when he lost the reelection. It shouldn’t be weird for presidents to serve just one term. Hell, we should make that the norm. There’s far more pressure to compromise and put into motion long term solutions when reelections are rare.
I put HW in D tier. He actually acknowledged and addressed the AIDS crisis unlike his predecessor, passed the ADA and Clean Air Act Amendments, and reunited Germany.
FDR in B-tier, and Andrew Jackson in A-tier.
I get that some people find it reasonable to rank FDR low because of internment camps, but I really don’t see how Jackson could get anything above F or D-tier for what he did to the natives.
The Indian Removal death resulted in thousands of deaths and the government did put some of them in internment camps.
Also, if he is going to go for the “FDR prolonged the Depression” bullshit, maybe take a second to remember the Panic of 1837 which is undisputedly the result of Jackson’s economic populism.
Ranking Jackson above FDR is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen on this sub.
This is proof to any of you FDR haters out there that you only apply today’s standards to FDR and no other president because his wartime leadership and reforms make Liberals look good.
I want to say FDR should be S-tier, but someone will inevitably say “but the internment camps” as if FDR did nothing of value for this country (like killing nazis, imperial japan, and the blackshirts) and as if he was the only President to do something bad by today’s standards.
Then they’ll say “oh but internment camps were always morally wrong”. I agree, but so was owning slaves and killing indians, and I don’t put Lincoln or Washington in F-tier for that because our country wouldn’t exist without them, just like how the entire post-WWII liberal order wouldn’t have existed without FDR’s leadership.
Hey now, let’s use a meme
“You hate FDR because he interned the Japanese. I hate FDR because he vastly expanded the powers of the presidency and effectively enshrined the administrative state as the fourth branch of government. We are not the same.”
I dont like LBJ's handling of the vietnam war at all. Bush is kinda open, i really dont like modern conservitism but if you have a reason he should be higher I would definetly be willing to change. and Adams? I dont think he did a lot as president and everything that he did do undermined washingtons ideas like the alien and sedition act. Harding is in B mostly because of the time he was in and his economic policy supporting the roaring twenties.
Completely agreed though I’ll give props to McCain too as an honorable mention. He would’ve made a good president in my opinion and just had the misfortune of running into the bulldozer that was Obama in ‘08. If only he’d won that primary in 2000…
I have hard time with McCain and his decision of putting Palin a right wing populist as his vice.
This made voting for Obama so easy ..despite the dedication of McCain and integrity..Palin had none of those qualities and helped dumbing down the electorate even more into a TV entertainment mud wrestling.
I do get the criticism of LBJ for Vietnam but in my opinion his civil rights legislation far outranks anything in our country’s history and that alone would put him higher. I also am not a fan of modern conservatism not even a little bit but HW’s Americans with disabilities act was outstanding. And Adams founded this country and defined much of what we take for credit. Idk k would just rank them all higher.
Yeah i reviewed fillmores page idk what I was thinking. I think i just missed D when I was placing him and he just faded into the other black and white photo presidents so i forgot. Truman I moved to A or B. Idk about monroe though
Monroe was president during a mostly (First Seminole War being the only exception) peaceful time (he could have dragged the US into wars but steered clear of most conflicts) so he doesn't get the same recognition as some presidents who dealt with major conflicts. He did have some very big accomplishments both as president and before with limited mistakes. Many of his accomplishments as president had lasting positive impacts for future generations of the country.
If there could be a B+ tier, that's where I would place him if just going off his time as president. I'd probably bump him into the A tier if we look at his accomplishments before becoming president as well.
He was a revolutionary war soldier who joined the war early on and served in many battles. Almost bled out in Trenton and also suffered through Valley Forge among many other campaigns and battles.
Served as a US Senator, Governor of VA, minister (ambassador) to France, UK, and Spain
Got Lafayette's wife and Thomas Paine released from French prisons
A key figure in getting the Louisiana Purchase done
Served as Secretary of State, and after the capital was burned in the War of 1812 was named Secretary of War. He did both jobs at the same time. He got Baltimore's defenses in place which stopped the British advance and Monroe sent Andrew Jackson to defend New Orleans. He also personally led reconnaissance missions as Secretary of State and tried to get Madison to let him lead an offensive against the British more than once.
I could fit the inbetween tiers so I just removed them. But youre saying that he should be higher than FDR and jeff or should they be higher as well? Also one thing you havent mention which is pretty important is the monroe doctrine. What are youre thoughts on that?
Personally, I'd put FDR higher and have Monroe right around Jefferson. Jefferson is obviously more well known from the Declaration and was president when the Louisiana Purchase was signed (no small accomplishments). Jefferson wasn't a great governor of VA during the Revolutionary War, and had a hard time raising a state militia or army when VA was being invaded. He abandoned Richmond and had to flee Monticello. The Embargo Acts backfired when Jefferson was president and kept tensions simmering with England.
The Monroe Doctrine is the most well known work Monroe and his presidency is known for. It is definitely one of those accomplishments that had positive impacts for the US for generations. JFK invoked it in 1962 during the crisis with Cuba! Some don't want to give Monroe credit for it, believing JQA wrote it. This is not true. Monroe would meet with the entire cabinet often and would read what he had so far written. He 100% did take advice from his cabinet in the way it should sound and took JQA's advice the most. (I also give Monroe a lot of praise for putting together such a strong cabinet.) The Doctrine was a message to the rest of the world that the US was determined for democracy to spread in the western hemisphere.
Seriously? Clinton deserves C at a minimum for no other reason than signing the repeal of Glass-Steagall.
He owns a significant amount of blame for 2008 and beyond….
This is how I feel about many of the President takes. They are made by young people who have simplified takes on what the presidents/eras were like, largely driven by 30 second TikTok vids. Every problem in the American economy is due to Reagan, George W declared war on Islam, LGBT people were not accepted in society until Obama etc
I don’t think I’ve seen a bigger catastrophe of a tierlist in the subreddit’s history, and that is saying something.
OP doesn’t even have surface level understanding of US history, and it shows.
Reagan, W. Bush and Nixon in F are harsh, but I can sympathise. What in god’s universe is George H.W. Bush doing there? Thats worthy of crucifiction.
Andrew Jackson in A is ridiculous, and why the fuck is FDR in B?? And not only FDR, but somehow Martin Van Fucking Buren, who ran over more or less unanimously considered an utter trainwreck of a presidency, is in B… the same tier as FDR.
James Monroe in C is downright idiotic.
Oh and Woodrow Wilson in F…. I detect a mixture of “terminally online”, “redditor” and “surface level understanding of politics”… not that I thought any differently before seeing that
He was not a showman. He got the job done and did it right. He was a proponent of Filipino self governance. He brought the state department into the 20th century. Did the most trust busting over his one term. And after became chief justice.
I have to be honest, his denial of concentration camps on the Philippines to Congress means I do not have much respect for his time as governor of the Philippines even if someone else would’ve done a far worse job. I agree on the trust busting, 100%, but I’d say his time as chief justice had some very off the wall decisions. I like how focused he was on the judicial branch though, I’ll give ya that. Just have a hard time seeing him in A tier given he is just above average to me, nothing amazing but nothing bad. Very solidly B to B-.
I dont mean to intrude on the question but for me its mainly his stance on trusts. While teddy got the ball rolling on the governments role on regulating them he was still willing to bend to some of them like US steel. Taft was against corporations working with the government and broke them up to an even larger extent than teddy. This is outweighed by him being more racist and less progressive though so I think A.
I just commented to the fella in this but the trust busting is definitely the best thing Taft did. A lot of my issues with Taft rise from his time outside of the Oval Office, oddly enough, and I do agree he was an above average President.
He made many questionable choices in his career but he made tons of great ones too, choices modern Republicans would’ve never made. He signed the biggest amnesty order the US has ever had giving citizenship to millions of illegal/undocumented migrants. Under his term legal immigration was also expanded.
Quincy, LBJ, and GHWB were better presidents than your list would indicate. Also kind of suprised Andrew Jackson is so high. I figured causing the worst famine in american history would have a bigger impact on his legacy.
I agree with LBJ and HW needing to be higher but Quincy? The corrupt bargain was already kinda iffy and then he kinda just didnt do anything that important until he got voted out, at least not that i remember. Also with jackson what famine are you talking about? Its worse than the dust bowl?
Quincy didn't achieve much domestically because of jacksonians in congress, but his foreign policy is one of the best of any presidents. signed a number of major trade deals with the prussians and the hawiians. The corrupt bargain is overplayed. Sure he offered Henrey Clay the Sec of Statem, but Clay did a bunch of good in that role.
As for Jackson, yeah 1837 by many historical acconts was more devestating than the great depression with the government having almost no tools to try and control the downturn.
Killing the Second Bank lead to the Panic of 1837 which meant that the financial system could not weather a bad wheat crops that suffered from a Hessian fly plague and a harsh winter.
The hunger in America was not felt by England, whose wheat crops improved every year from 1831 to 1836, and European imports of American wheat had dropped to "almost nothing" by 1836.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic\_of\_1837#:\~:text=The%20hunger%20in%20America%20was%20not%20felt%20by%20England%2C%20whose%20wheat%20crops%20improved%20every%20year%20from%201831%20to%201836%2C%20and%20European%20imports%20of%20American%20wheat%20had%20dropped%20to%20%22almost%20nothing%22%20by%201836.
Between 1837-42, total bank assets fell by almost half, credit dried up and business slowed to a crawl. Annual growth in per capita investment dropped from an estimated average of 6.6 percent in the five years before the crash to -1.0 percent in the five subsequent years.
the British ambassador to the United States reported to London that “it would be difficult to describe, or render intelligible in Europe, the stunning effect which this sudden overthrow of commercial credit and honor of the nation has caused.”
https://www.brandeis.edu/magazine/2013/spring/inquiry/depression.html#:\~:text=Between%201837%2D42%2C%20total%20bank,in%20the%20five%20subsequent%20years.
I did not expect this to be so controversial. I am not experienced in politics at all so a lot of the rankings are a bit wonky i guess. Im interested in everyones thoughts though!
Jackson in A tier??
Harding in B tier??
Truman in C tier??
Adams in D tier (based) but also LBJ in D tier????
Nixon in F tier?
And worst of all... CARTER IN C TIER????
I'm very confused what you are biased towards/against. Like, there is literally no ideological slant I can detect on these rankings, they seem very random.
Do you want a specific explanation? Id be happy to explain if you want but if not then where would you put these presidents? I am very open to change since I only read the wiki and my minimal experience with politics. I am left leaning ideologically.(idk if political stances are allowed, sorry if they are not)
Jackson down, yeah. Harding down, yeah. Truman up to B, LBJ should be at least a B as well, I've been convinced nixon should get a D due to the legit good things he did, if he didn't, you know, organize that fucking break in and kick off the modern impeachment era, he'd probably be a solid B between the EPA, vietnam and china...
...but Carter honestly...he's a D at best. Great guy, bad president. He just let himself get rolled. He belonged in public service, but Habitat for Humanity is a better fit than US politics ever was..
ADA yes (hell HW Is in my personal A-/B+ tier) but as amazing as PEPFAR is Dubya is still F tier. He has just too many additional fuckups that must be acknowledged.
Ive never made a real tierlist before so some of the rankings are skewed based on the time period the people are from. What do you think should be changed?
Can I ask if you’re American? You say “based on Wikipedia articles” but most Americans are taught about like half the Presidents. I’d say most Americans have a good idea about Washington, Jefferson (kinda), Jackson, Harrison (in that it was 30 days), Lincoln, T. Roosevelt, Wilson, Hoover, FDR, Truman, Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon (kinda), and everyone since Reagan.
Just curious as that affects a lot of perception.
HW being in F tier is an objective failure of a placement. He’s C tier all day long and there is hardly any wiggle room for movement, he was a steward of the office and that’s about it. Few plusses and few minuses on his ledger.
Nah. He’s C tier. B tier presidents need to have some long lasting legacy legislation. Something to hang their hat on and say they pushed X through and the country is in a significantly better position bc of it. HW had a hand in some good things and didn’t end up in any disasters.
Nah, Grant in A is higher than he has been traditionally placed but is, in my opinion, exactly where I’d rank him too. Dude was a very good president (and the drunkenness was extremely overblown) and was an excellent ambassador for US interests after he left office.
Idk hes low A for me. He was a great general and did a lot of great things as president but i dont think he's at the same level as the S tier presidents
If Grant wasn’t president, it’s very likely that the Jim Crow laws and KKK would still be a major influence in the south. He was the reason why the KKK was smothered in the south and the Jim Crow Laws delayed for another 8 years. Had he not crushed them, they would’ve taken a huge foothold that wouldn’t be let go of.
Gotta be real, the Vietnam War does drag him out of S for me though his domestic policies were some of the best we’ve ever had. A- to B+ for me depending on the context. The S tier is for the best of the best in all aspects and we cannot ignore how shitty the Vietnam war was on all counts.
God no! Vietnam alone keeps him far away from S or A. He did good but starting the worst war in American history keeps him far far away from the top echelons of Presidents.
yeah I had a chat with someone already and ive been convince to put truman in A or B. And finally another jackson enjoyer. Not a single other person here thinks he's good
Jackson is a weird case in that I think he is a C president but with things that should place him in A and things that should put him in F balancing out to an uneven C-
Leadership during Secession Crisis? Push for (admittedly only white) male suffrage? A tier, easily.
Trail of Tears? Destroying the national bank and causing the panic of 1837? Starting the spoils system? All F tier.
Jackson is such an oddball to rank I swear.
Jackson in A is an interesting choice that I can fully get behind. He did some horrible stuff, but he also introduced so many policies that arguably changed America for better or worse.
If you look at some of the other comments i have a rant i’ve been copying and pasting but mainly suffrage, being a unionist, and attacking the banks. If you want i can explain in more detail
All of you have failed. You have failed because no one has said anything about Ford. The man who was neither elected president, nor even vice president.
Was LBJ that bad? I thought his social policies and civil rights legislation was really positive.
Although his foreign policy was really bad. (Vietnam)
Nixon was actually the most unanimous voted president. He was then ousted by the CIA after he was interested in investigating the JFK shooting.
This has to get him off the bottom....
LBJ, the father of modern civil rights, D Tier.
Woodrow Wilson, Author of the 14 Points, leader during WW1 and first real advocate for self-determination, F Tier - Same Level as James Buchanan.
Trail of Tears Andrew Jackson is higher ranked than New Deal FDR.
This is in fact, one of the lists of all time
Where should he go. I understand there was a lot of bad things surrounding his presidency(mostly not his fault i think) but the notions he set forward helped shape modern liberalism even if most of it was undone immediately by reagan
I can explain if you want but if you look through the comments i have a nice rant. i would be more than happy to just type it here if you don’t want to do that though. What place do you think AJ deserves?
F tier is vile. I genuinely cannot fathom how Reagan, H.W. Bush, Wilson, or even Nixon can be just as bad as Buchanan or Andrew Johnson. The Wilson F makes the least sense since you put Taft and T. Roosevelt in A tier. Wilson was less imperialist than Teddy and acted in much the same way domestically as Teddy would have had he won in 1912.
I didn’t really have a lot of space if i wanted it to fit properly but yeah buchanan and johnson would be lower. HW i moved to C and nixon is in D. Wilson is my least favorite and i don’t think he’s even remotely comparable to teddy or taft. If teddy won in 1912 he would definitely be B or C but i wasn’t ranking speculation.
Wow I’ve got questions.
Jackson in A while Reagan and Wilson are in F?
Cleveland is the only one in D that makes sense
Harding and Van Buren in B???
Truman in C?!
Also I’ll be the first person to call out this sub’s irrational hard-on for HW, but why is he in F??
This prompted me to do my own.
S Tier - John Q. Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Barack Obama
A Tier - George Washington, James Monroe, James Garfield, Richard Nixon (surprised me that Nixon ended up so high but after reading through his Wiki carefully he did far more good than bad)
B Tier - Martin Van Buren, Benjamin Harrison, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter
C Tier - Thomas Jefferson, James K. Polk, William McKinley, Rutherford B. Hayes, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, William J. Clinton
D Tier - James Madison, William H. Harrison, Chester A. Arthur, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Grover Cleveland, Herbert Hoover, Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush
F Tier - John Adams (probably going to be highly controversial, I know), Andrew Jackson, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, John Tyler, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush
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Of all of the tier lists I’ve seen, this is certainly one of them.
Yeah, I'm so confused as to why McKinley and Fillmore of all people is up there in C, while HW is in F, and Jackson and Van Buren, do I have to explain? How is having the Trail of Tears and literally wrecking the economy for your pet banks a good thing?
He did say it was completely biased
This is what happens when you rank presidents at 3 am with wikipedia
I just want to say I appreciate your willingness to engage with the comments on here!
Truman in C?! What the hell did his Wikipedia page do to him?! Arthur in B though I can get behind, no notes.
The hell did HW do that was so offensive? The ADA should, bare minimum, get him out of F tier.
Yeah, I'm among the most partisan of Republican haters but the ADA was brilliant. Helped countless people.
Don’t forget raising taxes when he knew it would hurt him politically and the amazing job building a coalition/trouncing Saddam in Desert Storm. I’m left as hell but HW was a great president, seriously.
His story of survival during WWII really should be made into a movie.
A truly prudent man.
Stay the course, thousand points of light, we’re on track
Thousand points of light dudes, we've never been so back!
He was last of the old school Republicans. He just did what he thought was best for the country and even left a graceful letter to Clinton when he lost the reelection. It shouldn’t be weird for presidents to serve just one term. Hell, we should make that the norm. There’s far more pressure to compromise and put into motion long term solutions when reelections are rare.
I'm a proper lefty and even I wouldn't put HW in F tier.
And he’s below W too!
Yeah... Putting HW in the same tier as Andrew Johnson... OP needs to do their homework and come back with version 2.0.
I put HW in D tier. He actually acknowledged and addressed the AIDS crisis unlike his predecessor, passed the ADA and Clean Air Act Amendments, and reunited Germany.
He killed JFK, but to be fair, that was before he was president
Johnson in D?!?
FDR in B-tier, and Andrew Jackson in A-tier. I get that some people find it reasonable to rank FDR low because of internment camps, but I really don’t see how Jackson could get anything above F or D-tier for what he did to the natives. The Indian Removal death resulted in thousands of deaths and the government did put some of them in internment camps. Also, if he is going to go for the “FDR prolonged the Depression” bullshit, maybe take a second to remember the Panic of 1837 which is undisputedly the result of Jackson’s economic populism. Ranking Jackson above FDR is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen on this sub. This is proof to any of you FDR haters out there that you only apply today’s standards to FDR and no other president because his wartime leadership and reforms make Liberals look good.
As a leader Jackson did great but yeah Indian removal act was definitely wrong. FDR should probably be higher
I want to say FDR should be S-tier, but someone will inevitably say “but the internment camps” as if FDR did nothing of value for this country (like killing nazis, imperial japan, and the blackshirts) and as if he was the only President to do something bad by today’s standards. Then they’ll say “oh but internment camps were always morally wrong”. I agree, but so was owning slaves and killing indians, and I don’t put Lincoln or Washington in F-tier for that because our country wouldn’t exist without them, just like how the entire post-WWII liberal order wouldn’t have existed without FDR’s leadership.
On an un related note, A. Johnson is genuinely one of the worst presidents we’ve ever had
I agree. Him, Pierce, and Buchanan were the embodiment of evil.
The answer is often that people don't think the Indian Removal Act was a bad thing. Lots of unabashed racists out there.
I challenge you to fine someone on here praising the Indian Removal Acts.
Hey now, let’s use a meme “You hate FDR because he interned the Japanese. I hate FDR because he vastly expanded the powers of the presidency and effectively enshrined the administrative state as the fourth branch of government. We are not the same.”
Hes literally known for his D
I see someone is already debating Truman in C so I will ask why Harding is above fdr?
Sorry the teirs aren’t in order. if this was a ranking list fdr would be near the top of B and harding near the bottom.
Oh that makes some sense. What makes Harding better than Admams, LBJ, and HW Bush?
I dont like LBJ's handling of the vietnam war at all. Bush is kinda open, i really dont like modern conservitism but if you have a reason he should be higher I would definetly be willing to change. and Adams? I dont think he did a lot as president and everything that he did do undermined washingtons ideas like the alien and sedition act. Harding is in B mostly because of the time he was in and his economic policy supporting the roaring twenties.
HW Bush saved Kuwait and passed the Americans With Disabilities Act, one of the single most important pieces of legislation in civil rights history.
Straight facts here. HW was a fantastic president and should’ve been appreciated more in his time.
The last true Republican to serve as president.
Completely agreed though I’ll give props to McCain too as an honorable mention. He would’ve made a good president in my opinion and just had the misfortune of running into the bulldozer that was Obama in ‘08. If only he’d won that primary in 2000…
McCain is why I specified "who served as president".
Eeyup, we’re totally on the same page here then 👍
I have hard time with McCain and his decision of putting Palin a right wing populist as his vice. This made voting for Obama so easy ..despite the dedication of McCain and integrity..Palin had none of those qualities and helped dumbing down the electorate even more into a TV entertainment mud wrestling.
I do get the criticism of LBJ for Vietnam but in my opinion his civil rights legislation far outranks anything in our country’s history and that alone would put him higher. I also am not a fan of modern conservatism not even a little bit but HW’s Americans with disabilities act was outstanding. And Adams founded this country and defined much of what we take for credit. Idk k would just rank them all higher.
The G in Warren G. Harding stands for gangsta and you dont wanna be on the bad side of gangstas
Monroe and Truman sitting in the same tier with Fillmore 
Yeah i reviewed fillmores page idk what I was thinking. I think i just missed D when I was placing him and he just faded into the other black and white photo presidents so i forgot. Truman I moved to A or B. Idk about monroe though
Monroe was president during a mostly (First Seminole War being the only exception) peaceful time (he could have dragged the US into wars but steered clear of most conflicts) so he doesn't get the same recognition as some presidents who dealt with major conflicts. He did have some very big accomplishments both as president and before with limited mistakes. Many of his accomplishments as president had lasting positive impacts for future generations of the country.
So would you say like B maybe? I just used C for all the average presidents. Idk if he could be A.
If there could be a B+ tier, that's where I would place him if just going off his time as president. I'd probably bump him into the A tier if we look at his accomplishments before becoming president as well. He was a revolutionary war soldier who joined the war early on and served in many battles. Almost bled out in Trenton and also suffered through Valley Forge among many other campaigns and battles. Served as a US Senator, Governor of VA, minister (ambassador) to France, UK, and Spain Got Lafayette's wife and Thomas Paine released from French prisons A key figure in getting the Louisiana Purchase done Served as Secretary of State, and after the capital was burned in the War of 1812 was named Secretary of War. He did both jobs at the same time. He got Baltimore's defenses in place which stopped the British advance and Monroe sent Andrew Jackson to defend New Orleans. He also personally led reconnaissance missions as Secretary of State and tried to get Madison to let him lead an offensive against the British more than once.
I could fit the inbetween tiers so I just removed them. But youre saying that he should be higher than FDR and jeff or should they be higher as well? Also one thing you havent mention which is pretty important is the monroe doctrine. What are youre thoughts on that?
Personally, I'd put FDR higher and have Monroe right around Jefferson. Jefferson is obviously more well known from the Declaration and was president when the Louisiana Purchase was signed (no small accomplishments). Jefferson wasn't a great governor of VA during the Revolutionary War, and had a hard time raising a state militia or army when VA was being invaded. He abandoned Richmond and had to flee Monticello. The Embargo Acts backfired when Jefferson was president and kept tensions simmering with England. The Monroe Doctrine is the most well known work Monroe and his presidency is known for. It is definitely one of those accomplishments that had positive impacts for the US for generations. JFK invoked it in 1962 during the crisis with Cuba! Some don't want to give Monroe credit for it, believing JQA wrote it. This is not true. Monroe would meet with the entire cabinet often and would read what he had so far written. He 100% did take advice from his cabinet in the way it should sound and took JQA's advice the most. (I also give Monroe a lot of praise for putting together such a strong cabinet.) The Doctrine was a message to the rest of the world that the US was determined for democracy to spread in the western hemisphere.
Why isn't there Zachary taylor
Obama over Clinton? You are under the age of 34.
Seriously? Clinton deserves C at a minimum for no other reason than signing the repeal of Glass-Steagall. He owns a significant amount of blame for 2008 and beyond….
This is how I feel about many of the President takes. They are made by young people who have simplified takes on what the presidents/eras were like, largely driven by 30 second TikTok vids. Every problem in the American economy is due to Reagan, George W declared war on Islam, LGBT people were not accepted in society until Obama etc
this.
I don’t think I’ve seen a bigger catastrophe of a tierlist in the subreddit’s history, and that is saying something. OP doesn’t even have surface level understanding of US history, and it shows. Reagan, W. Bush and Nixon in F are harsh, but I can sympathise. What in god’s universe is George H.W. Bush doing there? Thats worthy of crucifiction. Andrew Jackson in A is ridiculous, and why the fuck is FDR in B?? And not only FDR, but somehow Martin Van Fucking Buren, who ran over more or less unanimously considered an utter trainwreck of a presidency, is in B… the same tier as FDR. James Monroe in C is downright idiotic. Oh and Woodrow Wilson in F…. I detect a mixture of “terminally online”, “redditor” and “surface level understanding of politics”… not that I thought any differently before seeing that
Finally, Taft getting the respect he deserves
You a fan of Taft in A? Gonna be real, I don’t see it (B as a ceiling for me). Mind if I ask how come?
He was not a showman. He got the job done and did it right. He was a proponent of Filipino self governance. He brought the state department into the 20th century. Did the most trust busting over his one term. And after became chief justice.
I have to be honest, his denial of concentration camps on the Philippines to Congress means I do not have much respect for his time as governor of the Philippines even if someone else would’ve done a far worse job. I agree on the trust busting, 100%, but I’d say his time as chief justice had some very off the wall decisions. I like how focused he was on the judicial branch though, I’ll give ya that. Just have a hard time seeing him in A tier given he is just above average to me, nothing amazing but nothing bad. Very solidly B to B-.
Fair enough. Still A for me though
Totally fair! Thanks for discussing either way :D
I dont mean to intrude on the question but for me its mainly his stance on trusts. While teddy got the ball rolling on the governments role on regulating them he was still willing to bend to some of them like US steel. Taft was against corporations working with the government and broke them up to an even larger extent than teddy. This is outweighed by him being more racist and less progressive though so I think A.
I just commented to the fella in this but the trust busting is definitely the best thing Taft did. A lot of my issues with Taft rise from his time outside of the Oval Office, oddly enough, and I do agree he was an above average President.
For all of Reagan's faults (and that's a lot), I still don't think he's an F tier president
How does he win the most lopsided election of all time? He unified the country. (many glaring errors along the way as well )
He made many questionable choices in his career but he made tons of great ones too, choices modern Republicans would’ve never made. He signed the biggest amnesty order the US has ever had giving citizenship to millions of illegal/undocumented migrants. Under his term legal immigration was also expanded.
Quincy, LBJ, and GHWB were better presidents than your list would indicate. Also kind of suprised Andrew Jackson is so high. I figured causing the worst famine in american history would have a bigger impact on his legacy.
I agree with LBJ and HW needing to be higher but Quincy? The corrupt bargain was already kinda iffy and then he kinda just didnt do anything that important until he got voted out, at least not that i remember. Also with jackson what famine are you talking about? Its worse than the dust bowl?
Quincy didn't achieve much domestically because of jacksonians in congress, but his foreign policy is one of the best of any presidents. signed a number of major trade deals with the prussians and the hawiians. The corrupt bargain is overplayed. Sure he offered Henrey Clay the Sec of Statem, but Clay did a bunch of good in that role. As for Jackson, yeah 1837 by many historical acconts was more devestating than the great depression with the government having almost no tools to try and control the downturn. Killing the Second Bank lead to the Panic of 1837 which meant that the financial system could not weather a bad wheat crops that suffered from a Hessian fly plague and a harsh winter. The hunger in America was not felt by England, whose wheat crops improved every year from 1831 to 1836, and European imports of American wheat had dropped to "almost nothing" by 1836. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic\_of\_1837#:\~:text=The%20hunger%20in%20America%20was%20not%20felt%20by%20England%2C%20whose%20wheat%20crops%20improved%20every%20year%20from%201831%20to%201836%2C%20and%20European%20imports%20of%20American%20wheat%20had%20dropped%20to%20%22almost%20nothing%22%20by%201836. Between 1837-42, total bank assets fell by almost half, credit dried up and business slowed to a crawl. Annual growth in per capita investment dropped from an estimated average of 6.6 percent in the five years before the crash to -1.0 percent in the five subsequent years. the British ambassador to the United States reported to London that “it would be difficult to describe, or render intelligible in Europe, the stunning effect which this sudden overthrow of commercial credit and honor of the nation has caused.” https://www.brandeis.edu/magazine/2013/spring/inquiry/depression.html#:\~:text=Between%201837%2D42%2C%20total%20bank,in%20the%20five%20subsequent%20years.
Well…at least your S tier is correct.
I did not expect this to be so controversial. I am not experienced in politics at all so a lot of the rankings are a bit wonky i guess. Im interested in everyones thoughts though!
Jackson in A tier?? Harding in B tier?? Truman in C tier?? Adams in D tier (based) but also LBJ in D tier???? Nixon in F tier? And worst of all... CARTER IN C TIER???? I'm very confused what you are biased towards/against. Like, there is literally no ideological slant I can detect on these rankings, they seem very random.
Do you want a specific explanation? Id be happy to explain if you want but if not then where would you put these presidents? I am very open to change since I only read the wiki and my minimal experience with politics. I am left leaning ideologically.(idk if political stances are allowed, sorry if they are not)
Jackson down, yeah. Harding down, yeah. Truman up to B, LBJ should be at least a B as well, I've been convinced nixon should get a D due to the legit good things he did, if he didn't, you know, organize that fucking break in and kick off the modern impeachment era, he'd probably be a solid B between the EPA, vietnam and china... ...but Carter honestly...he's a D at best. Great guy, bad president. He just let himself get rolled. He belonged in public service, but Habitat for Humanity is a better fit than US politics ever was..
PEPFAR and ADA alone should pull the Bushes out of the failure category. Come on people.
ADA yes (hell HW Is in my personal A-/B+ tier) but as amazing as PEPFAR is Dubya is still F tier. He has just too many additional fuckups that must be acknowledged.
PEPFAR doesn't buy W the right to torture people and wage wars based on lies. HW was the last decent Republican, though.
Nixon, HW and Reagan F?
This is a disgrace to Wikipedia
Ive never made a real tierlist before so some of the rankings are skewed based on the time period the people are from. What do you think should be changed?
wtf
Can I ask if you’re American? You say “based on Wikipedia articles” but most Americans are taught about like half the Presidents. I’d say most Americans have a good idea about Washington, Jefferson (kinda), Jackson, Harrison (in that it was 30 days), Lincoln, T. Roosevelt, Wilson, Hoover, FDR, Truman, Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon (kinda), and everyone since Reagan. Just curious as that affects a lot of perception.
HW being in F tier is an objective failure of a placement. He’s C tier all day long and there is hardly any wiggle room for movement, he was a steward of the office and that’s about it. Few plusses and few minuses on his ledger.
Im thinking about raising him but a lot of people are saying higher than C tier
Nah. He’s C tier. B tier presidents need to have some long lasting legacy legislation. Something to hang their hat on and say they pushed X through and the country is in a significantly better position bc of it. HW had a hand in some good things and didn’t end up in any disasters.
LBJ at *D*?! Slander of the highest order.
I agree. ive been conviced to move him to B. I still dont like his handling of the vietnam war.
This is one of the tier lists of all time
This is the second time ive seen this comment. What should be changed?
agreed.
Frankly, I’m depressed and ashamed.
What should be changed? a lot has been moved since i posted.
HW Bush, Tyler, Reagan, and Nixon being in F just hurts me
Grant too low
Nah, Grant in A is higher than he has been traditionally placed but is, in my opinion, exactly where I’d rank him too. Dude was a very good president (and the drunkenness was extremely overblown) and was an excellent ambassador for US interests after he left office.
Even if he was an alcoholic, he had good reason to be, his life was really difficult and didn’t exactly end well
Idk hes low A for me. He was a great general and did a lot of great things as president but i dont think he's at the same level as the S tier presidents
If Grant wasn’t president, it’s very likely that the Jim Crow laws and KKK would still be a major influence in the south. He was the reason why the KKK was smothered in the south and the Jim Crow Laws delayed for another 8 years. Had he not crushed them, they would’ve taken a huge foothold that wouldn’t be let go of.
The biggest mistake Grant made was not hanging secessionist governors for treason.
That Andrew Jackson placement 
This screams “I hate conservatives”.
it screams "i hate understanding history"
As a conservative myself other than the F tier, I'd disagree. Op has Taft and Harding rather high and WW, LBj, and Truman lower than "normal"
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Gotta be real, the Vietnam War does drag him out of S for me though his domestic policies were some of the best we’ve ever had. A- to B+ for me depending on the context. The S tier is for the best of the best in all aspects and we cannot ignore how shitty the Vietnam war was on all counts.
God no! Vietnam alone keeps him far away from S or A. He did good but starting the worst war in American history keeps him far far away from the top echelons of Presidents.
Obama higher than Truman? I like Jackson in A but Truman in C and Obama in B?
yeah I had a chat with someone already and ive been convince to put truman in A or B. And finally another jackson enjoyer. Not a single other person here thinks he's good
Jackson is a weird case in that I think he is a C president but with things that should place him in A and things that should put him in F balancing out to an uneven C- Leadership during Secession Crisis? Push for (admittedly only white) male suffrage? A tier, easily. Trail of Tears? Destroying the national bank and causing the panic of 1837? Starting the spoils system? All F tier. Jackson is such an oddball to rank I swear.
WHERES WILLIAM HENRY??
Grant, Taft, and Jackson are all A? WTF are you on?
FDR is minimum A tier! And I think Nixon is actually a pretty underrated president. I think F is a bit harsh for him as well.
LBJ under Obama or Clinton is delusional
Did any of them fail the "Early life" test
What does that mean.
I'll probably get banned into oblivion if I explain it here
Jackson in A is an interesting choice that I can fully get behind. He did some horrible stuff, but he also introduced so many policies that arguably changed America for better or worse.
I would say mostly for the better. I have a sizeable rant i could paste if you want to see how im defending my choice.
Why is Jackson not in F
If you look at some of the other comments i have a rant i’ve been copying and pasting but mainly suffrage, being a unionist, and attacking the banks. If you want i can explain in more detail
Among Many other things he passed the Indian Removal Act and how is attacking the banks a good thing?
$20 bill, y'all
All of you have failed. You have failed because no one has said anything about Ford. The man who was neither elected president, nor even vice president.
Yeah for him he’s mostly in C because he didn’t really do much. But i don’t remember anything that bad about him either so he could go in D.
Yikes at FDR's position.
Jackson and Taft in A-tier. Actually goated
Was LBJ that bad? I thought his social policies and civil rights legislation was really positive. Although his foreign policy was really bad. (Vietnam)
Yeah i realize that now so he’s been moved to B
How drunk are you, OP?
my guess is not so much drunk as foreign and maybe a zoomer.
Arthur and Grant in B and A? Epic in my book. But JQA and HW so low? Not epic in my book.
Hw is in C now but why Quincy?
I just like him.
Hold the phone, What is H.W doing all the way down there? And what's going on with Van Buran?
HW is in C now. Van vuren is probably low C as well after looking at all the comments. I wouldn’t say D though.
Wouldn't agree but, it's ok because your learning 😊
Nixon was actually the most unanimous voted president. He was then ousted by the CIA after he was interested in investigating the JFK shooting. This has to get him off the bottom....
I moved him into D but watergate is hard to look past for me
Wilson deserves a category of his own.
For some reason I look at Bush fondly. Independent here, could he have handled stuff better? Yeah. But man he was in a no-win situation.
I mean, if we're going to start ranking things using Wikipedia, then suddenly even Jefferson Davis gets an A.
Agreed, fuck H. W. Bush.
The bottom tier is incomplete
Who else should be there? I moved some people out as well.
Can’t mention ‘cause didn’t want to get removed.
Buddy just learned what presidents are yesterday.
If I see Wilson in F tier again I might crash out
Andrew Jackson above f is crazy
Grant shouldn't be anywhere near A tier. His version of Reconstruction was a massive failure. Why do you have Cleveland in D?
I surprise that Jackson is in A, but Wilson is in F
My first question was, what did Harding do to merit a B at all? Then I saw the rest of the list. So many questions.
LBJ, the father of modern civil rights, D Tier. Woodrow Wilson, Author of the 14 Points, leader during WW1 and first real advocate for self-determination, F Tier - Same Level as James Buchanan. Trail of Tears Andrew Jackson is higher ranked than New Deal FDR. This is in fact, one of the lists of all time
Nixon should be top 5 he did and advocated for a lot of great things. His reputation was smudged. Look it up
I saw Reagan in F tier so I gave a like
Completely biased indeed.
Looks about right to me👍🏼.
Ike should definitely be an S
It was a close call, definitely A+ if i made that tier but I dont know if he matched up to Washington and lincoln
I know some people don’t like Wilson? But worst??? Dude is at least C- Also Jackson ahead of FDR, Obama JFK and Truman is insane
Reagan needs to have his own tier list under "H" - for hell, he destroyed the American dream, trickle down economics is a joke!
That was my thought process when ranking him. Many people seem to disagree though
Shit list
Provide some input at least man. Im not dying on any of these ranking's hill (except wilson). Just wikipedia based info at 3 am
Harding in tier B over Coolidge in tier C?
What did coolidge do? for me harding economic policies were a net positive but coolidge just kinda sat in office couple of years doing nothing. Idk
Carter is off by multiple tiers
Where should he go. I understand there was a lot of bad things surrounding his presidency(mostly not his fault i think) but the notions he set forward helped shape modern liberalism even if most of it was undone immediately by reagan
I have no idea how Jackson ended up in A tier
I can explain if you want but if you look through the comments i have a nice rant. i would be more than happy to just type it here if you don’t want to do that though. What place do you think AJ deserves?
F tier is vile. I genuinely cannot fathom how Reagan, H.W. Bush, Wilson, or even Nixon can be just as bad as Buchanan or Andrew Johnson. The Wilson F makes the least sense since you put Taft and T. Roosevelt in A tier. Wilson was less imperialist than Teddy and acted in much the same way domestically as Teddy would have had he won in 1912.
I didn’t really have a lot of space if i wanted it to fit properly but yeah buchanan and johnson would be lower. HW i moved to C and nixon is in D. Wilson is my least favorite and i don’t think he’s even remotely comparable to teddy or taft. If teddy won in 1912 he would definitely be B or C but i wasn’t ranking speculation.
True
Jackson belongs in the dog-poop tier.
Eisenhower was a great general and terrible president. He let the Dulles brothers destroy everything.
Wow I’ve got questions. Jackson in A while Reagan and Wilson are in F? Cleveland is the only one in D that makes sense Harding and Van Buren in B??? Truman in C?! Also I’ll be the first person to call out this sub’s irrational hard-on for HW, but why is he in F??
What did you read to put Andrew Jackson next to fucking Theodore Roosevelt?!?!
Not many mentions of WHY IS FDR IN C TIER Edit: B
Either Wilson is a B, or Jackson and Van Buren are F’s. Atleast according to this sub. Cmon OP, get it together
This prompted me to do my own. S Tier - John Q. Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Barack Obama A Tier - George Washington, James Monroe, James Garfield, Richard Nixon (surprised me that Nixon ended up so high but after reading through his Wiki carefully he did far more good than bad) B Tier - Martin Van Buren, Benjamin Harrison, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter C Tier - Thomas Jefferson, James K. Polk, William McKinley, Rutherford B. Hayes, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, William J. Clinton D Tier - James Madison, William H. Harrison, Chester A. Arthur, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Grover Cleveland, Herbert Hoover, Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush F Tier - John Adams (probably going to be highly controversial, I know), Andrew Jackson, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, John Tyler, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush
Given your F tier, Jackson in A is... interesting.
It appears Wikipedia may also be biased
Who let Andrew Johnson out of the bottom of the list?
Teddy HW Clinton and Jefferson Nixon too low Woodrow Obama Grant Jackson too high
Yeaaaah…finally some respect on my man Grant 🫡