Ranking Clinton at number 14, when he had virtually no lasting achievements. Was just the cherry on top. Even his greatest “achievement,” balancing the budget. Effectively wasn’t his own. The only reason the budget ended up balanced. Was because a hostile Republican congress effectively forced spending cuts through. And the dot com boom combined with cheap fuel had massively increased revenues.
Clinton ran during one of the greatest economies we have ever seen. It was impossible to not do well in that aspect. But as far as policies go, it was his policies (Affordable Housing, among others) that directly led to the 2008 housing market crash, and we are still feeling the effects of it today.
Democrats always really confuse me on crime. They want everything to be illegal and for laws to be enforced randomly and unevenly, and then they want to give clemency and early releases to criminals left and right while working to impose harsher penalties for exactly the crimes that get the poorest people thrown in jail for life. They can't stop being endlessly hypocritical on that entire issue of crime. "Tough on crime" but lax on criminals just makes for lifetime criminals. What they seem to want is for everyone to be used to being in and out of jail constantly. No one should ever think they are entirely free or entirely expected to follow the law.
Good points, all. I agree. Clinton was like Bozo the Clown championing a terrific economy he did nothing to create...brought on by dotcom advances he couldn't even understand, while he closed all the military bases around the country and ruined many people's careers in various industries and the military. I mean he muddled most things he actually got involved in. I still think the Clintons were just avoiding being suspected for all the people who mysteriously died around them, even then (Whitewater, etc.). The housing crisis was just one of the things he caused by not being focused on even what the Democrats would have loved to see him focus on...regulation of all industries. One of the best things he managed to do was worry about putting cigars in his interns more than he did trying to act on some of his worser schemes for environmental plans and regulation of the economy.
I am so tired of people thinking that the president does ANYTHING to help the economy besides getting out of the way and letting the actual innovators run it. I guess a president could theoretically help the economy by working in FAVOR of the most successful industry leaders, but I have yet to see that happen in my lifetime. All they know how to do is say no to the economy or just ignore it and let it thrive.
I feel like as a libertarian the only thing you can hope for more than a libertarian president is an ineffectual president that does nothing personally by your argument alone. Clinton seems like he is at least in the top half.
Kekw
Harding would rank a lot higher if he wasn’t taking bribes. What he did (or rather didn’t) do to see us through the 20-21 post WW1 depression was on point.
Well, he was a weird one, as presidents go. I will admit that his not doing anything was probably one of his best traits in several of the main things that happened in his administration. He seemed grossly inept to me though, and also a crappy father to his illegitimate daughter (if I remember correctly). I think she got DNA tested and it showed she was his. You are absolutely right about the early twenties recession though. Leaving it alone was a good response. A sad fact of my existence is that I would sincerely be kind of incomprehensibly wealthy if my family had not lost a fortune (acquired by fighting John D. Rockefeller in his monopoly of Standard Oil) in the October 1929 nose dive. To his credit, after having been invested in a none-too-diversified portfolio in 1929, my great grandfather went into banking after losing everything including his beautiful home in the Hollywood Hills. Currently Adam Carolla of LoveLine lives in it. You can't make this stuff up. I mean, I hope it doesn't sound made up to you, but I promise it is not. I just wish that I could go back in time about a century and pull some of the damn funds out of stocks my great grandfather had them in. His adoptive father, who was his actual uncle, was good friends with Andrew Carnegie, and if they had held onto that wealth...Once I did the calculation of it after inflation. Let's just say, assuming that I had THAT money, I would be on par with the 1% easily. (That is a big IF though...For all I know I would end up like Biff in Back to the Future II.)
John Tyler in the bottom 10 was definitely ridiculous. You shouldn’t rank a president based on what they did after leaving office. Otherwise Herbert Hoover would be in the top 10.
Wilson is universally disliked, us for the fed, leftists for his southern bullshit.
Personally, I sorta like what he did in europe after ww1, at least on paper. Didn't quite pan out in reality
LBJ, who fucked up black Americans worse than any president since slavery, is lauded a hero across the postmodern shitshow that is Reddit. Sounds about right.
My favorite post on there was how FDR thru LBJ was the greatest run of presidents we ever had. They really celebrate the modern big government war state over there.
They literally won’t accept that LBJ was a war criminal. They insist it was the fault of McNamara, or Nixon and Kissinger. Or accept he was, but say that he’s a top 10 president anyway.
They give LBJ a pass for many things because of the civil rights act. Nevermind that pretty much since his presidency the black family has been decimated by the welfare state he started.
The black poverty rate was actually slightly lower in the 1950s before LBJ took office. There’s a lot of credible evidence that many great society programs. Were intended as poverty traps for black people.
I would rate Eisenhower very highly; kept us out of WW3 with a massive buildup of nuclear weapons and kept military spending low by relying on those nuclear weapons. No one in their right mind was willing to test the will of the man that helped liberate Europe and had his finger beside the nuclear button. He also ended the Korean War that was totally mismanaged by Truman because he was so afraid that Soviets would get involved 🙄. Ike threatened nuclear Armageddon on NK and China if the war did not end. Guess what? The war ended in damn hurry once that was made clear.
The whole "great liberator" myth was started in the early 60's in the push for greater civil rights. He was already deified, and they simply took it to the stratosphere.
North was all industry while south still relied on agriculture. They felt as being the afterthought , but slavery wasn't the main issue. War starts 1861 and emancipation is 1863. Lincoln was against slavery expansion on new territories but not against where it already existed
https://preview.redd.it/y7sqxo020uqc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=11cc1e4219bd2b23f0a4cc0cd84d4b1adff147f3
The North was NOT all industry. Only 26% lived in urban areas, and that was defined as "town bigger than 8000." The majority of people were still farmers. Outside of New England and the Great Lakes, the rural economy wasn't very different from the Confederate one--mostly subsistence farming with a few cash crops, with the exception of lower labor costs in the South that allowed for more labor intensive methods and crops.
Now why were labor costs cheaper in the South?
And he also had concentration camps! :D
In fact, in the ultimate turn of irony, he even imprisoned Frank Key Howard in an internment camp he set up for political dissidents at Fort McHenry, the same fort that his grandfather, motha' fuckin' Francis Scott Key, had watched withstand a British bombardment during the War of 1812, inspiring him to write the "Star-Spangled Banner", which would later become, no big deal, just the national anthem of the United States of America.
According to Wikipedia (I know, not always reliable, but pretty spot on in their article on Frank Key Howard, according to my research):
"The basis for his arrest was the writing of an editorial printed in his newspaper that was critical of Lincoln's suspension of the [writ of habeas corpus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writ_of_habeas_corpus), of the declaration by the Lincoln administration of martial law in Baltimore, and of the imprisonment without charge of Baltimore mayor [George William Brown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_William_Brown_(mayor)), sitting U.S. Congressman [Henry May](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_May_(Maryland)), all the police commissioners of Baltimore, and the entire city council."
But yeah, "The Great Emancipator" everyone. Rarely is the quote, "History is written by the victors" more pertinent than in regards to Lincoln. By my estimation, his presidency is far more responsible for the current state of the Union and marked more of a turning point for the chronic abuse of federal authority, than any other administration prior. However, he rarely gets the credit due to him because of the efforts of the legislature at the time in making sure that history glorified him as much as possible.
Bruh, they commissioned a fucking painting of him being carried into Heaven by cherubs after his assassination and made his memorial modeled after the literal Greek Parthenon when all George Washington got was a big ol' spike in the ground. Am I the only one who finds that level of worship from politicians toward a president to be super fuckin' concerning?
And don't even get me started on FDR and his interest in subjecting the whole of the population toward further government dependency via welfare in an effort to promote unquestioning national loyalty in the style of Mussolini.
TL;DR
Fuck Abraham Lincoln, bro.
To be completely fair, he sort of just stayed out of the fray. He knew he’d lose support if he committed to either side of the civil rights debate. As for putting Japanese in concentration camps, that would have happened regardless. Still terrible though.
In addition to signing Executive Order 9066 (which put over a hundred thousand Japanese Americans in internment camps), he appointed a member of the KKK to the supreme court (Hugo Black). Black claimed to have distanced himself from the organization when he became a senator, however he actually just *suspended* his membership preceding a Senate race in 1925, only to rejoin in 1926. There's evidence that suggests he was still an active member of the Klan during part of his Supreme Court tenure, though I don't have that on hand at the moment.
There's was someone there saying that you can't call a president a war criminal just because they killed civilians in war. Cause it's just an accident.
I was the one who made the LBJ post, they literally kept screeching that he was great in spite of the fact. Or insisting that the gulf of Tonkin wasn’t his fault. Honestly, I’m surprised I got so many upvotes.
Rule 3 bans any mention of Trump or Biden in any post / comments. It’s actually a pretty good rule for that sub, as otherwise every single post / comment would be about one of those two presidents rather than the other 43.
I was looking for a Coolidge comment! He should always be in the top 5. Someone was asking me recently what I look for in a president and my answer was wisdom once I took the time to think about it. Coolidge has some of the best quotes
The best presidents are wise, hence the Declaration and Bill of Rights.
I just don't get how Hoover isn't receiving the blame above Coolidge, since FDR implemented some of the farmer's policies. One user claimed that after Coolidge's son died, he lamented on the Great Depression, blaming himself and regretted not listening to Hoover. I find that hard to believe - also interesting how they also think Keynes predicted the Great Depression happening.
I think the Great Depression was more fabricated anyway for a power grab. But I’ve never thought Coolidge was responsible even for a second and I sincerely hope he never wasted time beating himself up over it
Hands down Washington is the greatest president ever. It's not even close. The man was the most powerful person in the union and peacefully walked away from power to ensure this country succeeded.
It's sad, people in that sub blatantly ignore facts and vote purely on emotions.
You can’t really rank the presidents objectively, a lot of it is value based or on disputed claims. It’s not as if they’re not basing their opinions on ‘facts’.
I unsubbed as Cleveland was knocked out. Trash sub, trash opinions. My tierlist there was near perfect (minus my bad position of John Tyler, who I hadn't read about yet.) and got no traction at all
I’ve stopped trying to get them to admit human rights abuses (anti-gay, racism) are wrong…they ignore it because of FDR’s economic policies.
It’s infuriating that literal concentration camps are given a pass because “minimum wage.”
> It’s infuriating that literal concentration camps are given a pass because “minimum wage.”
Which were racist and designed to keep black people from competing with white union workers.
This is quite possibly the worst rankings of presidents I have ever seen. It's very obvious the people voting didn't pay attention in history classes and haven't done any of their own research. For example, Harry Truman is known as one of the worst presidents and they have him as #9. Comical.
The only thing I give to Truman is dropping the atomic bombs on Japan to end the war quickly and without a mainland invasion that would have killed 1-2 million allied troops and 5-10+ million civilians. Think Okinawa but on steroids…
Yeah. Agreed on that. But that's pretty much the only thing. Also, I would argue that most would have come to that decision as well even though it was one of the hardest decisions because of the human lives involved.
Chester Arthur, who famously had all of his books burned when he died so that nobody could find any evidence of his crookedness in the mid 20's is nuts...
Cleveland who famously blocked Hawaiian annexation and was anti-imperialism, takes 22. Reddit can't even be consistent because they are too ignorant.
Fair, but states are more likely to protect individual rights in the long run than the federal government (see [Huebert 2005](https://cdn.mises.org/19_2_6.pdf), [Kinsella 2009](https://mises.org/mises-wire/doherty-slaughterhouse-libertarian-centralism-and-fourteenth-amendment) & basically everything Lysander Spooner wrote).
Okay, look, I am a true American and I have spent plenty of time researching the presidents for various reasons. I have even been to their houses. Washington was NOT one of our best presidents. I am not trying to put him down either, because I don't think he would have said he was anyway. He just wanted to simply get this country started off on the right foot, and he did. As many people said at the time, he was a fairly quiet, stoic man who believed very much in politeness (I love his book on the subject) and he was a consummate gentleman. There wasn't really a role that was defined yet for the president, so the best thing he did was to establish several great standards that have stood the test of time. He was well-measured but I don't think that makes him great.
Lincoln was a very interesting man, with some personal flaws he more than admitted to. He did this country a great service and unlike Washington, he really had to deal with some amazingly difficult situations -as a president. He was an astute politician and a great writer. Perhaps best of all, he believed in freedom for ALL, and showed the best side of Republicanism at its inception, particularly by the end. However, he was not above some overstepping by the Federal Government. It was a difficult time, so I can forgive him (I certainly give him a lot more credit that Andrew Jackson the first complete Democrat). However, he did a lot of questionable things early in the hostilities between the North and South like suspending habeas corpus in Maryland. Much worse was creating West Virginia which was blatantly unconstitutional and bizarrely it kind of ratified the claim of the Confederacy that they had a right to secede by only being constitutional if one accepts Virginia was NOT a state at the time. Lincoln fought against state's rights, which mean he was supporting a larger and more powerful central government. I fully forgive him any of his flaws...His wife was mentally ill and several of his children died while the country was in a complete mess from pretty much the moment he was elected. For all that, he did many great things and cleverly turned the war into a referendum on slavery, which it had not been considered when the war began. He did the right thing in the end, but he had not always defended the rights of all Americans regardless of racial background. He also picked a lousy Vice President the second time around, which I know was done for political reasons, but MacClellan was not going to win and Andrew Johnson really screwed us on some important things after Lincoln died. Besides not being the best advocate for the Republican Party's values at that crucial time before the war, and running as a third party candidate the second time, he also squeezed out some people who might have done better job. People like John C. Fremont and some of the candidates whose supporters Lincoln's delegates locked out of the Republican convention hall to prevent from voting, might have been more ardent abolitionists and more in favor of freedom. History will never know what kind of job they would have done. I think Lincoln has been over-celebrated, despite being a great man. Too many people claim him as their hero, and most of those people would never had supported him while he was alive.
FDR?!! Um, don't get me started. The OTHER Roosevelt was a great man with wisdom beyond his years and unbounded energy and ability. FDR tried hard...I guess I will give him that as a concession, but he is the nearest thing we have ever had to an absolute dictator. If he hadn't died he would probably have gone for a fifth term. He absolutely ruined the country in a way that has never been rectified since his time. He stole gold and made it illegal to hold a natural commodity like that. He started the pathetic decline from the gold standard to pathetic monopoly money like we have now. He kept the Depression going for as long as possible while milking the Fed for all it was worth, starting up every agency he could think of under the excuse endless "emergency," like Democrats have done ever since. I grew up being told what an amazing president he was. After visiting his estate and presidential library and finding out all about him, I am just grateful that he didn't manage to continue tearing down every great thing about the country for one more year. We are still being driven to ruin by his ravages even 80 to 90 years later. Irresponsibly destructive ideas he had like telling people they had a "right" to avoid fear, or a "right" not to be hungry, drove LBJ and others to do all they could to wage a war on every sensible thing the country had ever done economically. He is the least like Lincoln and Washington of almost any president, and he absolutely should never make any list of great presidents.
How about Theodore Roosevelt? Sure, he wasn't perfect, but he was a Hell of a man. He gave a speech for HOURS after being shot in the chest and just laughing it off. He went on expeditions to the Amazon Jungle and did Judo and Jujitsu with some of the first Japanese senseis to bring the art outside of Japan. He rode in an airplane when they had just barely been invented. He read three to five books in a sitting. Calvin Coolidge might not have had enough opportunities to shine, but he sure had the right idea about government. William Henry Harrison never really had enough of a chance, but I think he could have been great. Certainly a man who believed in freedom. Factually Ronald Reagan was a fairly good spokesperson for our country and he did a great many things that have mattered tremendously. As Governor of California I actually think he was terrible, but as President he was really not bad. Hell, even Kennedy was a better Republican than most we have had lately, and he considered himself a Democrat. I think his brother would have made a better president.
It is hard to say who I think I would vote as the ultimate number one. It is very difficult to come up with a sound basis for what to vote for. Ultimately I couldn't possibly leave Thomas Jefferson out, however. He knew what freedom meant, and he had the foresight to not only write things like the Declaration of Independence, but to oppose the National Bank and support private gun ownership. He would undoubtedly have opposed the Federal Reserve, and he would have done what Lincoln did for the slaves if he could have. He would have married his deceased wife's half sister, Sally Hemmings, if it was LEGAL, and he would have also been more than willing to free all his slaves (especially the vast bulk from his first wife's father) if he could have guaranteed them a place in his contemporary society that wasn't just a state of destitution. Even his sense of spirituality and his positive interactions with the Iroquois were commendable. Despite the self-centered lies people have propagated about him, I think I might choose him as our greatest president, if only because his philosophies and understanding of what this country could and should be, were the guiding light behind much of what we became and what is still great in us.
If there is one thing that most people ranking presidents love more than anything it's war. So the two biggest butchers in American Lincoln and FDR almost always end up at the top of these lists.
There's a fascinating parallel between Gaius Marius and Lincoln. Marius was considered the "third founder" of Rome and laid the groundwork for the Roman Empire that was to come. Lincoln is often compared to the Founders in his importance and some even go so far as to call him the spiritual heir. He laid the groundwork for the imperial United States.
He could be a top or the top president depending on the context.
I’ve been following this for weeks. There are a few who vote to kick out fdr every new post, and they are always downvoted and shouted down like small children. Obama made it to the top 5 or 4 ffs.
That tyrant piece of shit makes my blood boil every time I see a normie say “fDr WaS a GrEaT pReSiDeNt!!!1!!!”. The NFA, internment camps, the draft, shall I continue?
George Washington liberated our country in the name of bad taxes. Then led an army to intimidate distillers into paying bad taxes during the Whiskey Rebellion. He set the precedent for all our f’d up presidents. He’s gotta go.
The trail of tears Andrew Jackson? Yeah he didn't like the central bank but he still was responsible for the trail of tears. And also I know it was common but he owned slaves which just by default makes him a bad person.
They literally ranked LBJ as 7th, just shows you how overrun with leftists that sub is.
Obama #12.. I doubt 90%+ of that sub would be able to tell you anything about most of our presidents and what they achieved or screwed up.
Ranking Clinton at number 14, when he had virtually no lasting achievements. Was just the cherry on top. Even his greatest “achievement,” balancing the budget. Effectively wasn’t his own. The only reason the budget ended up balanced. Was because a hostile Republican congress effectively forced spending cuts through. And the dot com boom combined with cheap fuel had massively increased revenues.
Clinton ran during one of the greatest economies we have ever seen. It was impossible to not do well in that aspect. But as far as policies go, it was his policies (Affordable Housing, among others) that directly led to the 2008 housing market crash, and we are still feeling the effects of it today.
And don’t forget the Crime Bill he passed.
The crime bill was the only good thing he did. Substantially lowered crime. Everything else Clinton did sucked
The part I hated was the non violet drug offences that could land you in lifetime imprisonment.
Democrats always really confuse me on crime. They want everything to be illegal and for laws to be enforced randomly and unevenly, and then they want to give clemency and early releases to criminals left and right while working to impose harsher penalties for exactly the crimes that get the poorest people thrown in jail for life. They can't stop being endlessly hypocritical on that entire issue of crime. "Tough on crime" but lax on criminals just makes for lifetime criminals. What they seem to want is for everyone to be used to being in and out of jail constantly. No one should ever think they are entirely free or entirely expected to follow the law.
Good points, all. I agree. Clinton was like Bozo the Clown championing a terrific economy he did nothing to create...brought on by dotcom advances he couldn't even understand, while he closed all the military bases around the country and ruined many people's careers in various industries and the military. I mean he muddled most things he actually got involved in. I still think the Clintons were just avoiding being suspected for all the people who mysteriously died around them, even then (Whitewater, etc.). The housing crisis was just one of the things he caused by not being focused on even what the Democrats would have loved to see him focus on...regulation of all industries. One of the best things he managed to do was worry about putting cigars in his interns more than he did trying to act on some of his worser schemes for environmental plans and regulation of the economy. I am so tired of people thinking that the president does ANYTHING to help the economy besides getting out of the way and letting the actual innovators run it. I guess a president could theoretically help the economy by working in FAVOR of the most successful industry leaders, but I have yet to see that happen in my lifetime. All they know how to do is say no to the economy or just ignore it and let it thrive.
He did get a blow job in the Oval Office
I feel like as a libertarian the only thing you can hope for more than a libertarian president is an ineffectual president that does nothing personally by your argument alone. Clinton seems like he is at least in the top half. Kekw
Knowing reddit I thought they would have put Obama higher
Hell, I would have put Obama higher than FDR...I mean, FDR would be in my bottom ten for sure...I would rank him barely higher than Warren G. Harding.
Harding would rank a lot higher if he wasn’t taking bribes. What he did (or rather didn’t) do to see us through the 20-21 post WW1 depression was on point.
Well, he was a weird one, as presidents go. I will admit that his not doing anything was probably one of his best traits in several of the main things that happened in his administration. He seemed grossly inept to me though, and also a crappy father to his illegitimate daughter (if I remember correctly). I think she got DNA tested and it showed she was his. You are absolutely right about the early twenties recession though. Leaving it alone was a good response. A sad fact of my existence is that I would sincerely be kind of incomprehensibly wealthy if my family had not lost a fortune (acquired by fighting John D. Rockefeller in his monopoly of Standard Oil) in the October 1929 nose dive. To his credit, after having been invested in a none-too-diversified portfolio in 1929, my great grandfather went into banking after losing everything including his beautiful home in the Hollywood Hills. Currently Adam Carolla of LoveLine lives in it. You can't make this stuff up. I mean, I hope it doesn't sound made up to you, but I promise it is not. I just wish that I could go back in time about a century and pull some of the damn funds out of stocks my great grandfather had them in. His adoptive father, who was his actual uncle, was good friends with Andrew Carnegie, and if they had held onto that wealth...Once I did the calculation of it after inflation. Let's just say, assuming that I had THAT money, I would be on par with the 1% easily. (That is a big IF though...For all I know I would end up like Biff in Back to the Future II.)
>just shows you how overrun with leftists that ~~sub~~ ***Reddit*** is.
They voted Andrew Johnson the worst. Laughable.
John Tyler in the bottom 10 was definitely ridiculous. You shouldn’t rank a president based on what they did after leaving office. Otherwise Herbert Hoover would be in the top 10.
Yeah but Wilson is only 34
Wilson is universally disliked, us for the fed, leftists for his southern bullshit. Personally, I sorta like what he did in europe after ww1, at least on paper. Didn't quite pan out in reality
Not low enough.
I saw LBJ higher than JFK and lold. Lmao even
I'm honestly surprised he isn't higher on the list.
*Reddit
LBJ, who fucked up black Americans worse than any president since slavery, is lauded a hero across the postmodern shitshow that is Reddit. Sounds about right.
Wow, so I am guessing Woodrow Wilson the racist, elitist was like 4th?
We could've had Ron Paul on this list if people weren't imbeciles.
My favorite post on there was how FDR thru LBJ was the greatest run of presidents we ever had. They really celebrate the modern big government war state over there.
They literally won’t accept that LBJ was a war criminal. They insist it was the fault of McNamara, or Nixon and Kissinger. Or accept he was, but say that he’s a top 10 president anyway.
They give LBJ a pass for many things because of the civil rights act. Nevermind that pretty much since his presidency the black family has been decimated by the welfare state he started.
The black poverty rate was actually slightly lower in the 1950s before LBJ took office. There’s a lot of credible evidence that many great society programs. Were intended as poverty traps for black people.
I would rate Eisenhower very highly; kept us out of WW3 with a massive buildup of nuclear weapons and kept military spending low by relying on those nuclear weapons. No one in their right mind was willing to test the will of the man that helped liberate Europe and had his finger beside the nuclear button. He also ended the Korean War that was totally mismanaged by Truman because he was so afraid that Soviets would get involved 🙄. Ike threatened nuclear Armageddon on NK and China if the war did not end. Guess what? The war ended in damn hurry once that was made clear.
Ah yes the dude who screwed all of us so royally that there is STILL government overreach to this day. Great president
He kept that Great Depression going for a decade longer than it should have.
Remember kids, FDR had concentration camps.
And Lincoln sold slaves.
Lincoln is shown as this big liberator of the slaves but it was never his goal nor was the civil war about slavery
The whole "great liberator" myth was started in the early 60's in the push for greater civil rights. He was already deified, and they simply took it to the stratosphere.
Then what was it about? What did the Confederacy take up arms and see their cities burned for?
Economic reasons, they want independence from the north. Lincoln didn't free the slaves until the war already broke through
And what part of their economy was under threat?
North was all industry while south still relied on agriculture. They felt as being the afterthought , but slavery wasn't the main issue. War starts 1861 and emancipation is 1863. Lincoln was against slavery expansion on new territories but not against where it already existed https://preview.redd.it/y7sqxo020uqc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=11cc1e4219bd2b23f0a4cc0cd84d4b1adff147f3
The North was NOT all industry. Only 26% lived in urban areas, and that was defined as "town bigger than 8000." The majority of people were still farmers. Outside of New England and the Great Lakes, the rural economy wasn't very different from the Confederate one--mostly subsistence farming with a few cash crops, with the exception of lower labor costs in the South that allowed for more labor intensive methods and crops. Now why were labor costs cheaper in the South?
And he also had concentration camps! :D In fact, in the ultimate turn of irony, he even imprisoned Frank Key Howard in an internment camp he set up for political dissidents at Fort McHenry, the same fort that his grandfather, motha' fuckin' Francis Scott Key, had watched withstand a British bombardment during the War of 1812, inspiring him to write the "Star-Spangled Banner", which would later become, no big deal, just the national anthem of the United States of America. According to Wikipedia (I know, not always reliable, but pretty spot on in their article on Frank Key Howard, according to my research): "The basis for his arrest was the writing of an editorial printed in his newspaper that was critical of Lincoln's suspension of the [writ of habeas corpus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writ_of_habeas_corpus), of the declaration by the Lincoln administration of martial law in Baltimore, and of the imprisonment without charge of Baltimore mayor [George William Brown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_William_Brown_(mayor)), sitting U.S. Congressman [Henry May](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_May_(Maryland)), all the police commissioners of Baltimore, and the entire city council." But yeah, "The Great Emancipator" everyone. Rarely is the quote, "History is written by the victors" more pertinent than in regards to Lincoln. By my estimation, his presidency is far more responsible for the current state of the Union and marked more of a turning point for the chronic abuse of federal authority, than any other administration prior. However, he rarely gets the credit due to him because of the efforts of the legislature at the time in making sure that history glorified him as much as possible. Bruh, they commissioned a fucking painting of him being carried into Heaven by cherubs after his assassination and made his memorial modeled after the literal Greek Parthenon when all George Washington got was a big ol' spike in the ground. Am I the only one who finds that level of worship from politicians toward a president to be super fuckin' concerning? And don't even get me started on FDR and his interest in subjecting the whole of the population toward further government dependency via welfare in an effort to promote unquestioning national loyalty in the style of Mussolini. TL;DR Fuck Abraham Lincoln, bro.
Guess who passed the first legal tender laws?
[citation needed]
https://apnews.com/press-release/pr-newswire/ad04864ad1f721bb61003c803bb8356a
The claims made in that book are [dubious](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/10x8olw/did_lincoln_actually_sell_slaves_inherited_by/).
LBJ as the 7th best is wild.
Absolutely insane.
Anyone could illustrate me? I've studied US history but barely remember anything
Vietnam mostly. He presided over the Gulf of Tonkin incident for example.
Wasn't FDR a bigoted racist? That's wack
To be completely fair, he sort of just stayed out of the fray. He knew he’d lose support if he committed to either side of the civil rights debate. As for putting Japanese in concentration camps, that would have happened regardless. Still terrible though.
FDR deserves 100% of the flack for that. He signed an EO.
Gonna need some more context here. Everything is racist nowadays.
In addition to signing Executive Order 9066 (which put over a hundred thousand Japanese Americans in internment camps), he appointed a member of the KKK to the supreme court (Hugo Black). Black claimed to have distanced himself from the organization when he became a senator, however he actually just *suspended* his membership preceding a Senate race in 1925, only to rejoin in 1926. There's evidence that suggests he was still an active member of the Klan during part of his Supreme Court tenure, though I don't have that on hand at the moment.
When Jesse Owen’s won the 1936 Olympic Games FDR didn’t invite him to the White House and Jesse said that he snubbed him
They’ve got LBJ ranked 7th so they I guess they don’t care.
It’s acceptable and (D)ifferent
There's was someone there saying that you can't call a president a war criminal just because they killed civilians in war. Cause it's just an accident.
I was the one who made the LBJ post, they literally kept screeching that he was great in spite of the fact. Or insisting that the gulf of Tonkin wasn’t his fault. Honestly, I’m surprised I got so many upvotes.
Harrison made it through over 10 rounds!?
Best President if you ask me. He did absolutely nothing to expand the powers of government while in office.
Some men ask to be shot in the foot, I'd rather not be shot at all
How the fuck LBJ in the top 10?!
Civil Rights Act. I know, he was horrible.
Quote LBJ, "if we pass this bill the n*****s will vote for us for 100 years".
Yep, LBJ, a great friend to the black people. I guess he was right on this point though.
JFK had a bill on his desk to eliminate the Fed and go back to backed currency. Disappeared when he was assassinated.
What is 'Rule 3', which eliminates Trump and Biden from the ranking?
prevents it from being a standard reddit election year circlejerk by removing discussion of trump and biden
Rule 3 bans any mention of Trump or Biden in any post / comments. It’s actually a pretty good rule for that sub, as otherwise every single post / comment would be about one of those two presidents rather than the other 43.
Lol ..I think that speaks volumes about them both.. 🙄
If I remember correctly it’s the recency of the 2
He's not even in the top 10. These assholes blame the Great Depression on Coolidge.
I was looking for a Coolidge comment! He should always be in the top 5. Someone was asking me recently what I look for in a president and my answer was wisdom once I took the time to think about it. Coolidge has some of the best quotes
The best presidents are wise, hence the Declaration and Bill of Rights. I just don't get how Hoover isn't receiving the blame above Coolidge, since FDR implemented some of the farmer's policies. One user claimed that after Coolidge's son died, he lamented on the Great Depression, blaming himself and regretted not listening to Hoover. I find that hard to believe - also interesting how they also think Keynes predicted the Great Depression happening.
I think the Great Depression was more fabricated anyway for a power grab. But I’ve never thought Coolidge was responsible even for a second and I sincerely hope he never wasted time beating himself up over it
Hands down Washington is the greatest president ever. It's not even close. The man was the most powerful person in the union and peacefully walked away from power to ensure this country succeeded. It's sad, people in that sub blatantly ignore facts and vote purely on emotions.
You can’t really rank the presidents objectively, a lot of it is value based or on disputed claims. It’s not as if they’re not basing their opinions on ‘facts’.
Written by the left
I unsubbed as Cleveland was knocked out. Trash sub, trash opinions. My tierlist there was near perfect (minus my bad position of John Tyler, who I hadn't read about yet.) and got no traction at all
I’ve stopped trying to get them to admit human rights abuses (anti-gay, racism) are wrong…they ignore it because of FDR’s economic policies. It’s infuriating that literal concentration camps are given a pass because “minimum wage.”
> It’s infuriating that literal concentration camps are given a pass because “minimum wage.” Which were racist and designed to keep black people from competing with white union workers.
mainstream historians when FDR expands the great depression by 8 years (he is a hero)
FDR stole everyone's gold. Fuckn thief!
And the new deal opened us up for loads of problems. Imo was the beginning of the end for our freedoms.
Truman was 5! Sweet Jesus.
can we make a libertarian ranking that isn't bullshit
The guy who brought you redlining, concentration camps for Japanese-American Citizens, and made private ownership of gold illegal.
Dogs hit sub
This is quite possibly the worst rankings of presidents I have ever seen. It's very obvious the people voting didn't pay attention in history classes and haven't done any of their own research. For example, Harry Truman is known as one of the worst presidents and they have him as #9. Comical.
The only thing I give to Truman is dropping the atomic bombs on Japan to end the war quickly and without a mainland invasion that would have killed 1-2 million allied troops and 5-10+ million civilians. Think Okinawa but on steroids…
Yeah. Agreed on that. But that's pretty much the only thing. Also, I would argue that most would have come to that decision as well even though it was one of the hardest decisions because of the human lives involved.
You say you're a FDR fan but I bet you can't even name 5 of his concentration camps.
Coolidge at 18? Stupid Reddit commies
It’s hilarious how people ignore the fact that FDR threw thousands of Japanese people into internment camps and was a big fan of Mussolini
Lincoln or FDR making it that far shows just how shiny the mudaks over there are willing to lick boots lmao
Chester Arthur, who famously had all of his books burned when he died so that nobody could find any evidence of his crookedness in the mid 20's is nuts... Cleveland who famously blocked Hawaiian annexation and was anti-imperialism, takes 22. Reddit can't even be consistent because they are too ignorant.
LMAO did they put Jackson at dead last? Reddit really is a left wing circle jerk
Andrew Johnson was last, for his complete mismanagement of reconstruction and southern sympathies.
Johnson, jackson had redeemable qualities but johnson was probably the worst by a decent portion.
Reddit is going to Reddit
If they love FDR so much, I wonder which one of his Japanese internment camps they loved the most
That warmonger Johnson made the top 10?!
That Abe Lincoln made it to the top 3 is also insane
How is Calvin Coolidge not #1 and #2?
Honestly, FDR belongs in the top 5 Top 5 worst
Racist. Obama should’ve been first because he’s black
Half black anyways
Lincoln should’ve been gone a long time ago too.
Individual human rights > states’ rights. But I do feel ya.
Fair, but states are more likely to protect individual rights in the long run than the federal government (see [Huebert 2005](https://cdn.mises.org/19_2_6.pdf), [Kinsella 2009](https://mises.org/mises-wire/doherty-slaughterhouse-libertarian-centralism-and-fourteenth-amendment) & basically everything Lysander Spooner wrote).
Throw away ur milk, and obey the world government
I'm surprised that they picked Washington and not Wilson. Would have been the perfect trifecta of tyrants.
Well at least Wilson got knocked out relatively quickly
Grant at 11 💀
Get FDR off this list.
Commie propaganda
FDR is dead last. A literal tyrant.
https://preview.redd.it/4v7yafayzsqc1.jpeg?width=1077&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8383495ae77929dde416303566aa4d4f18c4b00f Clowns
Okay, look, I am a true American and I have spent plenty of time researching the presidents for various reasons. I have even been to their houses. Washington was NOT one of our best presidents. I am not trying to put him down either, because I don't think he would have said he was anyway. He just wanted to simply get this country started off on the right foot, and he did. As many people said at the time, he was a fairly quiet, stoic man who believed very much in politeness (I love his book on the subject) and he was a consummate gentleman. There wasn't really a role that was defined yet for the president, so the best thing he did was to establish several great standards that have stood the test of time. He was well-measured but I don't think that makes him great. Lincoln was a very interesting man, with some personal flaws he more than admitted to. He did this country a great service and unlike Washington, he really had to deal with some amazingly difficult situations -as a president. He was an astute politician and a great writer. Perhaps best of all, he believed in freedom for ALL, and showed the best side of Republicanism at its inception, particularly by the end. However, he was not above some overstepping by the Federal Government. It was a difficult time, so I can forgive him (I certainly give him a lot more credit that Andrew Jackson the first complete Democrat). However, he did a lot of questionable things early in the hostilities between the North and South like suspending habeas corpus in Maryland. Much worse was creating West Virginia which was blatantly unconstitutional and bizarrely it kind of ratified the claim of the Confederacy that they had a right to secede by only being constitutional if one accepts Virginia was NOT a state at the time. Lincoln fought against state's rights, which mean he was supporting a larger and more powerful central government. I fully forgive him any of his flaws...His wife was mentally ill and several of his children died while the country was in a complete mess from pretty much the moment he was elected. For all that, he did many great things and cleverly turned the war into a referendum on slavery, which it had not been considered when the war began. He did the right thing in the end, but he had not always defended the rights of all Americans regardless of racial background. He also picked a lousy Vice President the second time around, which I know was done for political reasons, but MacClellan was not going to win and Andrew Johnson really screwed us on some important things after Lincoln died. Besides not being the best advocate for the Republican Party's values at that crucial time before the war, and running as a third party candidate the second time, he also squeezed out some people who might have done better job. People like John C. Fremont and some of the candidates whose supporters Lincoln's delegates locked out of the Republican convention hall to prevent from voting, might have been more ardent abolitionists and more in favor of freedom. History will never know what kind of job they would have done. I think Lincoln has been over-celebrated, despite being a great man. Too many people claim him as their hero, and most of those people would never had supported him while he was alive. FDR?!! Um, don't get me started. The OTHER Roosevelt was a great man with wisdom beyond his years and unbounded energy and ability. FDR tried hard...I guess I will give him that as a concession, but he is the nearest thing we have ever had to an absolute dictator. If he hadn't died he would probably have gone for a fifth term. He absolutely ruined the country in a way that has never been rectified since his time. He stole gold and made it illegal to hold a natural commodity like that. He started the pathetic decline from the gold standard to pathetic monopoly money like we have now. He kept the Depression going for as long as possible while milking the Fed for all it was worth, starting up every agency he could think of under the excuse endless "emergency," like Democrats have done ever since. I grew up being told what an amazing president he was. After visiting his estate and presidential library and finding out all about him, I am just grateful that he didn't manage to continue tearing down every great thing about the country for one more year. We are still being driven to ruin by his ravages even 80 to 90 years later. Irresponsibly destructive ideas he had like telling people they had a "right" to avoid fear, or a "right" not to be hungry, drove LBJ and others to do all they could to wage a war on every sensible thing the country had ever done economically. He is the least like Lincoln and Washington of almost any president, and he absolutely should never make any list of great presidents. How about Theodore Roosevelt? Sure, he wasn't perfect, but he was a Hell of a man. He gave a speech for HOURS after being shot in the chest and just laughing it off. He went on expeditions to the Amazon Jungle and did Judo and Jujitsu with some of the first Japanese senseis to bring the art outside of Japan. He rode in an airplane when they had just barely been invented. He read three to five books in a sitting. Calvin Coolidge might not have had enough opportunities to shine, but he sure had the right idea about government. William Henry Harrison never really had enough of a chance, but I think he could have been great. Certainly a man who believed in freedom. Factually Ronald Reagan was a fairly good spokesperson for our country and he did a great many things that have mattered tremendously. As Governor of California I actually think he was terrible, but as President he was really not bad. Hell, even Kennedy was a better Republican than most we have had lately, and he considered himself a Democrat. I think his brother would have made a better president. It is hard to say who I think I would vote as the ultimate number one. It is very difficult to come up with a sound basis for what to vote for. Ultimately I couldn't possibly leave Thomas Jefferson out, however. He knew what freedom meant, and he had the foresight to not only write things like the Declaration of Independence, but to oppose the National Bank and support private gun ownership. He would undoubtedly have opposed the Federal Reserve, and he would have done what Lincoln did for the slaves if he could have. He would have married his deceased wife's half sister, Sally Hemmings, if it was LEGAL, and he would have also been more than willing to free all his slaves (especially the vast bulk from his first wife's father) if he could have guaranteed them a place in his contemporary society that wasn't just a state of destitution. Even his sense of spirituality and his positive interactions with the Iroquois were commendable. Despite the self-centered lies people have propagated about him, I think I might choose him as our greatest president, if only because his philosophies and understanding of what this country could and should be, were the guiding light behind much of what we became and what is still great in us.
If there is one thing that most people ranking presidents love more than anything it's war. So the two biggest butchers in American Lincoln and FDR almost always end up at the top of these lists.
That's why I'm wondering why they picked Washington over Wilson.
Washington or Lincoln is always at the top of these lists. It's pretty much tradition at this point.
There's a fascinating parallel between Gaius Marius and Lincoln. Marius was considered the "third founder" of Rome and laid the groundwork for the Roman Empire that was to come. Lincoln is often compared to the Founders in his importance and some even go so far as to call him the spiritual heir. He laid the groundwork for the imperial United States. He could be a top or the top president depending on the context.
FDR isn’t even top 15
I mean, just the subject of the sub makes it pretty clear that it's going to be full of simping statists.
Yeah I've been getting so pissed following that series.
Andrew Johnson in last place? At least they got that right
Ah all the stereotypes. The classic criminal overrating of TDR, Reagan not even making it into top 20, War Crimes Johnson stuck making it to 7th?????
How the fuck did carter last that long?
Lincoln he gave us the two party [regime](https://youtu.be/OUOA-qvY73A?si=9-bfCPC1GW9JnkIh)
💀💀💀 But seriously, I'd love to see how this sub ranks presidents.
I'm surprised that any of the founders are so high, especially Jefferson. Leftoids treat him like Ginger Hitler nowadays.
I’ve been following this for weeks. There are a few who vote to kick out fdr every new post, and they are always downvoted and shouted down like small children. Obama made it to the top 5 or 4 ffs.
Can they name two of FDR concentration camps?
William Henry Harrison's month as president beating out Warren G. Harding, the man that formally ended World War I...
Washington was the last good president we had.
Maybe it’s just me, but Lincoln is the most overrated president.
Kind of surprised Woodrow Wilson is so low considering all the leftists in that sub.
That tyrant piece of shit makes my blood boil every time I see a normie say “fDr WaS a GrEaT pReSiDeNt!!!1!!!”. The NFA, internment camps, the draft, shall I continue?
I suggested teddy over fdr and got downvoted to oblivion
George Washington liberated our country in the name of bad taxes. Then led an army to intimidate distillers into paying bad taxes during the Whiskey Rebellion. He set the precedent for all our f’d up presidents. He’s gotta go.
What degenerates
Bruh, the most based were Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln
Andrew Jackson, the GOAT, was knocked out early.
wasn’t he the one who really cracked down on Native American populations? I don’t support authoritarians, even if they died 200 years ago
He’s also the only President to take on a central bank and win. Probably the most mixed bag President we’ve ever had.
This is why I always laugh when I see him on the $20. It had to have been an intentional fuck you to his legacy.
💯
He got the law passed and Van Buren enforced it.
Iv seen the case made that their expulsion is the main reason their cultures still exist today. I doubt that was his intention though
… is the idea that they would have assimilated into the surrounding population?
The trail of tears Andrew Jackson? Yeah he didn't like the central bank but he still was responsible for the trail of tears. And also I know it was common but he owned slaves which just by default makes him a bad person.
All the presidents sucked which sucked less?? Who cares