Here, with no explanation, are my rankings of 20th-Century American presidents.
32. Franklin D. Roosevelt
26. Theodore Roosevelt
42. William J. Clinton
34. Dwight D. Eisenhower
36. Lyndon Johnson
35. John F. Kennedy
39. James Carter
33. Harry S Truman
28. Woodrow Wilson
38. Gerald Ford
41. George H. W. Bush
27. William Howard Taft
40. Ronald Reagan
30. Calvin Coolidge
25. William McKinley
37. Richard Nixon
31. Herbert Hoover
29. Warren Harding
What’s your ranking?
And here are my 21st-Century rankings:
Even as the election has faded & the disappointments have piled up, I still get a kick at seeing Renegade’s full name as #44.
I’d put Ford higher not for his policies but for the personal dignity he brought to the office.
Clinton way too high. LBJ needs to be cut in two — domestic LBJ, right behind FDR or arguably ahead. Foreign policy LBJ, dead last. I know it’s cheating but there’s no other way to account for him.
Hoover is way too low. Coolidge should go in his spot, he created the mess. Hoover just wasn’t equipped to clean it up.
Nixon was more toxic than Harding was gullible, so rank Nixon worst, or maybe 2nd worst ahead of Foreign Policy Lyndon.
As much as everyone loves to hate Nixon .. he really can’t be last .. hell .. he’d probably be like Ben Nelson today .. or slightly to the right of Nelson .. considering some of what he enacted(EPA for one) .. what is funny is that the Limbaugh lovers would hate Nixon .. if he was around today .. he wasn’t pure enough for them
Didn’t Nixon sign on to the Food Stamp program, to help feed the poor.
That’s pure iberal-socialism. Bump him up.
Nixon did a bunch of stuff to cover his a** and to distract from the failures of Vietnam, and his dirty tricks coming home to roost. The credit there is due to social-democratic (albeit imperialist) Congress not Nixon.
Clinton is way too high, and LBJ is way to low.
Come on: what was more liberal Democratic than the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act in the 60s.
This is major, major stuff from a man who had to go against his southern Texas constituency out of principle. We would not be where we are today, with a Black president, were in not for LBJ.
And okay, so T. Roosevelt recognized the dangers of corporate greed first, and he also gave us some public parks. He was a pompous ass, and deserves a lower rating for that fact alone. It is unAmerican to be pompous. We are the informal people, remember? Let the British keep the pomp and circumstance.
Here we go – with spaces and comments
Sorry – mixed up 41 and 43. Bush Daddy goes above Ford, Bush the Lesser goes before Harding.
Obama goes somewhere in the top five already.
Reagan fourth? For what? Single-handedly finishing the Cold War? It’s just another Hollywood movie script that Reagan’s presidency is known for. You’re watching too many videos. Get out of your apartment now and then: there’s a real world outside, believe me.
Sorry – were you reading my post? The reason I gave was “Evil Faceman Genius” – which is, I’ll admit, cryptic, but has nothing to do with the Cold War.
Reagan was on deck when the Soviets ran out of money. That’s about all. He did stir up Afghanistan, which cost them a lot, but I really wasn’t talking about the cold war.
I was talking about his Max Headroom superpowers – to be the perfect affable but tough frontman to do major evil. My rankings aren’t a “I like them” more a “Rank their mojo” ranking.
Truman below Carter, Clinton and Johnson? Wow. Clinton above Kennedy? OK, I’ll try my hand at this…
Monumental presidencies
Great presidencies
Nearly great (i.e. troubled) presidencies
Adequate presidencies
Mediocre presidencies
Awful presidencies
Carter appointed Paul Volcker, who established the policy that ended inflation. Nothing like being effective after you leave office to destroy your reputation.
Likewise, Truman’s architecture of defense and NATO and the Marshall Plan was more instrumental to winning the Cold War than Ronald Reagan’s blustering. Reagan at least had the good sense to ignore the neo-cons in his party and sit down with Gorbachev to reduce weapons production.
Yeah right. After first appointing the utterly inept William Miller.
Agreed on both points, although I don’t think Volcker’s belated success was enough to rescue Carter’s presidency from a qualified failure. I admire Carter personally, and his Middle East diplomacy was landmark, but his character was unsuited to the presidency. He set up Reagan in much the way Bush 43 set up our current guy: People wanted somebody entirely unlike him. (Of course Nixon did plenty to set Carter up in turn.)
As for Truman, his handling of the opening round of the Cold War is a big part of why I rank him in the top category. Reagan’s contributions in ending the Cold War were not of the same magnitude, but they were still significant. For me, Truman is in the Rushmore-worthy category, and Reagan falls short. I don’t mind ranking Reagan with Wilson, however — another president of enormous ambition — or with Eisenhower, whose largely effective management of the Cold War is similarly marred by support for bloody regimes abroad.
Volcker destroyed the middle class with unbearable interest rates that destroyed home ownership, family farms, and great corporations that had good union jobs.
I lived as an adult in America, both pre- and post- Volcker and I’ll hate him to my dying day, although I was relatively unscathed compared to most.
Move Bush down a category and I’m with you on the categories.
I’m considering life long impact as well as their own Presidency. I think Reagan’s impact has had much more of a negative than most realized it would. I think on the other hand Eisenhower and Truman have shaped our lives today in ways which we can’t yet determine whether the impact is positive or negative but certainly substantial. George W Bush makes everyone’s all time favorite as last (Harding), move up one place. Almost everyone admits to being glad that he’s no longer President. Kennedy certainly inspired many people but unfortunately he didn’t get the time needed to see what he could have accomplished. I continue to be impressed by President Carter and his efforts that seem much more genuine than Clinton’s.
I would move Clinton down several spots because of the unintended (?) consequences of NAFTA and the expansion of the world monetary system (I forget the TLA).
I would move Truman up because of his integration of the U.S. Military.
I would move Carter up because, while not the most effective, was by far the most intelligent.
Think about the lasting impact on this country for good or ill.
I’m not much of a historian (to say the least,) but I can’t see a reason to put GHWB below Nixon. The Southern Strategy and the Watergate mentality poisoned American politcs to a far greater extent than anything Bush I did.
Here are my reasons:
We live more under the world he created that the one that Ronald Reagan created.
1, FDR; No explanation needed.
2, Teddy Roosevelt; Both Roosevelt’s has an air of greatness about them
3, Truman.
4, Clinton; Could care less about his moral failings. Presided over the best economy in 40 years.
5, Wilson.
6, Kennedy; Tempted to put him in the incomplete category, since he lasted only three years, but did enough to be put here.
7, Eisenhower; Great commander. Adequate president.
8, Reagan; Conservative God, but to me a less than stellar presidency.
9, Johnson; Good social agenda. Vietnam haunts him though.
10, Coolidge.
11, George Bush; I like him personally, but as president, not so much.
12, Carter; Sorry, but Jimmy never did much for me. Still doesn’t to this day. Very weak presidency.
13, Taft.
14, Mc.Kinley.
15, Nixon; Was a good president until his dark side got in the way. Then became a laughingstock.
16, Hoover; We all know what happened on his watch.
17, Harding; Miserable failure.
Incomplete;
Gerald Ford. Only served 2 years. I can’t judge him on that short a time.
Some comments:
JFK gets top billing for Cuban Missile Crisis and for easing tensions during Cold War.. also for having the prescience to plan for withdrawal from Viet Nam
Wilson is at the bottom for getting the US into WW1 (after campaigning on a deceitful peace platform) and the disastrous post-war conference.
LBJ is next worst for Viet Nam and my general impression that he was the most despicable individual ever to hold the office.
I’m not an FDR fan. It seems to be overlooked that his economic policies failed to end the Depression and may have prolonged it. His human rights record is abysmal. He was an effective wartime leader, so that compensates for his faults, making him middle of the pack on average.
Re Wilson’s ranking, I believe perhaps you have forgotten the 1917 Zimmerman telegram’s effect on Wilson’s decision to join the war in association with the Allies. Up until that point, the Germans could always claim that the hostile action was a mistake by a soldier or sailor in the field. The Zimmerman telegram confirmed that the Germans had crossed the line into declaring war against the US itself. Wilson had no way of knowing in 1916 that German desperation would prompt them to become a declared enemy.
I suspect Wilson’s mind was already made up. And obviously, the Germans felt the same way, or they would not have sent the telegram.
No evidence exists that Wilson’s mind was already made up during the Presidential election of 1916 that he would be going to war after the election, despite prior German provocations. Until the Zimmerman telegram, the Germans always had deniability to claim by higher authority. Once the US was handed the Zimmerman telegram and its authenticity was confirmed, German hostility and duplicity couldn’t be denied. Further, the Germans had no reason in mid-1916 to believe that they would almost definitely loss the war without a major throw of the dice. They were bleeding the French and British dry and were kicking the crap out of the Russians. Only with the final wind-down of the Verdun offensive and British intransigence in the face of the Somme losses could the Germans appreciate that they were going to loss the war, prompting the desperation expressed in the Zimmerman telegram. Hell, when even the Mexican general staff concluded that the Germans were partaking of chemical refreshments, one has to ask why the Germans bothered to send the telegram in the first place.
Good to see someone besides me rates JFK so high and LBJ so low. Ditto on seeing him as despicable — I’d say personally corrupt and the biggest liar we’ve had (or until Bush, Jr).
Interesting observations about FDR. I agree partly on his econ recovery program, but that was in the 36-7 period, following re-elect, when he was feeling his oats I guess, and felt it was safe to revert to his true beliefs, which were more of the laissez-faire attitude than most of his backers would like to admit. He also tends to be only slightly dinged by the historians, and libruls, for his unnecessary internment of the Japanese-Americans, a black mark on his presidency which should count for more on the downside in his overall evaluation. But, like Lincoln, he’s sort of entrenched in concrete in the public and historical mind, and it’s hard to move him off his pedestal.
In my book, FDR also needs downgrading somewhat for failing to do more to save more Euro Jews. Instead, he seemed far more interested in preserving his political high standing. There were things he could have said, using his bully pulpit and fireside chats, to bring this issue more to the forefront, imo, and move public opinion to wake up about what was happening.
Looking at the list reminds us that, indeed, pretty much anybody can be president regardless of intellect, talent, honesty, or even likability. I can’t rank them in order, so here’s my classifying exercise, based on their lasting legacies:
Flawed Greatness
FDR
Theodore Roosevelt
Lyndon Johnson
More Good Than Bad on Balance
Harry S Truman
William J. Clinton
James Carter
Woodrow Wilson
Had Redeeming Facets
Richard Nixon
William Howard Taft
Straight-up Mediocrity
Dwight D. Eisenhower
William McKinley
Calvin Coolidge
Herbert Hoover
George H. W. Bush
Enemy Combatants
Ronald Reagan
Warren Harding
Incomplete
John F. Kennedy
Gerald Ford
I like this.
What was Taft’s redeeming facet?
Well, it’s a bit of a stretch, but he shepherded the 16th Amendment through, which made the federal income tax, including the corporate tax, possible. He continued Teddy Roosevelt’s trust busting activities. Also promoted civil service hiring. His “dollar diplomacy” was a mixed bag at best, but an improvement on gunboat diplomacy.
And he was the last US president with a beard.
And he was the last US president with a beard.
lol!
The Best: FDR, Kennedy. Both were given major crises to deal with, both passed the test. Also the two most inspiring progressive presidents of the century. TR, the Imperialist, is overrated.
Ridiculously Underrated: Clinton. 8 of peace/prosperity. Stayed sane, somehow, in face of the most vicious and unfair opposition and media onslaught any president faced in the 20th C. Impeached for a trifling personal matter should count as points in his favor.
Needs a Second Look/Upgrade: Jimmy Carter. Camp David. Attempt to educate fat and happy American public about energy crisis.
Ridiculously Overrated: Harry Truman. Unnecessary atom bomb use, twice. Beginning of Cold War, peacetime MIC development and scary loyalty tests. Failed to go after Joe McC.
Ike too, also overrated, wimped out on Joe (“I won’t get into the gutter with him!”), watched passively as the MIC grew and his CIA ran wild against democratically elected gov’ts all over the world. Failed to take advantage of Uncle Joe’s death, early in his presidency, when the USSR was signalling it wanted a thawing of relations. Stupid stubbornness. Remind me why all you libruls worship this do-nothing president.
Failed and Unpopular President Deserving of Low Rating: LBJ. Unnecessary war which divided the nation. Crazy paranoia led to domestic political spying by gov’t, with friend J Edgar even more empowered. Credibility Gap/distrust of gov’t began on his watch, and for good reason. My grandmother, as president, could have passed the Civil Rights and Voting Rts Acts, given the massive Dem majorities, and changed social mindset, in 64-5.
Not Quite The Worst/Deserves Slight Upgrade: Warren Harding. Just for his Race Speech — political, economic and educational equality for blacks — given in, ferchrissakes, Birmingham, Alabammy in front of a huge mixed race crowd: I’m going to tell you some things “whether you like it or not!” Did the supposedly great TR ever make such a principled but socially explosive speech when he was president?
Re Warren Harding, I would give you some points for identifying something positive about the Harding. However, what did Harding do to follow up on that policy? I believe he had a Republican Congress available to him and he did nothing. Of course, what could one expect from an Ohio President who was owned by the mining and extraction industries which were headquartered there.
RE LBJ, I wonder if you know anything at all about the way Congress worked in the early 1960s. LBJ was absolutely influential in forcing the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts through, in the face of opposition from many of those Democrats who were in the majority. Those were the days of the “solid South” and that didn’t refer to Republicans in the South either. LBJ had to hammer out a coalition of the northern Republicans and just enough Democrats to enable the legislation to be passed, which required a super-majority to get past cloture votes. Don’t dismiss that skill to lightly.
I’m fairly well read on the 63-5 period wrt civil rights legislation. Remember though that, post-Dallas, the attitude of many in the country had softened somewhat in reaction to the ugliness and great tragedy, and in many minds they linked the political violence with the racist extremism that was oppressing blacks.
There was the filibuster of 64, but — little known story — it was not Johnson but majority leader Mansfield who decided on the key strategy which eventually led to the bill’s passage (he kept the bill out of segregationist Eastland’s Judiciary Comm’ee, and instead kept it “on the floor”, where it would become the senate’s only business until it was dealt with up or down).
Mansfield also, and not Lyndon, was mostly responsible for softening up minority leader Dirksen in the sense that, unlike when LBJ was leader, he used respectful, quiet personal “diplomacy” with Ev, and always took care to keep him informed and involved about the bill. It was Mansfield’s strategy which eventually wore down and forced the filibustering southern Dems to give up — in stark contrast to the last CR bill, of 1957, when leader Johnson’s all-night/”cots and pajamas” strategy allowed the filibusters to have the upper hand, weakening the proponents and ultimately forcing a weak compromise bill back then.
By 1965, and the Voting Rights Act, the public sentiment was still largely softened such that a bill would be politically possible, and a fair number of moderate senate Repubs were already on board. Plus LBJ had a massive 68-32 senate and 295-140 house Dem advantage, and a repeat of the filibuster failure of 64 was inevitable, as indeed did occur.
As for Harding, there wasn’t much to be done legislatively in the political atmosphere of 1921-3. No organized and assertive CR movement existed apart from the fairly unassertive NAACP, and the white politicians willing to speak out (like Harding) you could probably count on a few fingers.