Friday, May 5, 2023

Presidential Rankings

Here you go: The American Presidents, ranked, officially, from best to worst.

 

Top Quartile

 

1. Abraham Lincoln.

He kept the Union together through a brutal civil war, and then freed the enslaved people of America. That said, he frequently suspended the Constitution to preserve the nation.

 

2. Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

He got America out of the Depression, and then went on to win World War II, fighting on two separate fronts. That said, he was responsible for the Japanese internment camps.

 

3. George Washington.

He set the standard for the Presidency, from having a Cabinet, to only serving two terms, to being the Commander-in-Chief. That said, he lead the U.S. military against its own people in the Whiskey Rebellion.

 

4. Theodore Roosevelt.

He busted trusts, made our food safe, was the first President to support organized labor, conserved our wild spaces, oversaw the Panama Canal, and expanded our global influence, all while ushering in the 20th century. That said, he began the policy of America actively meddling in Latin American politics beyond our borders to secure “American interests”.

 

5. Thomas Jefferson.

He vastly expanded America’s territory and power, won our first international war, and showed how to achieve a peaceful transfer of power between two opposing parties. That said, his policies against native peoples and slavery have tarnished his legacy.

 

6. Harry S. Truman.

He had to make peace after the Second World War, helping rebuild Europe with the Marshall Plan, and making sure the U.S. took the lead on international issues like the IMF and the U.N. That said, using nuclear weapons in war remains a lasting controversy.

 

7. John F. Kennedy.

He helped prevent nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis, got NASA ready to go to the moon, and pivoted the Democratic Party away from segregation and towards Civil Rights. That said, as President his management of Congress was fairly ineffectual.

 

8. Lyndon Johnson.

He passed landmark Civil Rights legislation, and launched Medicare and Medicaid while fighting against poverty. That said, he also escalated the Vietnam conflict.

 

9. Dwight Eisenhower.

He developed America’s badly needed interstate highways, desegregated our schools, and incorporated our first overseas states. That said, he also oversaw mutually assured destruction.

 

10. Woodrow Wilson.

He got America through World War I, granted women the right to vote, and helped develop a 20th century blueprint for international cooperation. That said, race relations took a turn for the worse, as did political freedoms.

 

11. James Madison.

He held the nation together during the War of 1812, when the British-Canadians invaded, in what was deemed the ‘Second War of Independence’, and then presided over a period of bipartisanship. That said, he began aggressively expanding into indigenous territory, in Tecumseh’s War.

 

Second Quartile

 

12. James Polk.

He vastly expanded the nation’s western territory, from Texas to Oregon. That said, the grounds for doing so in the Mexican-American War were shaky, at best.

 

13. William McKinley.

He began promoting America as a global, not just a regional, superpower, notably in the Spanish-American War. That said, Hawaii was questionably annexed, the U.S. used concentration camps in the Philippines, and race relations with Jim Crow laws continued to steadily decline.

 

14. James Monroe.

He began the policy of telling Europe to stay out of meddling in the Western Hemisphere’s business. That said, the Missouri compromise on slavery was well-intentioned but didn’t solve the problem, and he oversaw America’s first economic crisis.

 

15. John Adams.

He had the first transfer of power, and set the standard to keep neutral in European wars when possible, avoiding a war with France. That said, his Alien and Sedition Acts were very unconstitutional.

 

16. Ulysses S. Grant.

He got the 14th and 15th Amendments passed, vastly expanding the citizenship rights of Americans. That said, his Cabinet was full of scandals, and tarnished the office.

 

17. Barrack Obama.

He was our first black President, restored international prestige, oversaw LGBT gains, killed Osama bin Laden, and helped shift America towards better healthcare. That said, he continued noxious surveillance policies on American citizens, and had his more progressive executive orders overturned as soon as he left office.

 

18. Grover Cleveland.

He oversaw a period of limiting corruption and political favoritism. That said, his second term was hit with an economic crisis, he used the government to fight against organized labor, killing strikers, and made it harder to vote.

 

19. George HW Bush.

He navigated the complicated end of the Cold War, collapse of the Soviet Union, and reunification of Germany, raised a global coalition against Saddam Hussein, and got rights for disabled Americans. That said, the Gulf War kept Hussein in power, he raised taxes after promising not to, and got involved in a debacle in Panama.

 

20. Joe Biden.

He got ambitious infrastructure and climate change bills passed, and restored normalcy after the pandemic and insurrection. That said, the withdrawal from Afghanistan was terrible, and inflation came roaring back after forty years, during an economy that was recovering from Covid.

 

21. William Taft.

He did even more trust-busting in one term than Roosevelt in two, and saw the start of the income tax. That said, he reversed the civil rights gains made under Teddy Roosevelt.

 

22. John Quincy Adams.

He helped launch American infrastructure, had generally decent policies regarding native peoples, and tried to reign in partisanship. That said, he was not very successful, and thereby accomplished relatively little as partisanship worsened.

 

Third Quartile

 

23. Jimmy Carter.

He brought decency back to a scandalized Washington, and tried to restore American faith in government. That said, he struggled to handle stagflation, promoted deregulation, and America’s role in the Middle East began to deteriorate with Iran and the Energy Crisis.

 

24. Calvin Coolidge.

He finally made Indigenous Peoples American citizens, supported labor reform, and helped ease European tension with the Dawes Plan. That said, he also oversaw the policies that led to the Great Depression, and began limiting legal immigration.

 

25. Chester Arthur.

He finally enacted civil service reform, to promote competency in government, and modernized the Navy. That said, he oversaw the noxious Chinese Exclusion Act, and ineffectual racial and indigenous policies.

 

26. Gerald Ford.

He tried to restore normalcy after prolonged scandal, supported the ERA, and pardoned Vietnam draft dodgers. That said, he also pardoned Nixon, couldn’t tame inflation, and oversaw the messy withdrawal from Vietnam during the Fall of Saigon.

 

27. James Garfield.

He tried to resurrect elements of Reconstruction, prior to his assassination. That said, having only three months as President he was, of course, generally ineffectual.

 

28. Bill Clinton.

He oversaw a period of Pax Americana. That said, he was impeached, oversaw a loss of American jobs overseas, and presided over criminal laws that worsened civil rights.

 

29. Benjamin Harrison.

He passed the first law against monopolies. That said, he oversaw some of the worst phases of the Reservation Era, including the massacre at Wounded Knee.

 

30. Martin Van Buren.

He tried to manage an economic crisis and affairs with other countries. That said, he was not very effectual, and oversaw much of the Trail of Tears.

 

31. Andrew Jackson.

He helped bring greater populism to the Presidency. That said, he began a vicious policy against native peoples, treated the Presidency like a monarchy, and tried to dismantle Washington’s economic power.

 

32. William Henry Harrison.

He did nothing, dying a month into office.

 

33. Zachary Taylor.

He supported California’s statehood as a free state. That said, the integration of territory from Mexico was generally a messy process, and then he died a year into office, not to mention being the last slave owning President.

 

Fourth Quartile

 

34. Herbert Hoover.

He tried, a bit, to help the Great Depression. That said, he didn’t do nearly enough, and the country started to fall apart as Americans starved to death.

 

35. John Tyler.

He had to oversee the first transition from VP to President, due to death, and annexed Texas. That said, the accession was a mess, dividing his own party and creating a worsened political situation, including the first Senate veto of a President, and nearly getting impeached.

 

36. Warren Harding.

He oversaw an era of scandal and poor economic decisions. Furthermore, his Cabinet scandals hampered any effectual attempts at governing, and he had lousy views on organized labor.

 

37. Millard Fillmore.

He oversaw a worsening state of race relations, fervently enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act. Furthermore, he opened all land from the Mexican American War to be slave territory (except California), and continued to not handle the issue with the Compromise of 1850.

 

38. Franklin Pierce.

He oversaw even worse race relations, and continually vetoed any progressive bills, like trying to improve conditions in mental asylums. Furthermore, he oversaw Americans starting to kill each other over the issue of slavery with Bleeding Kansas.

 

39. Andrew Johnson.

He mishandled the reintegration of the Union, and was impeached. Furthermore, his policies focused on poor Southern whites more than the legally tenuous ex-slaves, and set Reconstruction up for failure.

 

40. Richard Nixon.

He was responsible for Watergate, and had to resign in disgrace. Furthermore, he cozied up to the dictatorships in the Soviet Union and China, abandoning our democratic ally in Taiwan, actively prolonged the Vietnam War by scuttling peace negotiations, and pivoted the Republican party to be aligned with the segregationist white voters, notably launching the “War on Drugs”. He admittedly was the first modern President to have decent environmental policies. Administration: 78 convictions, 24 prison sentences.

 

41. Ronald Reagan.

He began reversing thirty years of progress and economic gains due to trickle-down economics and deregulation, and told Americans to not trust their government. Furthermore, he oversaw a pivot away from Government support of organized labor, a worsening of civil rights with mass incarceration, took a do-nothing attitude towards the AIDS epidemic, and oversaw military debacles like Granada, the ‘Star Wars’ defense system, and the Iran-Contra scandal. Administration: 21 convictions, 7 prison sentences.

 

42. George W. Bush.

He totally mishandled the response to 9/11 by launching two costly, largely pointless wars, and the economy suffered the worst crash since the Great Depression due to deregulation, while giving tax cuts to the wealthy. Furthermore, he devastated America’s prestige with the use of secret torture sites and Guantanamo Bay as well as lying to the U.N., ruined our public education system for a generation, reversed environmental protections to handle climate change, mishandled Katrina, and began unconstitutionally spying and collecting data on American citizens. Administration: 13 convictions, 7 prison sentences.

 

43. James Buchanan.

He watched as the nation fell apart on his watch – and did nothing to stop it. Furthermore, he oversaw the total erosion of civil rights under Dred Scott, and violence continue to escalate towards the outbreak of the Civil War, from John Brown’s raid to the Utah War, to Fort Sumter. Lincoln had to build everything from scratch, inheriting nothing to help save the Union.

 

44. Donald Trump.

He acted too slowly to prevent a deadly pandemic, and was impeached for both political corruption and inciting an insurrection after refusing a peaceful transition of power. Furthermore, he undid environmental and progressive reforms, targeted LGBT citizens, worsened immigration including child separation, cut taxes for the wealthy, encouraged violence at his rallies, reintroduced immigration bans, supported white nationalists, supported voter suppression, supported Putin and North Korea, attempted to collude with Russia to win an election, appointed arch-conservative Justices who rolled back citizen’s rights, oversaw an era of democracy backsliding around the world due to supporting strongmen, employed incompetent people to his administration and family members, and violated several ethics policies of the Executive branch. Administration: indictments, convictions and prison sentences ongoing, indictments include Trump himself.

 

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