Board 8 > Who is widely considered to be the 4th best US president?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I know the objective consensus for top 3 is FDR, Reagan, and Lincoln (keyword objective. I know some conservatives are too blind to see FDR, and some liberals are too blind to see Reagan). But who is often considered for that 4th spot?
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Objectively? Obama.
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not sure if this is subtle enough, but i wish you the best of luck
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This looks like obvious trolling, but Tombolo doesnt usually

TomNook posted...

Oh, never mind then.
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I mean there is a literal Mount Rushmore of presidents
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Obama consistently polls in the top 3.

Had an anti-Reagan post here but on reflection, trolololo (But seriously Reagan was a disaster especially economically)
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Reagan was terrible. His economical plans were disasters. He's only considered any good because people didn't want war with the Soviets and he didn't start one.
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trdl23 posted...

This looks like obvious trolling, but Tombolo doesnt usually

TomNook posted...

Oh, never mind then.

In what way is this trolling? I'm not either party, and I'm not trying to make the two parties go at each other. I'm just curious, because those are always the 3 I see history buffs throw out there. I know Washington, Jefferson, Teddy, Jackson, etc are all named, but I never seen ONE of those stand as an obvious 4th best.
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Reagan doubled down on the war on drugs, sold everyone on a failed economic policy of 'trickle-down economics', and completely ignored the AIDS crisis.

FDR put American Citizens in internment camps.
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FDR is not top 3 due to his attempts to rig the Supreme Court in his favor, interning the Japanese, ignore the traditional rules of two terms, and mismanaging the Depression. Obama is not top 10 and only polls so well because of recency bias and idiots not knowing history - his first term was full of scandals and he divided the country. Jackson was an asshole who did the closest thing to genocide America has ever seen.

Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Ike, and Reagan are probably the top 5. Yes, Ike. Reagan is for his foreign policy alone - he was one of the prominent figures in the collapse of the USSR. Teddy is probably 6th.
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Lmao
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don't bother with the rank and file, lets just get @Eddv right in here
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FDR and Reagan are objectively top 3 now? lmao
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I always thought general consensus top 3 was Lincoln, Washington, FDR. Not Reagan.

When did Reagan get that top 3 placing?
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Solioxrz362 posted...

I always thought general consensus top 3 was Lincoln, Washington, FDR. Not Reagan.

When did Reagan get that top 3 placing?

never, that's why the topic is amusing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_presidents_of_the_United_States

reagan has literally never even placed top 5 in wiki's tracked lists

you can argue he is, but not that he's commonly seen as top 5
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man American presidents suck
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Id say the best president in my lifetime at least... is Bill Clinton???

What a low bar, lmao.

@Eddv

Ive heard a lot of conflicting things about Woodrow Wilson, but hes consistently top 11 in president rankings. Whats his deal?
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The US hasn't even had three decent presidents lmao
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Espeon posted...

@Eddv

Ive heard a lot of conflicting things about Woodrow Wilson, but hes consistently top 11 in president rankings. Whats his deal?

He bad
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Espeon posted...

@Eddv

Ive heard a lot of conflicting things about Woodrow Wilson, but hes consistently top 11 in president rankings. Whats his deal?

Actually, this can probably go to @scarletspeed7 too.
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wilson was a racist dickbag and also had a stroke and was basically a puppet of his wife for a decent chunk of his term
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james k polk free
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Teddy Roosevelt is high up there. John Adams is also very important.
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Steiner posted...

don't bother with the rank and file, lets just get @Eddv right in here

Lets start by saying none of these guys are 100/100 all had major flaws. Lincoln for instance wanted to ship all the freed slaves back to Africa. Presidents in order to be truly good or truly bad need to have crises to respond to and they need to handle them well. That doesn't make them gods among us.

#1 is Lincoln and he will not ever be dethroned. Lets just be clear about that. The stakes don't get higher than the civil war and he really did do an amazing job handling an impossible situation. Died in time to be clean of reconstruction too.

#2 is probably Washington because of all the usual reasons but like lets not take for granted how amazingly hard actually doing things like collected a federal tax for the first time were.

#3 FDR. were it not for internment and his authoritarian tendencies he could have been #2. He brought the American state into modernity and I don't just mean social security and his pro union stuff. Plus Great Depression AND WW2.

And after that we stop having presidents responding to major crises so it does get more challenging but the contenders for #4 (aka the rest of my personal top 10) are:

Eisenhower
Lyndon Johnson
Teddy Roosevelt
James Garfield/Chester Arthur (I take them as a gestalt for a number of reasons)
John F Kennedy
Martin van Buren
William Howard Taft

But number 4 is Ike because all told while his accomplishments arent as strong as the rest his negatives are the most mild.

Eisenhower - managed to wean the country off of the wartime economy and in the process built the interstate highway system. Reluctantly, he was the first president to enforce racial integration. Knock on him? He absolutely gutted labor laws the effects of which we still feel today. Still he is my personal #4.

5. Teddy
6. Garfield/Arthur
7. Taft
8. LBJ
9. Van Buren
10. Kennedy

From 11 on it gets a lot dicier because the negatives begin massively outweighing the positives. People like Wilson and Nixon especially - they did a lot for the nation and the global order but also provided nearly deadly blows to the office and the republic with their flaws. Jackson enfranchised more people than anyone else period, even Lincoln. But also you know...genocide.

Polk picked a reckless war with Mexico the natural fallout of which was the civil war and thus I stick him with all the same stink of your Millard Fillmores and Franklin Pearces.

Obama, Reagan, Clinton belong in the dustbin of the office same as people like Coolidge. They did a middle of the road job in some of the easiest to govern through times of our history. Clinton and Reagan rank solidly below Obama and Coolidge though for certain.

Anyone else?
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Anagram posted...

Teddy Roosevelt is high up there. John Adams is also very important.

Adams is 2nd 10 material for sure.

+ Avoided a war with France and Great Britain that we would have almost certainly lost despite intense popular pressure.

- Passed laws making it illegal to call him fat and also legal for the government to openly spy on its citizens and established that legal aliens had no rights.

He was 1 term for a reason.
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Could you explain why you put Garfield/Arthur together? I realize Garfield died and left Arthur in charge, but you don't do that for anyone else.
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Also, why rank Taft so highly? I've never seen anyone else put him there. I guess he could have been one of our most important presidents had he won 1912 and been president during WWI.
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I think Obama is moreso popular as a person rather than for anything he did as president.
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Espeon posted...

Espeon posted...

@Eddv

Ive heard a lot of conflicting things about Woodrow Wilson, but hes consistently top 11 in president rankings. Whats his deal?

Actually, this can probably go to @scarletspeed7 too.

Eddv is, as always, wrong about Polk. Polk is #4.
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Eisenhower
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Anagram posted...

Could you explain why you put Garfield/Arthur together? I realize Garfield died and left Arthur in charge, but you don't do that for anyone else.

Arthur is just about the cutest story in all of politics so sure.

This is a story about Civil service reform, loyalty and one mans surprising conscience.

Arthur was tapped to be vice President in order to break a convention deadlock going against the orders of the political machine that made him, Tammany Hall and he appears to have been just tickled pink by it. He was so proud to be vice president that he is literally the only person to ever hold the office that had nice things to say about it other than Joe Biden.

Garfield was so controversial among Republicans because hewas campaigning as a reformer who wanted to end the spoils system and institute a merit based civil service. The Republicans however mostly got elected via promises of handing out these patronage positions in large cities because their positions on Labor (and the Irish) made Democrats actually more popular in major cities like New York.

Garfield tapping a Machine politician like Arthur was a political compromise that was anticipated to be the same sort of contentious balancing acts the two offices usually are.

Garfield was shot dead about 100 days into his presidency, ironically enough because he did NOT award a position to someone who felt they were owed one and the Assassin even said something like "President Artbur will save us from your reform"

To the utter shock of....everyone and at the cost of his ever having a political career post presidency, Arthur dedicated himself to the passage of Civil Service reform and was in general a mostly fair minded president who was not really fit for the office but tried his damndest to do what he could in honor of loyalty to a man who was elected on certain ideals I am not even sure he himself held.

And then with some amount of dignity he walked away having accomplished something.

The man basically served Garfields terms when others in the same situation before and since would have done otherwise. He's an anomaly and I love him.
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scarletspeed7 posted...

Espeon posted...

Espeon posted...

@Eddv

Ive heard a lot of conflicting things about Woodrow Wilson, but hes consistently top 11 in president rankings. Whats his deal?

Actually, this can probably go to @scarletspeed7 too.

Eddv is, as always, wrong about Polk. Polk is #4.

oof you tell him
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Eddv posted...

The man basically served Garfields terms when others in the same situation before and since would have done otherwise. He's an anomaly and I love him.

That's actually a really adorable story, thank you for telling it.
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If Arthur hadn't signed the Chinese Exclusion Act he'd be damn near perfect imo, he's one of the only presidents in history to burn all his political capital in pursuit of doing something he thought was right. The historical rankings are always wrong about him because the historical rankings are a sham - Arthur had nobody willing to sing the praises of his legacy after he left office because his betrayal of the political machine made him so disliked.

1. Taft
2. Garfield
3. Polk
4. Clinton
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Eddv posted...

#2 is probably Washington because of all the usual reasons but like lets not take for granted how amazingly hard actually doing things like collected a federal tax for the first time were.

Didn't the federal tax start during Lincoln's presidency? Revenue act of 1861? Or is that different

reagan is definitely not top 5 caliber and obama isnt either. neither of them can objectively be considered great presidents tbh

washington is easily top 3 imo
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Anagram posted...

Also, why rank Taft so highly? I've never seen anyone else put him there. I guess he could have been one of our most important presidents had he won 1912 and been president during WWI.

While Roosevelt gets all the credit for enforcing Sherman anti-trust, Taft is the one who actually went to the mat handling the toughest trusts and monopolies. Hes also reaponsible for implementing a number of measures meant to prevent the emergence of a permanent aristocratic class coming out of the gilded age including things like the gift tax, and pushing for things like an income tax and an estate tax (though those wouldn't pass during his term he was instrumental in their creation and advancement).

Much like Arthur he tends to get forgotten because he turned his back on his own party and democrats sure as hell weren't gonna lionize him.
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Seginustemple posted...

Eddv posted...

#2 is probably Washington because of all the usual reasons but like lets not take for granted how amazingly hard actually doing things like collected a federal tax for the first time were.

Didn't the federal tax start during Lincoln's presidency? Revenue act of 1861? Or is that different

I am speaking here of the Whiskey Rebellion and the tax that sparked it.
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Only Nixon was good

guffguy89 posted...

I think Obama is moreso popular as a person rather than for anything he did as president.

Pretty much. As a person? He seems like a nice person, and pretty charismatic overall. He campaigned really well, and sold most us on him as a president.

Too bad President Obama wasnt campaign Obama. In the end, if you were a banker, a Wall Street big wig, or a higher up in the healthcare industry, Obam is top 10. For everyone else? Mediocre at best.

Rank the worst presidents now eddv

#1 better be James Buchanan
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Anagram posted...

Rank the worst presidents now eddv

#1 better be James Buchanan

That sounds about right.

Bottom 10 sure.

1. Buchanan
2. Pearce
3. Fillmore
4. Taylor (mostly for dying and inflicting Fillmore on us)
5. Andrew Johnson
6. Tyler
7. Polk
8. Harding (first truly bad president to not be directly related to slavery/civil war related failures)
9. Hayes (that didn't last long)
10. Hoover probably

Nixon is interesting in that I can make a convincing case for both top and bottom 10 for him and be right each time.

Fuck you Nixon.
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Harding is easily the worst president.
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He was an utter failure - he was just an utter failure whose failure had no stakes.
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I think the quality of how much he sucks outweighs the quantity of impact antebellum Presidents had. I mean, Harding just fucking sucks.
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Eddv, about where would you rank William Henry Harrison? I'm curious how many presidents are worse than the one who did literally nothing.
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I have him around the bottom because the only choice he did make (John Tyler) was fucking awful.

But you have to get past the dreadfully corrupt, the causes for literal civil war and the 'was so stupid he caused the cold war #11 Harry S Truman' first.

I have him just above Ford (pardoned Nixon, did fuck all else) and below Carter.
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