What a list!
We have FDR at no. 3, and OK I can understand that for some obvious reasons, but otoh, shouldn’t his imprisoning of innocent Japanese-American citizens maybe, just maybe, knock him down a few pegs?
T. Roosevelt, militarist and overt racist.
Jefferson, racist, owner and impregnator of slaves.
Truman, unnecessarily dropped two atom bombs, killing untold numbers of innocent civilians, and locked us into the national security state under which we still labor. Also a racist.
Obama, blew chance, when he had the popularity and votes in Congress, to enact a New New Deal and clean out the Wall Street gangsters who had crashed the economy. Also continued the wholly pointless war in Afghanistan and greatly expanded drone attacks that to this day kill innocent people. Eighth best? Yeah, no.
Reagan …
Reagan? At No. 9? Holy fuck.
Johnson … the tenth best president ever? You mean Lyin’ Baines Johnson with his little escapade called the Vietnam War? Holy fuck again!
And what’s Nixon doing way down at No. 32? Sure, he’s
Nixon, but still … he actually had quite a number of accomplishments. The opening to China (JFK had mused about nuking China) detente with the Soviets, major arms control agreements, the initiation of the EPA and OSHA, a huge upsurge in desegregation despite his racially coded rhetoric, the Clean Air Act, expanded enforcement of affirmative action, Title IX, and on and on. How in the world does he, with this record, even in spite of Vietnam and Watergate, deserve to be at No. 32, while Jackson … Andrew fucking Jackson … is our 15th best president ever? You mean the guy who committed genocide against Native Americans? Yeah, I guess that must be who you mean.
G.H.W. Bush clearly deserves to be in the top ten (though this is a low-bar list). And how did his idiot son who did so much damage to this country go up to No. 30? Why are Garfield and Harrison even ranked? The first was killed in his first year in office and the second died 32 days after being inaugurated! If I were to rank either of them, I would be tempted to put them in the top ten on the theory that they did not have enough time to do the damage they no doubt would have done had they lived longer.
McKinley and Polk, warmongers and racists, in the top 20 … Do these “experts” remember McKinley’s vile escapade in the Philippines or Polk’s war of aggression against Mexico?
Wilson at No. 11 — vile racist, set back civil rights for decades, got us into World War I … Nah.
One could go on. What’s really depressing is to realize how many utterly shitty presidents we have had. Herr Drumph has good company.
Here's my top ten list:
1. Lincoln
2. Washington
3. FDR (OK, a pass on the internment thing because you can’t deny his accomplishments.)
4. Harrison (!)
Gosh, who next? What a bunch of shitty presidents!
5 G.H.W. Bush
6. J.Q. Adams
Man, this is hard!
7. Eisenhower (though another racist, at least he ended the Korean War, presided over general prosperity, did not try to kill the New Deal as many in his party wanted him to and mostly avoided entanglement in Vietnam)
8. Carter
9. Clinton
10. Nixon (It’s that bad.)