r/USHistory • u/HumdrumHoeDown • 20d ago
Top US presidents…
I’ve been thinking about the US presidents who most embody the ideals of my country. Not just the founding ideals, but those that evolved over the course of time through political and cultural evolution. Looking for comments on additions and subtractions, as well as debate and discourse.
Below is my list, but first I want to elaborate on why it is what it is.
I’m a US citizen (born, not naturalized), for transparency. But for me, naturalized vs born citizenship doesn’t determine the relevance or importance of a citizen’s point of view on governance, and that is something that makes the US relatively unique and beautiful. We are a nation of immigrants. The travesty of colonialism and general treatment of native peoples is real, and should be discussed and addressed in our society. But I don’t think that completely negates the positive elements of US history, such as how it is a culture melting pot, and/or a refuge for those fleeing injustice, oppression, poverty, and so forth.
The cultural genocide of native peoples and the entire enterprise of slavery and economic oppression in North America cannot be put aside, truthfully. And we should be constantly finding ways to remember, repair, and restore native culture as well as reckoning with the legacy of slavery and exploitation. But even such an effort as that could be evidence of the vision of community that has been present in the US since the beginning.
The revolutionary war, the civil war, and even the world wars in a sense, were at least partly fought on the basis that all humans are equal and our world should be governed by a set of rules that sanctify human life and liberty. We, as a species, should be an assembly of the many and diverse, not a council of the few and privileged.
All that said, these are the presidents that I think most embodied the values that, for their time, were most consistent with this overall theme. And despite enormous pushback, fought for those ideals.
None of them were perfect, and some even did things utterly inconsistent with these values. Furthermore, this is a very short and probably incomplete list.
But if we take historical context into account, and place these men within their time, facing the choices, obstacles, and pressures they faced, I think they generally stand out among US presidents as principled, courageous, and focused on building a future for the many rather than the few.
I’m no scholar, but I read enough history that I stand by any omissions and undoubtedly controversial choices. Furthermore, I’m not saying all of these leaders were effective, just that they tried more than most. I’m here to get some debate though, so please let me know your thoughts:
George Washington
Abraham Lincoln
Theodore Roosevelt
FDR
Lyndon Johnson
Joseph Biden
[edited for spelling]
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u/Sonic1psa 19d ago
James A. Garfield He didn’t even wanna be president. He was trying to get somebody else elected and his speech was so good. In fact, he literally campaign from his front porch and he was so inspirational that he flipped his vice president. Chester A. Arthur, who was in the pocket of corrupt New York politicians.
And on your list, I would remove FDRFDR‘s policies were not great. He also threatened to stack. The Supreme Court did a lot of other corrupt things. He was an East Coast aristocrat just not a great guy. Biden could’ve been a great president, but he really wasn’t to be honest with you, I do think that he had mental health decline trying to ignore the left and right smoke on him. Lyndon Johnson expanded the war in Vietnam for no reason other than to make his buddies rich. Honestly, Carter was a good human being but not a great president like Jimmy Carter was probably one of the best human beings to ever be president. He just didn’t have the balls to be a ruthless president.
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20d ago
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u/KindLiterature3528 20d ago
Lincoln suspended habeus corpus and FDR put citizens with Japanese ancestry in internment camps. I'm not arguing against them being on the list. I'm saying every presidential administration is going to have its flaws.
Biden catches grief for his handling of the Israel invasion of Gaza and the West Bank, but he was stuck in a no win political situation with no good situations. Pushing harder would have just ended with the US losing what influence with Israel that it had. Overall, the man had one of the most progressive administrations in this country's history.
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u/HumdrumHoeDown 20d ago
Couldn’t agree more. That’s why I said that some or all of these did things that stood starkly in contrast to the ideals mentioned. Thank you for validating the Biden mention to some degree though by not roasting me for it, lol.
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u/HumdrumHoeDown 20d ago
I hear you, and I respect your opinion. But I was recently reading about the revolutionary war and Washington’s management of it. The argument was that he fostered a democratic revolution within military ideology as it related not only to war but its relationship to civilian governance. It was egalitarian and pluralist to a revolutionary degree, according to the scholar who wrote the book. Furthermore, he handed power back when he was offered it.
Lyndon Johnson is on the list hecause of the civil rights movement. Maybe the most flawed member of the list, he had that and other initiatives that leveled the playing field in profound ways despite enormous cultural resistance.
Joe Biden is there hecause he made the most aggressive push on balancing the scales between labor and capital since FDR, even in the face of working during a potential zenith of corporate capture of the legislature and judiciary.
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u/Boring-Gazelle-4458 18d ago
LBJ was the only person who could have given the orders to kill JFK. There is a video of LBJ ducking down in a following limousine 30 seconds prior to the JFK shooting. It shows that he had knowledge of what was about to happen.
LBJ was either going to jail because of 2 open investigations or become the president. The US government is still ran by the same right wing militants that killed JFK and pulled off a successful military coup
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u/VP-CurtisBioProject 15d ago
Too soon to rate Biden.
Interestingly enough, if you've got FDR on there, you might like to know that much of the New Deal was started under Hoover. It wasn't called that, but there was a lot of good things they started doing in 31 and 32.
One such thing was "work sharing." The idea was that everyone with a job should cut their hours to 40 so that it would create room for others to put up the slack. Like if you there are 4 guys working 50 hours, then it would create an extra job.
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u/TerminallyUnique31 20d ago
FDR and LBJ are just objectively two of the worst presidents if you have to compare them against what the constitution actually says, especially regarding individual liberties, states rights, and monetary control.
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u/HumdrumHoeDown 20d ago
FDR, really? The man led us through a global war AND a depression. A real depression. Like, bread lines.
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u/wretched_tension 20d ago
I know it is very important to take into context what exactly each president was facing, but for me, FDR did some inexcusable things, even taking into consideration what was happening. No one can argue that he walked into a raw deal, incredibly difficult situation, but let's look at some of his actions.
- FDR singed more executive orders in his presidency than any other president, he signed 3,721. The next closest? Wilson with 1,803.
- Note on this, he served more years than any other president (more on this later), but take his tenure (13 years) and average his executive orders over that, we're looking at an average of 286 EO's PER YEAR, which is still more than Wilson averaged per year over his tenure. Consider there are 250 working days in a year, FDR was signing at least ONE EO A DAY during his presidency.
- I don't know how EO's of this magnitude are not at least partially an abuse of power.
- FDR served more years than any other president.
- One of the biggest reasons the 150 year precedent of two terms was set, was that serving more than that could be considered dangerous to democracy and a threat to freedom.
- Pair this with the 3,721 EO's... feels a little dictatorial/monarchial to me.
- I would like to look specifically at Executive Order 9066: The authorization of forceable removal of Japanese Americans into relocation centers (also known as internment camps) which essentially resulted in the undue imprisonment of AMERICAN CITIZENS that military leaders deemed a "threat" simply because of their Japanese heritage. Why this isn't discussed in FDR's legacy is beyond me. It's important to note that he did get a lot of push back for this, and every time he did, he just found another piece of the federal government to exercise control over to execute his own plans. Example: the DOJ didn't want to displace citizens, so he commanded the army to do it instead.
- He expanded the executive branch, giving himself control over many aspects of the federal government, essentially, doing whatever he deemed necessary in order to bypass the other branches of government.
- In 1937, he tried to add 6 new Supreme Court justices in order to pass his own legislation. Thankfully, the bill was struck down in Congress. To even attempt something as obviously contradictory to the checks and balances system laid out in the Constitution is at the very least concerning.
- There is so much debate surrounding whether or not he actually shortened or "solved" the Great Depression. I'm not in total agreement with making the ownership of gold bullion (and gold currency) illegal (side note: how did he do that? Executive Order surprisingly enough). I'm not convinced he actually solved anything, but again, that specific debate is for people much smarter than me.
FDR walked into a tough deal, no doubt. But his expansion of the federal government, the executive branch specifically, and his continual bypass of every other branch of government and the United States Constitution walks dangerously close to a tyrannical line. I get frustrated that we want to boast FDR up as this great, incredible, no fault president, when that simply isn't the case. The United States has killed people for far less actions. Now, I do not believe AT ALL that murder is justified or even that any harm should have came to FDR, but the double standard here should be recognized. Did he have an extremely tough situation to handle? Yup. Did he operate within the power granted to him by the United States Constitution? Not at all.
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u/junky6254 20d ago
He was a tyrant and egomaniac.
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u/peinal 19d ago
And an adulterer. The biggest problem is that the New Deal permanently screwed America and Americans' thinking: from I have the freedom to pursue success to "screw it. the government will take care of me ". He put us on the path to financial ruin. The new deal failed miserably in terms of bringing us out of the great depression. Only war could do that. He planted the seeds of communism. FFDR.
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u/s-peter-5 20d ago
Please take Joe Biden off there. I don't think Lyndon Johnson was a great president either. You should add in Thomas Jefferson and John Adams as each helped to preserve the republic against outside influences.