In honor of President’s Day, this is my list, pulled from the top of my head based on a lot of half remembered history. It contains plenty of recency bias and penalizes Presidents about whom I’ve read bad stuff in the more recent past. They get penalized for my ignorance: for example JFK gets credit for his handling of the missile crisis, but I don’t happen to know much about his other accomplishments, meanwhile LBJ had plenty of flaws, but his work on civil rights and the social safety net are pretty extensive and continue to have an impact on our daily life. And I try to filter out stuff they did while not President: for example, Ike gets no credit for World War II and Grant gets no credit for the Civil War. On the other hand, I don’t do this reliably: Madison probably gets a lot of warm fuzzies from me for having written the Bill of Rights. So, here you go:
- Franklin Roosevelt
- Abraham Lincoln
- George Washington
- Theodore Roosevelt
- James Madison
- James Monroe
- James K. Polk
- Thomas Jefferson
- Dwight Eisenhower
- Lyndon Johnson
- Joe Biden
- Barack Obama
- Bill Clinton
- George H.W. Bush
- John Quincy Adams
- John Kennedy
- Jimmy Carter
- Grover Cleveland
- Herbert Hoover
- Ulysses S. Grant
- Harry Truman
- Gerald Ford
- Ronald Reagan
- William Taft
- William McKinley
- Martin Van Buren
- James Garfield
- John Adams
- Zachary Taylor
- John Tyler
- Calvin Coolidge
- Benjamin Harrison
- Chester Arthur
- Rutherford Hayes
- Andrew Jackson
- George W. Bush
- Woodrow Wilson
- Richard Nixon
- William Henry Harrison
- Millard Fillmore
- Franklin Pierce
- Warren Harding
- James Buchanan
- Andrew Johnson
- Donald Trump
I’m surprised that you have Reagan so high. I’d love to know more about the reasoning behind many of these. Perhaps over a beer in the near future?
I’m not committed to his placement, but I guess all of the others strike me as worse. Taft did horrible things in the Philippines. McKinley was likely corrupt and worse for workers than Reagan. I could probably see putting Van Buren higher — he was a victim of Jackson’s banking policy which contributed to the Panic of 1837; but the period of his Presidency was a bad time for the U.S. Etc.
Meanwhile, as an adolescent white male, I was not immune to the charms of the rah-rah, Rocky IV style American cheer leading he inspired. Also, for all of Reagan’s faults, I very strongly doubt he was in the pocket of the Russians — something that I find refreshing these days.
I always thought William Henry Harrison should be given a grade of incomplete.
A presidential “DNF!”
Barely a Did Not Finish … almost a Did Not Start!
The sports equivalent would be Aaron Rodgers getting hurt after four plays … based on what I read about Harrison’s medical care and some of what Rodgers has said publicly, there might be more in common between Harrison and Rodgers than you’d think …