He is probably the president who has spread the most misery to others. The fact that people will say he is good is just so disheartening.
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Historians Rank Obama 12th Best President
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He is probably the president who has spread the most misery to others. The fact that people will say he is good is just so disheartening.
Michael F. Assbender
Banned
I know Lincoln isn't the bright and shiny star of emancipation many paint him up to be. However, imagine if a man of lesser morals were in his place at that time. We may still have a geographically divided nation where the South is a land of slavery. Or hell, if we had a capitulator in Lincoln's place, maybe the whole country would've gone pro-slavery to avoid war.
That's not to say Lincoln is the only man that could've or would've done what he did. But to face down the prospect of war and not blink; to free the slaves at a time when half the country was ready to spill blood in order to prevent it; to get shot in the head to prove he's not made of metal, as was the rumor (I'm kidding on that one...I haven't slept in two days because of work so I lost my train of thought).
Anyway, I'd put Lincoln first. FDR second. Washington third. Millard Fillmore fourth.
Kidding on that last one.
I 100% agree, but I'm talking about within the confines of Republicans. Might not say a lot, but compared to other Republicans he was practically a saint. Hell, he even put in the work to run for president unlike Trump.
The only conditional surrender that Japan was willing to accept at that point was a surrender where they retained their empire. That wasn't acceptable to the US and I don't think it is acceptable either.
Not quite sure the difference between the A-bomb and firebombing anyways. Firebombing could have even lead to more deaths because the Japanese might have assumed that we didn't have another A-bomb and would have held out longer as a result.
He kept Reconstruction alive and tried to enforce it with the power of the federal government after Andrew Johnson tried to sabotage it.
Reconstruction is one of the major turning points in American history. Its failure is America's failure. Grant deserves major props for trying to keep that hope alive, even though it was badly damaged by that fucker Johnson.
Also, Grant's cabinet did that. There is no evidence or proof that he did that or even knew about it. My guess is that he did not because no scandal like that happened in his Army during the Civil War.
Frozenprince
Banned
Or you could maybe read some of them? He wasn't even a successful Republican president. He, like Clinton, rode a boom he was largely unresponsible for and launched a large scale and invasive curtailing of civil liberties under the guise of a war on immorality
theignoramus
Member
Ive read the exact opposite: The Japanese were willing to surrender but wanted to retain their emperor, not their physical empire.
Frozenprince
Banned
Some factions were, but the Japanese civil infrastructure was, to be blunt, completely broken, there was no internal communications at all of any pertinent value. In fact many among the emperor's advisors didn't even know the US sent surrender terms after Hiroshima IIRC. Add in the fractured factionalism among the military and there was legitimate concern over Japan's willingness to surrender.
Yeah I agree with this, its perfectly reasonable that even presidents like Obama will be looked as "pieces of shit" 50 years from now for by the enlightened men/women of the time for one reason or another. Imagine this hypothetical message "That Obama guy was a massive piece of shit, he sustained and towed the line of income inequality and had people starving in the streets while Donald Trump sat on 4.5 billion dollars!" (imaging a future that moves towards a social democracy).
Frozenprince
Banned
Woodrow Wilson was considered to be racist and intolerant even for his day.
Coriolanus
Banned
the line for piece of shit with obama is more easily attained with an attack on his drone policy.
This is true as well. Can't believe I forgot about it...
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
There is no evidence suggesting that the American leadership believed that a total surrender was imminent. We have evidence that the cabinet was deadlocked substantially over the decision to keep fighting, and that the twin shocks of the atomic bombings and Soviet attack broke this deadlock. After the decision was made, a military coup was attempted to try and reverse the decision. If you believe you're capable of disentangling the significance of the two simultaneous events, then you should present your findings to a historical journal, because the current consensus is something like "lol dunno, both important but don't know which was more important".
Even if there was evidence that America knew peace might happen in August, the decision to drop the bombs had been made prior to the event. Authority over the precise dates were delegated to forces on the ground based on their judgement and prevailing weather conditions. The morning of the bombing, Truman was not called up and asked to push a red button or anything like that. It was a signed order, which filtered down to people on the ground who had to actually do the dropping.
They were going to just keep dropping bombs as soon as they could ship them. And why wouldn't they? They'd been annihilating every scrap of industry they could find from the air for over a year at this point. Setting fire to cities, hitting populated areas, the lot of it. That's what WWII was. The Japanese had bombed China, the Germans had bombed Britain, the British had bombed Germany, and when America got involved they bombed every enemy country they could. They had control of the skies over Japan, just like they had Germany, and they were going to bomb Japan to suppress it's industry, military bases and everything near them (because you couldn't accurately bomb anything with the technology of the day) until the forces were prepared for a ground invasion or the Japanese surrendered of their own accord.
I would generally agree that the decision to drop them was not done on humanitarian grounds, but neither was it done on cynical ones. The idea of the atomic bombings as a special case has taken root firmly in the psyche of the modern world, in small part because it is a single visceral that it is easy to understand the horror of, and in part because of a firm understanding of what came next historically, the atomic age, the cold war, the spectre of nuclear annihilation hanging over the whole world.
"Atomic Bomb" vs "Invasion" was not a decision that Truman or his predecessor faced. The actual decision was "Atomic Bomb, yes or no?" The plan was to use atomic bombs, in addition to mass conventional bombing raids, more or less as they could, and then to invade when forces were in the field. And the government did believe they would need to invade. They made active preparations to do so. The government clearly hoped that the bombs would force a capitulation, but they were not betting the farm on it, they had every contingency covered.
Pearl Harbor was a military installation. And while there were attacks like the Oklahoma City bombings. These were by far the biggest and most effective.
Secession tensions were at an all time high and he basically said lol tldr dont care instead of trying to mediate anything, practically encouraged the Confederate states to move to do their own thing
Frozenprince
Banned
Short version (long version when I get up) he sat and watched as the south seceded in all but name and did nothing.
As my old history teacher once told me about him and his reputation, "he's every little boy's favorite president, and most historians happen to be men"
I don't agree. I think it's the opposite, actually. Years from now, the vitriol from the hateful segment of the right will be looked at as embarrassing and he'll go down as one of the great presidents.
Not like, top 5. But up there.
Ushered in the Progressive Era at the presidential level and really transformed people's ideas of what the executive could do. Also, after the string of bad-to-mediocre presidents that followed Lincoln, he was like a bolt of lightning.
Black Republican
Member
about Cleveland, is it still possible for a president to lose reelection but run again and win for a final term these days? or did they change that rule after Cleveland?
Yep, nothing against that, you just can't have more than two terms
Frozenprince
Banned
Cleveland was a special case anyway given that he won the popular vote in 88 anyway. It'd take a perfect set of circumstances to accomplish it again which is why there is nothing regarding it in electoral reforms.
Count of Monte Sawed-Off
un33dab@dpu$$y
Why accept a conditional surrender though? Japan was insanely militaristic and could have posed a threat later on. Better to force an unconditional surrender than have to face the same enemy 20 years down the road when maybe they have nukes. And a prolonged conventional bombing could have cost more lives. Japan was not a rational nation at the time, and many in power wanted to fight to the death.
There is no evidence suggesting that the American leadership believed that a total surrender was imminent. We have evidence that the cabinet was deadlocked substantially over the decision to keep fighting, and that the twin shocks of the atomic bombings and Soviet attack broke this deadlock. After the decision was made, a military coup was attempted to try and reverse the decision. If you believe you're capable of disentangling the significance of the two simultaneous events, then you should present your findings to a historical journal, because the current consensus is something like "lol dunno, both important but don't know which was more important".
Even if there was evidence that America knew peace might happen in August, the decision to drop the bombs had been made prior to the event. Authority over the precise dates were delegated to forces on the ground based on their judgement and prevailing weather conditions. The morning of the bombing, Truman was not called up and asked to push a red button or anything like that. It was a signed order, which filtered down to people on the ground who had to actually do the dropping.
They were going to just keep dropping bombs as soon as they could ship them. And why wouldn't they? They'd been annihilating every scrap of industry they could find from the air for over a year at this point. Setting fire to cities, hitting populated areas, the lot of it. That's what WWII was. The Japanese had bombed China, the Germans had bombed Britain, the British had bombed Germany, and when America got involved they bombed every enemy country they could. They had control of the skies over Japan, just like they had Germany, and they were going to bomb Japan to suppress it's industry, military bases and everything near them (because you couldn't accurately bomb anything with the technology of the day) until the forces were prepared for a ground invasion or the Japanese surrendered of their own accord.
I would generally agree that the decision to drop them was not done on humanitarian grounds, but neither was it done on cynical ones. The idea of the atomic bombings as a special case has taken root firmly in the psyche of the modern world, in small part because it is a single visceral that it is easy to understand the horror of, and in part because of a firm understanding of what came next historically, the atomic age, the cold war, the spectre of nuclear annihilation hanging over the whole world.
"Atomic Bomb" vs "Invasion" was not a decision that Truman or his predecessor faced. The actual decision was "Atomic Bomb, yes or no?" The plan was to use atomic bombs, in addition to mass conventional bombing raids, more or less as they could, and then to invade when forces were in the field. And the government did believe they would need to invade. They made active preparations to do so. The government clearly hoped that the bombs would force a capitulation, but they were not betting the farm on it, they had every contingency covered.
I am aware that an atomic weapon had no much of a difference in devastation compared to the fire raids and bombing that was already occurring. I know that the early atomic weapons allowed you to do with one plane with one bomb the equivalent of a a whole flight of bombers flying several sorties a day. Given how America acted after the war, I think that there had to be a want to show force in front of the Soviets and that it must have played a factor. You only have to look at Potsdam and how the tests played out that the weapons were for the Soviets as much as they were for the Japanese.
Nah man, Teddy is the best.
In so many ways, he's the Anti-Trump.
Teddy has all of the machismo that Trump wishes he has. As president he busted trusts, fought corruption in government agencies, passed regulations to ensure clean food and worked hard on nature conservation, establishing national forests, national monuments and the US Forest Service.
And unlike Trump, Teddy was supremely qualified for the office of president, having a long political career as state assemblyman, assistant secretary of the navy, and even New York City police commissioner, where he made his mark by cleaning up police corruption.
If anything he should be ranked higher, seeing as this Roosevelt doesn't have the black mark of Japanese interment camps to his name.
That's very dismissive.
Roosevelt was a stabilizing factor after McKinley's assassination. That in itself is a remarkable accomplishment.
He also deserved the peace prize he won. He made great strides for conservation, brought America to the fore as a global power, began construction on the Panama Canal, and enacted laws protecting workers and the food supply.
He also seemed to realize with his sons death that his infatuation with war was probably misplaced.
Calm Killer
In all media, only true fans who consume every book, film, game, or pog collection deserve to know what's going on.
Aren't we missing someone here? Obama was 44. Only 43 on the list....
Cleveland is both the 22nd and 24th president.
Except Teddy was a warmongering jingoist who was so racist that he was a devote believer in eugenics.
As for FDR, obviously he had his beliefs and ideals that he championed, but he was a political creature at heart. Anything outside of his core beliefs and ideals he would decide based on whether it or not it was good politics, even if it was horribly immoral.
That's still pretty bad, and FDR did some pretty bad shit - Japanese Internment and the government's response to the Holocaust definitely top the list - but I find that less morally detestable than a warmongering jingoist who is a believer in eugenics.
Cleveland is both the 22nd and 24th president, as he served non-consecutive terms. There have only been 43 presidents (not counting Trump, he is not on the list, he makes 44 presidents total)
Chet Rippo
Member
You'd gotta be pretty terrible to lose to William Henry Harrison
Black Republican
Member
if Watergate had not happened, Nixon probably wouldve been top 15 for historians,no?
Maple-Tech
Banned
Somewhere around there.
EPA, opening relations with china, officialy ending involvement in vietnam, pretty good i'd say.
neurosisxeno
Member
I would say the same with Andrew Johnson.
ginger ninja
Banned
Ah fuck it guys. I think Washington was the worst of them all. There was no reason to seperate from the motherland anyway.
obvious sarcasm but hard to tell in this thread
That's an interesting ranking you got there, considering that despite Teddy being a hawk, his presidency is notably marked by forging peace between countries through arbitration and diplomacy. He rightfully won a Nobel Peace Prize for mediating the end to the Russo-Japanese War. He also intervened in the Venezuelan Crisis, stopping a blockade and potential invasion of Venezuela by European powers, ending instead in international arbitration. And for as much as the Brownsville affair is a black mark on Teddy's record, dismissing 167 black soldiers doesn't compare to how the internment uprooted the lives of 120,000 Japanese-Americans for years. Not to mention how many could have been saved if the government didn't turn away Holocaust refugees. I find that to be morally worse, even if you excuse FDR of just setting his sail to the political wind.
I wondered in 2012 if Obama lost to Romney would he come back one day and run again? If he had lost in 2012 he would forever have the 'one-term loser' stink on him, but if he could win a second, non-consecutive term, then he'd be back in business.
Coriolanus
Banned
He'd still deserve a low position for enabling Kissinger.
Michael F. Assbender
Banned
He endorsed Kansas' Lecompton Constitution, which would have forced Kansas to enter the Union as a slave state even though a majority of settlers in Kansas were anti-slavery (and in fact appointed a pro-slavery territorial governor to scrabble together a pro-slavery state constitution, which he then attempted to fast track thru the congressional approval stage to admit Kansas as a pro-slavery state). He was a Northerner with Southern sympathies. While a lame duck president following the election of Abraham Lincoln, seven states left the Union. Buchanan did nothing to prevent it.
But he was also probably America's first gay president. So at least there's that.
Gabriel_Logan
Member
Lol
Teddy was the major champion of the Spanish-American War, was a huge proponent of acquiring overseas territories so that the US could become an Imperial power, backed the panama province of Colombia so that Roosevelt could build his canal, and was supremely disappointed that he wasn't president when WWI started because he felt that that should have been his war. He was calling for US entry well before Woodrow Wilson got us into it.
You are right that while he was in office he used diplomatic power quite well to display the power of the United States, but just because he didn't champion going to war during his presidency does not mean we should ignore that he did it directly before and after. And that matters because TR was a hugely influential figure.
TR's views on race and what he said in public about race also greatly matters. That should be more than obvious now. Even though FDR did some really shitty shit, I have no doubt that if TR was put in the same situation he would do the same thing due to his views on race.
I mean, do you really think this guy is going to take the moral high ground on race?
You really think that guy wouldn't have put Japanese Americans in concentration camps if the generals and the populace thought it was necessary (they were wrong obviously) or prioritize ending WWII over saving Jewish lives?
I have no doubt that FDR was racist, but I don't remember him saying something nearly that bad, and words certainly matter. TR calling whites superior and every other race inferior matters. TR calling for a warmongering imperialist foreign policy matters even though he really didn't do that in practice while he was a president. FDR mostly repudiating that and calling for a good neighbor policy and trying to get Churchill to reject imperialism and the imperial empire matters.
Further him being a political creature also did have a benefit on occasion. For example, he desegregated the military industry based on pressure from Philip Randolph and it was during his presidency that African Americans first actually began to experience gains, which helped to propel the civil rights movement forward during and after the war.
He also decided that he could maybe distract everyone from the Southern slavery problem by painting Mormon polygamy as an equal evil to be stamped out, and launched an invasion of the Utah territory hoping it would rally everyone together.
"equal justice for all" and for his commanding "moral authority"?
Countless innocent victims from drone strikes would say other wise.
Its a ranking. What Presidents would you put above him?
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