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Best US President

Who Was the Best US President?

  • Abraham Lincoln

    Votes: 15 19.0%

  • Franklin Roosevelt

    Votes: 20 25.3%

  • George Washington

    Votes: 9 11.4%

  • Thomas Jefferson

    Votes: 5 6.3%

  • Theodore Roosevelt

    Votes: 4 5.1%

  • Woodrow Wilson

    Votes: 1 1.3%

  • Andrew Jackson

    Votes: 2 2.5%

  • Harry Truman

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Lyndon Johnson

    Votes: 1 1.3%

  • Other (please list below)

    Votes: 22 27.8%
  • Total voters
    79
digsbe said:
I wouldn't call him the worst. Overall he was mediocre. He grew government in some good ways and some bad ways.
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Easily the worst. America will eventually falter, and when historians look back and judge why, it will be impossible to ignore his idiocy all over what went wrong.
 
proud2Bcatholic said:
I understand your point, but consider this: Did presidents in the 1700's and 1800's have to deal with nuclear weapons and cyber warfare? They never had to worry about their decisions possibly causing the extinction of man. Also, with the lack of communications and media scrutiny back then, its alost hard to tell WHAT kind of guys they REALLY were.
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No, they had to deal with their own problems. Reagan didn't have to deal with being invaded by a great power of the time (Madison did), nor did he have to deal with a Civil War (Lincoln did). While it's unlikely either would have resulted in the extinction of man, different decisions made in either of those situations could have resulted in the extinction of our nation. If we look at the decisions of previous Presidents, that gives us far more insight than CNN, or Fox if that's your preference.

That's like saying James Madison would be a terrible President because in the age of television he would be way too short to get elected, so therefore, Obama must be better because he's better on TV. "Rutherford B Hayes would never be able to use teleprompters..."
 
If I had to choose one regardless of political leaning or philosophy it would be FDR, he took almost insurmountable situations and turned them around.
 
ARealConservative said:
Easily the worst. America will eventually falter, and when historians look back and judge why, it will be impossible to ignore his idiocy all over what went wrong.
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He also managed to turn us into the kind of industrial powerhouse that could defeat facism.
 
ARealConservative said:
Easily the worst. America will eventually falter, and when historians look back and judge why, it will be impossible to ignore his idiocy all over what went wrong.
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I believe he was one of the worst. His social programs and the fact that he kept throwing money at the economy hoping it would draw us out of the depression when it only made it worse. The war is what brought us out of the depression.
 
SgtRock said:
I believe he was one of the worst. His social programs and the fact that he kept throwing money at the economy hoping it would draw us out of the depression when it only made it worse. The war is what brought us out of the depression.
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attributing the war to economic good times is a textbook example of the broken window fallacy.
 
DA60 said:
Who do you think was the best US President?

Don't know.

I believe one thing...every one since (and including) at least Hoover is a big failure - some more then others.
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But not going back to Harding? That's interesting...
 
rocket88 said:
He also managed to turn us into the kind of industrial powerhouse that could defeat facism.
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He had nothing to do with it. The longer we sat on the sidelines while the world was at war, the more we benefited.

I do not attribute our reluctance to go to war on him. That was the American sentiment, and if anything, he pursued policy to alter that opinion.
 
ARealConservative said:
FDR was the worst president in our history.
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Why are you trying to argue with me? I never cited FDR as the greatest. I'd put him in the middle of the field. You can debate someone who cited him as the best, if you'd like.
 
It is sad state of affairs that all the “great presidents” are the ones that took us to war or fundamentally changes the political landscape. It’s essentially the squeaky wheel syndrome in disguise.
 
ARealConservative said:
He had nothing to do with it. The longer we sat on the sidelines while the world was at war, the more we benefited.

I do not attribute our reluctance to go to war on him. That was the American sentiment, and if anything, he pursued policy to alter that opinion.
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Not really, eventually America's involvement in the war was inevitable. The real question is do you want to fight the Nazi's in 1942 when they're bogged down in Stalingrad, or do you want to wait until 1950 when they've already wiped out our allies.

Eventually, the war would come here. Roosevelt saw the threat that was facism and knew that war would be necessary. Either we could wait for it to come to us, or fight on our terms.
 
zgoldsmith23 said:
Why are you trying to argue with me? I never cited FDR as the greatest. I'd put him in the middle of the field. You can debate someone who cited him as the best, if you'd like.
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who says we are arguing?

You posted "FDR was a failure?".

I replied with my opinion that he was the worst president in our history.
 
ARealConservative said:
who says we are arguing?

You posted "FDR was a failure?".

I replied with my opinion that he was the worst president in our history.
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I think calling him the worst in a bit of hackery on your part.
 
rocket88 said:
Not really, eventually America's involvement in the war was inevitable. The real question is do you want to fight the Nazi's in 1942 when they're bogged down in Stalingrad, or do you want to wait until 1950 when they've already wiped out our allies.

Eventually, the war would come here. Roosevelt saw the threat that was facism and knew that war would be necessary. Either we could wait for it to come to us, or fight on our terms.
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FDR had nothing to do with our ability to fight fascism. We were on the most sound economic platform due to our late entry into the war, and have always been war capable.
 
zgoldsmith23 said:
I think calling him the worst in a bit of hackery on your part.
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It's my honest opinion. he was an absolute disaster, and the damage he caused is still causing ripple effects.
 
ARealConservative said:
It's my honest opinion. he was an absolute disaster, and the damage he caused is still causing ripple effects.
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An absolute disaster? The American people certainly disagreed around that time - as do most historians now (apparently).
 
zgoldsmith23 said:
An absolute disaster? The American people certainly disagreed around that time
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don't make we Godwin this thread

- as do most historians now (apparently).
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yep, they love the presidents that take us to war and fundamentally change the political landscape. most people reject our views on just about everything too. so does that make libertarianism wrong?
 
TurtleDude said:
FDR was not a failure if you supported massive mutations of the constitution, massive expansion of the federal government and rejection of over 100 years of precedent by the USSC. So FDR was certainly a "great president" to the left. For those of us who wanted the limited federal government the founders envisioned, FDR was the most malignant and pernicious president ever with Wilson and LBJ close seconds for the same reasons
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We should be able to reverse what he has done that is so terrible for the US. It has been decades since his measures were instituted. We have seen wrongheaded decisions be reversed before such as the 18th Amendment being repealed with the passing of the 21st Amendment, regulation of the financial industry instituted after in the crash of 1929 only to be repealed in the 1999 as it was the Glass–Steagall Act essentially ignored, then Obama in his banking bill, to name a few.
 
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ARealConservative said:
don't make we Godwin this thread



yep, they love the presidents that take us to war and fundamentally change the political landscape. most people reject our views on just about everything too. so does that make libertarianism wrong?
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It certainly doesn't. I'm not gonna argue that FDR was the best of all time but I will argue that he wasn't the worst. Grant, IMO was the worst. For one, he was on the bad side of the War of Northern Aggression. Second, he did absolutely nothing positive with his Presidency. Third, the only thing that significantly happened during his time in office was the Black Friday scandal and rampant corruption throughout his office because of promised positions from his time as leader during the War.
 
zgoldsmith23 said:
It certainly doesn't. I'm not gonna argue that FDR was the best of all time but I will argue that he wasn't the worst. Grant, IMO was the worst. For one, he was on the bad side of the War of Northern Aggression. Second, he did absolutely nothing positive with his Presidency. Third, the only thing that significantly happened during his time in office was the Black Friday scandal and rampant corruption throughout his office because of promised positions from his time as leader during the War.
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Grant's actions had no real future ramifications for the country so I don't find your criteria to be particularly useful in weighing the worst.

FDR has. the heavily divided political climate we see today was born out of his fundamental shifting of what the Federal government does.
 
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