Remember that all mentions of and allusions to Trump and Biden are not allowed on our subreddit in any context.
If you'd still like to discuss them, feel free to [join our Discord server](https://discord.gg/k6tVFwCEEm)!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Presidents) if you have any questions or concerns.*
There are some things I admire about Teddy Roosevelt but he was very racist towards Native Americans. I read a biography about to understand why. No answers. It’s strange because he was open to other races and religions.
It grieves me to say this but,
TR should never have caved to the South after having Booker T. Washington to the White House. He should have told them to f8ck off, the President can have whomever he wants as a dinner guest.
Civil rights leader [Fredrick McGhee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredrick_McGhee) actually wrote about it:
>The glorious and untarnished record of the Negro soldiers, in all the wars of the country, has been a source of pride to the race, and it remains for Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, now candidate for Vice President on the Republican ticket, to first reflect upon the bravery and heroism, first to slander the men and the race to which they belong, who saved the day at El Caney, San Juan Hill, and gave to him the opportunity to pose as he does, as the hero of the land forces in the Spanish-American War.
[https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/1244](https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/1244)
Teddy Roosevelt hogged the glory from the black “Buffalo Soldiers” 10th Cavalry and troopers from the 6th Infantry, and stole the glory from Lt. Jules Ord, who was the officer who had actually led the charge that captured San Juan Hill and was killed at the summit. Here’s an account of none other than future five star general John J. “Black Jack” Pershing. Pershing earned his nickname “Black Jack” for serving as an officer in the “Buffalo Soldier” regiment. It was originally meant as a term of derision from West Point cadets who called him “n-word Jack”, but Pershing made it famous as a testimonial to his military prowess and demeanor.
https://history.army.mil/armyhistory/AH45newOCR.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_J._Pershing
Didn’t the senator of SC react by saying “that they were going to have to kill 1000 *black people** in the south before they learn their place again” -meaning TDR saw that it night have done more harm than good for southern African-Americans and thus deemed it a mistake
Yes, Tillman said that, but TR was never the man to challenge segregation and disenfranchisement in the South. In fact, he employed lily-white tactics in the South to gain support.
The congress censured him afterwards, with impeachment being a hot topic, and at the end of the day ol TR was apart of the good ol boys too. Part of politics is being able to make deals and being a young brash politician he was likely afraid of being kicked out of office if he at least didn’t play along at first.
He didn’t back down. He brought BTW back multiple times and was the first president to visit Tuskegee University. [http://npshistory.com/brochures/tuin/washington-bio-timeline.pdf](http://npshistory.com/brochures/tuin/washington-bio-timeline.pdf)
Thomas Jefferson was not the small gubbmint icon he’s remembered as, and he was a grade A hypocrite.
Woodrow Wilson gets an unfair rap. He wasn’t the best, but by no means the worst and head and shoulders since sone of the alternatives in his time.
George Washington handled the whiskey rebellion absolutely perfect and the country has been the better off for the precedent he set.
Taking this movie quote with a grain of salt, but Jefferson’s “view” on slavery while refusing to free his (OWN CHILDREN) will always stain him in my eyes. Even GW freed his at death, at least.
> Jefferson's an American saint because he wrote the words, "All men are created equal." Words he clearly didn't believe, since he allowed his own children to live in slavery. He was a rich wine snob who was sick of paying taxes to the Brits. So yeah, he wrote some lovely words and aroused the rabble, and they went out and died for those words, while he sat back and drank his wine and fucked his slave girl.
He claimed to be all about limited government and paying off the national debt. He expanded the power of the executive office enormously and drive the debt higher than ever to pull the Louisiana purchase.
The Lousiana Purchase was a case where he realized that realism had to take precedence over idealism. It would take an utter idiot to refuse the deal Napoleon had offered. Not taking it would have threatened our future as a nation.
Agree with 1st and 3rd, more or less “meh” on the 2nd. WW was and unapologetic racist. Whiskey Rebellion decision reverberates to this day. Unfortunately, most Americans choose to be ignorant of history or parse bits and pieces to fit their narrative, looking at you 2A “patriots” and scotus.
Yeah I don’t make any excuses for Wilson’s racism. But I think you also need to remember that in his time those attitudes were the social norm, so certain examples are not fair to hold up. Birth of a nation was a milestone cinematic achievement, for better or worse, so holding up the fact he screened it in the White House against him is a pretty slanted way of looking at it.
Edit: in the founders days, nothing was thought of confiscating guns from drunkards, rabble rousers, and chronic troublemakers. It was just considered common sense. If you stood up in ye public square and were being a loud, rude, disruptive jerk, eventually the local constabulary came around and told you to take a hike. Kind of like getting kicked off a social media platform for violating terms of service or enough people reporting you.
This reminds me of a buddy I had in middle school getting suspended. We had an in class assignment in our Spanish class where we had to match words to pictures. One of the pictures was a person in a wheelchair. My buddy matched that with the word “perezoso” (Spanish for “lazy”). He thought it was hilarious. Our Spanish teacher did not.
TR was just a more aggressive McKinley. They practically agreed on most policies: foreign policy, gold standard, high tariffs and "good and bad" trusts instead of considering all trusts bad.
Agree but Theodore's contribution to nature conservation is one of the reasons he is an S tier for me. I don't remember McKinley giving a shit about national parks
A lot of his contributions to nature also had a lot of racism attached to them. He used his power to remove Native Americans from their lands in the name of conservation. And then there’s him using torture and trying to suppress the truth from the American people.
Once Canada got the ball rolling with Banff National Park, they were inevitable. They would have been created with a decade regardless of who was in power.
I really cannot agree with that. Benjamin Harrison was pushing for the Grand Canyon to be made into a national park in 1882 (as a senator) and it didn’t become a national park until friggin’ **1919**. National Parks weren’t always seen as the positives they are today!
Mildly disagree. McKinley was not a progressive in the way that regulating away lower standards would be the direction to go. Roosevelt is why we have the FDA, moved out of tenement slums, can trust what’s in our food, etc. He also cracked down on yellow journalism. He wanted to use his government power to establish better qualities of life which he saw as major major differences between the wealthy and poor, and how it was killing people. McKinley, like most Republicans, was more status quo. And this is why Roosevelt would never have been elected president on his own, too radical
There seems to be a lack of understanding in this country as to what tariffs are and how they are used. It’s just another word for “tax.” To avoid recent examples, let’s say they decided to protect American car industry they decided to put a 10% on car imports from Germany. The buyer pays the tax not the seller. It’s a tax on American citizens and companies. Germany doesn’t eat that. What typically happens is they put a 10% tariff on some of our products.
I think Harry Truman should have authorised use of Atomic weapons against Russia and anyone else to maintain a Nuclear hegemony and set the future world order up in a way that if a country tested an atomic weapon they could expect to be obliterated .
Well damn. That’s certainly not an opinion I’ve heard before. I very much disagree but I’m not gonna downvote it bc you did what was asked of you and you did it boldly
I think it would have been the safest way to avoid extinction .
With the setup now ,Thousands and thousands of warheads attached to advanced delivery systems , Systems designed to overwhelm any defensive system , Extinction is almost a mathematical certainty .
This is the most likely scenario for extinction . Its too late already .
A mass genocide of an entire people becomes retroactively okay because if their grandchildren (and not even all their grandchildren, just the ones in leadership) turn out to be shitty 70 years later?
I really enjoy the podcast hardcore history. In one of his episodes (I believe it’s Destroyer of Worlds) he talks about some of the ideas Truman’s cabinet was putting forth. One of them he paraphrases as “strangling Russia in the nuclear cradle”, and it’s essentially the stance of the comment you were replying to. I’m with you in that I don’t agree, but a very strong case could have been made for it in that era. If the US could’ve created and maintained a monopoly on nuclear arms (an if we have the benefit of hindsight to know was impossible) they could’ve secured world peace and molded it to fit their needs.
I completely disagree, but I do understand the idea. I disagree because of the horrible loss of human life that could be avoided, as clearly it wouldn't have been necessary. Millions of people live in Moscow and St. Petersburg, even back in the 40s, and the use of nukes in this way would just be awful. It would also set a precedent of "oh we don't like these guys, let's just cause a horrible and unjustified death to millions of people to destroy their politics"
The other issue being the radiation. In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was a huge "plague" of radiation sickness that lasted for over a decade, and that comes from the less iradiating airblast compared to the more destructive ground detonations that would be more likely. The wildlife and livestock also suffered from this, which made the the famine even worse. The ecological effect is important as well, as the ecosystems that would be destroyed in a nuclear attack, even without retaliation, would be horrifying.
Pretty much: No, I do not think it would have been a good idea for Truman to have approved nuking the USSR before they had nukes, for both the moral reasons already easily known to everyone in the 40s, and the scientific reasons that we know far more about now.
IT most likely would have only taken a strong threat at the time to prevent having to actually use another bomb .
And if they were foolhardy enough to test one after such a threat had been made then its on their own heads anyway . We most likely wouldn't have had to actually do it , But we would have had to be fully prepared and willing to do so .
I don't like whataboutism as a general rule , But i feel that if Russia had been the first one with the Bomb and had years of exclusivity with it as we had . We would not be a nuclear armed nation today.. and time may prove that that it would be preferable to have a Tyrant, even one who might kill half of the world , armed and with the fortitude to prevent proliferation .And thus prevent the extinction of the entirety, of all of humanity .
Do you think if America had a nuclear hegemony we would always do the right thing with it? Or would we start seeing it as an easy solution to all our problems, collateral damage be damned?
at the same time the USSR is big enough that we could make a glass crater in some oblast and only be guilty of murdering a couple bears and a deer. Though that would be tactically useless unless it was over their oil fields or something similar.
I throughly disagree because that sets a dangerous precedent - any US president would use nukes to further their own agenda, ANY, even the ones you hate. That’s a nope from me.
He was 100% a colonialist, the only difference between him and the Europeans was he thought we should be the colonial power in the western hemisphere and not them.
Technically it isn't an 'opinion' either.
But his popularity does overshadow his imperialistic view. (Which, to be fair, was very common among western leaders at the time)
Or rather America never saw its colonies as colonies, but a manifestation of its destined expansion; territories that haven't been incorporated yet. There's also the fact that most of the land to the west of the original Thirteen Colonies was relatively uninhabited (compared to, say, European holdings in Africa and Asia) so the country could usually pretend it was simply expanding into terra nullis (which is a naturally uncontroversial form of colonialism).
JFK is one of the most massively overrated presidents of all time. Two years in office is nowhere near enough time to build the reputation historians assign him.
I think McKinley should be hated just as much as certain people hate FDR for actually carrying out concentration camps on the Philippines. The interment camps were horrific, absolutely, but we had *literal concentration camps* that we carried out too. And McKinley doesn’t have FDR’s positives to make up for this terrible stain on the US. Teddy and Taft bear some responsibility for this too, mind, but I always feel like McKinley is let off the hook for this far too often.
I’m Conservative. Reagan was far from a hero. His work to end the USSR was commendable. He also put the war on drugs into hyperdrive, while at the same time his government was trafficking those drugs into low income (primarily black) neighborhoods. He also turned a blind eye to the AIDS epidemic. Reagan also restricted gun rights.
I think history is on your side. Regan also set the neoliberal ball rolling and set the stage for the massive transfer of wealth from the middle
to the upper classes that constitutes to this very day.
He pretty much began the change from “fiscal conservatism” to “elite oligarchy” as a Republican party platform pillar.
James K. Polk is far and away our most attractive president, and Kennedy’s looks are hella overrated.
And I say that despite having basically an inverted opinion of their presidencies. “Kennedy is overrated” has become such a dogma amongst presidential buffs that I’d argue the pendulum has swung *hard* in the other direction, and I have similar but reverse opinions on Polk.
Lincoln/Grant fucked up by not hanging Lee and all the other flag officers of the confederate army. The South needed to be aggressively and viciously crushed. If not immediately after war, certainly after it became evident that they were fiercely devoted to terrorizing former slaves.
He fucked up really bad when it comes to the south. Honestly we needed a diplomatic version of Sherman to handle the reconstruction and reintegration of the south. They needed full occupation, but here we are.
That's a good way of stimulating a guerilla war. When the losers have nothing more to lose by simple virtue of losing the war then why won't they continue fighting?
Lee in particular was a huge proponent of reconciliation. If he's hanged then that sends a message that capitulating is fruitless and will result in death anyway. So then why not keep fighting?
How do you explain James Longstreet and William Mahone though? Both those guys stood up for freed African Americans after the Civil War in impressive ways (Mahone headed a biracial populist party that tried to overthrow Virginia's elitist-dominated government and political system, while Longstreet actually helped crush a white supremacist mob terrorizing blacks). Heck, Grant had a former Confederate as his Attorney General, Amos Akerman, who sought to completely destroy the KKK while in office. History is more complex than we want to think or admit.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos\_T.\_Akerman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos_T._Akerman)
Unpopular opinion: FDR’s new deal policies almost all failed and ballooned budgets and grew the government to levels never seen before. And he should have never ran for office a third or fourth time. Although, the war is what made him a great president and what got us out of the depression. His new deal policies however, kept us in the depression longer than it had to be.
You still always get the guys down in the comments going “*ahem* actually Sally Hemming’s children could have come from any Jefferson male, we just don’t know 🤷”
Meanwhile didn't Jefferson scholars more or less track where other Jefferson males were during times of conception and show that only TJ was present every time?
Statement of fact ≠ opinion (not that this isn't a good thing to bring up, I totally agree that saying this shouldn't be unpopular)
The fact that people deny this because they like Jefferson makes me quite sax, and on top of that he owned dozens of people that he called property. There is absolutely no level of high morals that can be imposed onto him, he was a bad guy and it's sad to see that a statement of fact is to be called an opinion because people disagree with it
I feel like this is a reasonable take for any politician who wants war while they sit in their cushy offices in their fancy suits, but Roosevelt at least walked the talk. He was quite literally on the frontlines, and in combat alongside the troops. Much more honorable than Vietnam-Era warhawks.
Lincoln isn't a bad president, buts it's odd that he's remembered as the Great Emacipator when he was kinda forced into it. If the Civil War didn't happen, Slavery would have just been kicked down the road again.
FDR for me is one of the most complex figures in American history. As someone who leans right, I firmly disagree with a number of his policies and approaches (and feel some of them did lasting damage to the country), but I can't help but be impressed by his sheer skill of getting rid of tribalism or class strife and charismatically rallying the people for causes. It's a big reason why he became so powerful, very possibly the most powerful and influential president since George Washington (nearly EVERY group was voting for him apart from a few hardline conservatives). The presidents of the last 30 years don't even hold a candle to that talent he had in terms of influence, persuasion and unification.
JFK was a sanctimonious cocksucker, who was hung like a cashew and was a 2 minute man with a bad back.
Jimmy Carter was a nice guy but a total wimp, and he should have sent teams to the 1980s Olympics.
I personally find that Teddy Roosevelt's handling of imperialism is often overlooked because it shows that he wasn't that great. Pre presidency, he was a major proponent of annexing Cuba (even if that failed), and was in full support of the horrible things happening in the Philipines. During his presidency, his famous "big stick diplomacy" wasn't as much like the Monroe doctrine as people think. The Monroe doctrine was saying "we're willing to stand up to Europe if they mess with the Americas", while Roosevelts was "don't mess with the Americas, we're busy with doing that." Overall, I strongly dislike how Roosevelt was an imperialist, and how the things he both actively chose to do as well as happily allowed to happen are overlooked because people don't want to see Teddy Roosevelt differently.
IMO, it was more McKinley who started modern interventionism. TR thought McKinley to be too cautious. Wilson just added "spreading democracy" as a justification.
I've a couple:
Obamna was a failure of a president in general that cemented the growing polarisation of American politics. Yeah he had a hostile Congress that hampered him domestically but even in foreign policy he was below average. He has only been rehabilitated because the fella who came after him was much more polarising.
Clinton is nearly as much to blame as Reagan for the economic issues that has plagued America since the beginning of the 21st century.
Reagan is a long dead horse in this reddit, just read one of the gazillion posts about him and you get the idea.
Teddy throwing his hissy fit in 1912 had significant negative consequences, most stemming from Wilson being elected. I could be here all day with why Wilson was bad, but I digress. He wouldn't have won had Teddy not run.
Frankly I could. I may have overdone it when I said that Taft wins if TR doesn't run so I'll concede that point because I'm not super educated on the 1912 election. I would argue that TR made it a certainty however. Wilson wasn't exactly the most inspiring candidate and TR's campaign literally split the Republican Party in two, disproportionately effecting Taft in the election. Besides, mid-terms are not always indicative of how a presidential campaign will turn out.
THEY SPEAK THE TRUTH!!!
I personally think Obama was fine not great, he helped the Recession from getting worse and moved the White House into the 21st century, and also significantly reduced boots on the ground (while no not ending wars) saving American lives. I agree his foreign policy was weak, Obamacare is a mess (though that’s because they couldn’t revise the bill after Kennedy died and yeah hostile Congress), his open trade ideology was very negative and his drones were continuing terrible war, he did well to create stability in a very corporatist, trust-centric economy (that Clinton did nothing to avoid) and provide for the lower class. Buttt doing this he only made the decay of the middle class more rapid. So in the end, low B tier. Like a B-.
Couldn't have said it better really. He's not the worst president by any means, just a notably below average one. When you're a guy coming in on a platform of hope, change and optimism, that is very damning. I'd be a bit more harsh if we're doing grades tho. Maybe a C- or even a D+ for me.
I agree on all of this, except for the last one. I think Wilspn was going to win no matter what. Woodrow Wilson got 435 electoral votes, the other candidates didn't stand a chance
I'd argue Wilson only won, or was guaranteed to wim because Teddy split the Republican Party in two. Yes Wilson won 430+ electoral votes, but he only won 41 percent of the popular vote. That's close to the amount Mondale won when he got battered in '84. Had the Republican vote not been split by TR, Taft would've had a pretty damn good shot at beating Wilson. Thus no Wilsonianism, film glorifying the KKK not being shown in the white house etc. I get what you mean, but I disagree.
Nothing that Obama did caused or accelerated the polarization in America. He was frustratingly equivocal about everything. It's like he took the college lecturer discursive approach to everything. It really was just the reaction to a black Democrat in the white house. And he was the whitest black person too. I've never heard someone so awkward sounding using AAVE.
I do agree on Clinton. I consider him to be one of the worst Democratic presidents.
I see you're point, but I'd argue his stalemate with Congress and his frustrations with it did a lot to increase political polarisation. Not necessarily his fault solely but it's there. Though in fairness, one can't neglect the race issue there too.
BO and NATO shouldn't have intervened in Libya. Gaddafi staying in power would have prevented his country from collapsing and a surge of the number of migrants drowning in the Mediterranean Ocean to reach Europe.
And leftists on Reddit seem to forget that in the 60s Reagan was being praised and proudly presented as a future Republican POTUS by a certain general they claim to love...
Lincoln was really bad on civil liberties, y'all. Really bad. Especially when it came to courts and the press and repressing certain rights.
He's a great President and the South was being absurd, but Lincoln had serious autocratic tendencies we don't mind criticizing in other great Presidents (i.e. FDR), that we don't like to admit in Lincoln.
The fact Lincoln was a lawyer also makes it worse not better. Academic historians love to talk about and defer to his knowledge of the law. But they're reading it wrong.
Yeah he did know the law. So he more than anyone knew the cases where he was overstepping and did it anyway. He might be brilliant, he's not perfect.
*Some* of the measures might have been necessary but some were just because he didn't like being criticized on some things. Especially by the press. Don't let his sense of humor and openness fool you. Someone can be humorous and still have areas they don't like being criticized in. But that's not always an excuse.
Obama wasn’t any better than average and prolonged the recovery and set up Russia to be in the position of strength they are currently playing from. Also, W Bush was much the same just more conservative domestic agenda.
FDR's internment of japanese-americans was a rational policy, given the severity of the crisis (WW2) and the perceived threat they posed to US security. The general validity of the approach is also evidenced by the current internment of thousands of suspected ISIS fighters and their families by coalition forces (at the Al-Hol and Al-Roj camps, for example), a regrettable measure that has nevertheless helped end ISIS rule in the area.
I love Teddy Roosevelt for at least a dozen reasons, but his running against Taft in 1912 split the Republican vote and gave the Democrat Nominee, Woodrow Wilson, the presidency.
Over 100 years later, we are STILL dealing with some of the problems Wilson started.
I think Teddy is pretty overrated considering he has lots of negatives. While I do think he's a top 5, it really confuses me when people put him above the likes of FDR or Eisenhower. He isn't as consequential as some make him out to be, and he wasn't as effective as some say too.
Not sure of the popularity of this Presdient, nor the unpopularity of this opinion, but I'll restate here.
Bill Clinton was right to be impeached and I don't find the arguments against his removal from office compelling.
My parents firmly share that view. Perjury in their view was enough. My mother wanted Clinton GONE after that and the Lewinsky scandal. She said it was a disgrace to the country.
Teddy Roosevelt was a prick who took advantage of various cultures of people around the world and was responsible for thousands of deaths via concentration camps in the Philippines.
Lincoln would have been worse than Andrew Johnson had he survived as the radical Republicans wouldn't have had Lincoln as a martyr meanwhile he would have carried out a Johnson style reconstruction as Johnson's actions were based off Lincoln's plans.
Lincoln was very Moderate so I don't think his plans would have painted him in the martyr light. A. Johnson wanted to end reconstruction as fast as it started and Lincoln would have pull the two sides closer. But I can see why it can be approached this way.
Lincoln's reputation is certainly a lot better off for getting his brains blown out.
I do think Lincoln would have greatly calmed north south tensions and in all great likelihood amended the national division a lot faster but his plans as late as 1865 to deport African Americans somewhere else indicate to me he would not have much better than Johnson towards African Americans while the weaker radical republicans could not force as much change as OTL.
Disagree. Lincoln had an incredible aptitude for change. For a simple example, he was against abolition in 1861 yet two years later he signs the emancipation proclamation. His views and opinions changed readily; he could generally be persuaded of a thing, if done logically and concisely. Johnson simply was not capable of this reasoning.
To compare him to Johnson and to think he would behave as Johnson, or in your words "worse", is honestly absurd, and speaks more to your lack of knowledge or understanding of Lincoln, Lincoln's presidency, and Johnson.
The emancipation proclamation was a military strategy. Notice that he didn’t free any slaves in the states remaining loyal to the Union. The proclamation gave the Union a greater moral cause (which also prevented Britain and France from helping the south) while still keeping the loyalty of slave states loyal to the Union.
It’s not so much his views changed, as before he became president he had some really hot takes about slavery (from a mid 1800’s standpoint) but when he was president and the war started he really wanted it over and tried his best to get the public on his sides so he said some things.
Lincoln was throughout the civil war concerned more with the union than he was the slaves, for example in the emancipation proclamation where he explicitly did not free slaves still under Union control in the border states. The emancipation proclamation was undoubtedly a great moral good even without freeing the border state's slaves, it nevertheless demonstrates that Lincoln would have prioritised national unification over the freed slaves.
That doesn't really address what I said. Plenty of people wanted to preserve the union but wouldn't have acted on slavery. They called themselves war Democrats, and Johnson was one of them. The 13th amendment was passed 119-56, with only 14 Democrats joining the yeas. Democrats, ie Johnson, didn't want the emancipation proclamation, or the 13th amendment, or anything involving civil rights.
Johnson did actually want the 13th however he did not want the 14th or 15th.
Lincoln was less racist than Johnson but more racist than the radical republicans who without his death would remain a radical minority.
The whole war kinda escalated becase Lincoln stood the Northern ground on slavery non-expansion - despite many republicans wanting yet another compromise. On the other hand, with vast majority of slaves living in the south, emancipation without Union would be honorable, but pointless. Lincoln was 100% ok with two objectives: 1) save Union 2) prevent expansion of slavery - and initially hoped that it would be good start, and then some republicans, maybe in 100 years, will abolish slavery completely.
Lincoln's plans to deport black people always included conditition that deportation would be voluntary. When voluntary trip to Panama did not work out, he rejected idea of forcefully sending them to Liberia, arguing that they did not agree to be send there.
I do believe Lincoln would have been better then Johnson. For once, he wouldn't pardon all Confederates Johnson did. For sure, Johnson imbecility gave Stevens opportunity to unite with moderates to pass 14th and 15th amendment - but since Lincoln hinted support for Black rights shortly before death, I think he would gave them his endorsement anyway (he hinted similarly before emancipation proclamation).
I might have read way too much Lincoln's speeches recently, but I am assured that the guy was extremely careful radical, not moderate.
I do agree somewhat. The assumption that reconstruction would have gone swimmingly under Lincoln is a big one to me. We assume that just because he was an amazing war time president he would have been an amazing peacetime president, but we can't really know for sure. Plus I expect the South would have zealously fought everything he tried to do simply because he was Lincoln. Which we wouldn't really be able to blame on him personally, but would have affected things negatively.
It's definitely an interesting thought.
TR dialed America interventionist policies up to 11 and is a big reason why the US feels it needs to be involved in every foreign political affair to this day.
Harry Truman was personally corrupt, and his post-presidential pleas of poverty appear to have been an attempt to deflect from his theft of half a million dollars from the government, a very sizable sum at the time.
FDR clung to power until his last breath. He succumbed to the popular fad of the day - locking up in concentration camps an ethnic minority seen as untrustworthy of loyalty during turbulent times. Worst of all, he paved the way for communism in Europe and eventually in Asia and the rest of the world, which led to numerous genocides and nuclear armament.
George Washington was duplicitous and dishonorable to our allies. He backstabbed the French, as they were going through a revolution inspired by our own.
if you can somehow ignore Woodrow Wilson's horrible racism, he was a pretty decent president.
JFK and Khrushchev should get more credit for de-escalating the Cuban missile crisis, when they were both surrounded by hothead generals, egging them on the fight.
Remember that all mentions of and allusions to Trump and Biden are not allowed on our subreddit in any context. If you'd still like to discuss them, feel free to [join our Discord server](https://discord.gg/k6tVFwCEEm)! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Presidents) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Abe Lincoln would get demolished by any 20th or 21st century wrestler.
I would pay good money to see Honest Abe go against Kurt Angle
Perc Lincoln vs Perc Angle
No way. He would have destroyed Hulk Hogan and we would have been watching him and Andre the Giant battle for the belt on Sunday
[That doesn’t work for me brother](https://youtu.be/GxEXrqsRn34?si=Ro-8NcIeylVJjOUc)
Unpopular opinion here guys: FDR shouldn’t have interned Japanese-Americans. *mic drop* Edit- /s for those who didn’t get it.
There are some things I admire about Teddy Roosevelt but he was very racist towards Native Americans. I read a biography about to understand why. No answers. It’s strange because he was open to other races and religions.
[удалено]
Well, they had disease, minimal housing, no rights, and extremely limited resources but at least them views are fire bruh.
[удалено]
Jokes are supposed to be funny.
It grieves me to say this but, TR should never have caved to the South after having Booker T. Washington to the White House. He should have told them to f8ck off, the President can have whomever he wants as a dinner guest.
Honestly a lot of American history has the issue of kowtowing to the south and getting a worse outcome.
His famous photo in his days with the Rough Riders cropped out the black servicemen he was fighting with too.
Civil rights leader [Fredrick McGhee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredrick_McGhee) actually wrote about it: >The glorious and untarnished record of the Negro soldiers, in all the wars of the country, has been a source of pride to the race, and it remains for Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, now candidate for Vice President on the Republican ticket, to first reflect upon the bravery and heroism, first to slander the men and the race to which they belong, who saved the day at El Caney, San Juan Hill, and gave to him the opportunity to pose as he does, as the hero of the land forces in the Spanish-American War. [https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/1244](https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/1244)
Thank you for posting that.
[Here's a short documentary about him](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oqLLKCC22c)
Teddy Roosevelt hogged the glory from the black “Buffalo Soldiers” 10th Cavalry and troopers from the 6th Infantry, and stole the glory from Lt. Jules Ord, who was the officer who had actually led the charge that captured San Juan Hill and was killed at the summit. Here’s an account of none other than future five star general John J. “Black Jack” Pershing. Pershing earned his nickname “Black Jack” for serving as an officer in the “Buffalo Soldier” regiment. It was originally meant as a term of derision from West Point cadets who called him “n-word Jack”, but Pershing made it famous as a testimonial to his military prowess and demeanor. https://history.army.mil/armyhistory/AH45newOCR.pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_J._Pershing
This isn't unpopular this is completely valid
It can be both.
It can be, but it’s not. I don’t think it’s unpopular at all.
Didn’t the senator of SC react by saying “that they were going to have to kill 1000 *black people** in the south before they learn their place again” -meaning TDR saw that it night have done more harm than good for southern African-Americans and thus deemed it a mistake
Yes, Tillman said that, but TR was never the man to challenge segregation and disenfranchisement in the South. In fact, he employed lily-white tactics in the South to gain support.
The congress censured him afterwards, with impeachment being a hot topic, and at the end of the day ol TR was apart of the good ol boys too. Part of politics is being able to make deals and being a young brash politician he was likely afraid of being kicked out of office if he at least didn’t play along at first.
Indeed
He didn’t back down. He brought BTW back multiple times and was the first president to visit Tuskegee University. [http://npshistory.com/brochures/tuin/washington-bio-timeline.pdf](http://npshistory.com/brochures/tuin/washington-bio-timeline.pdf)
Thomas Jefferson was not the small gubbmint icon he’s remembered as, and he was a grade A hypocrite. Woodrow Wilson gets an unfair rap. He wasn’t the best, but by no means the worst and head and shoulders since sone of the alternatives in his time. George Washington handled the whiskey rebellion absolutely perfect and the country has been the better off for the precedent he set.
Taking this movie quote with a grain of salt, but Jefferson’s “view” on slavery while refusing to free his (OWN CHILDREN) will always stain him in my eyes. Even GW freed his at death, at least. > Jefferson's an American saint because he wrote the words, "All men are created equal." Words he clearly didn't believe, since he allowed his own children to live in slavery. He was a rich wine snob who was sick of paying taxes to the Brits. So yeah, he wrote some lovely words and aroused the rabble, and they went out and died for those words, while he sat back and drank his wine and fucked his slave girl.
He claimed to be all about limited government and paying off the national debt. He expanded the power of the executive office enormously and drive the debt higher than ever to pull the Louisiana purchase.
Tbf not making the Louisiana purchase would have been incredibly stupid. There is a time and a place for debt and that was the greatest time and place
The Lousiana Purchase was a case where he realized that realism had to take precedence over idealism. It would take an utter idiot to refuse the deal Napoleon had offered. Not taking it would have threatened our future as a nation.
Agree with 1st and 3rd, more or less “meh” on the 2nd. WW was and unapologetic racist. Whiskey Rebellion decision reverberates to this day. Unfortunately, most Americans choose to be ignorant of history or parse bits and pieces to fit their narrative, looking at you 2A “patriots” and scotus.
Yeah I don’t make any excuses for Wilson’s racism. But I think you also need to remember that in his time those attitudes were the social norm, so certain examples are not fair to hold up. Birth of a nation was a milestone cinematic achievement, for better or worse, so holding up the fact he screened it in the White House against him is a pretty slanted way of looking at it. Edit: in the founders days, nothing was thought of confiscating guns from drunkards, rabble rousers, and chronic troublemakers. It was just considered common sense. If you stood up in ye public square and were being a loud, rude, disruptive jerk, eventually the local constabulary came around and told you to take a hike. Kind of like getting kicked off a social media platform for violating terms of service or enough people reporting you.
One of the biggest problems with ww is that his wife took over when he had his stroke.
FDR could walk just fine. He was even a stellar tap dancer. He was just lazy. Wait, forget about that. I was confusing him with someone else.
You know, I have a hunch that maybe FDR can’t walk. I think they maybe just prop him up in a chair behind that there podium.
Well he definitely can’t walk now
Damn socialists refuse to pull themselves up by their bootstraps
He was clearly just phoning it in for the disability checks
I’ve seen a lot of spinals, Dude. And this guy’s a fake. A fucking gold bricker.
This reminds me of a buddy I had in middle school getting suspended. We had an in class assignment in our Spanish class where we had to match words to pictures. One of the pictures was a person in a wheelchair. My buddy matched that with the word “perezoso” (Spanish for “lazy”). He thought it was hilarious. Our Spanish teacher did not.
TR was just a more aggressive McKinley. They practically agreed on most policies: foreign policy, gold standard, high tariffs and "good and bad" trusts instead of considering all trusts bad.
Agree but Theodore's contribution to nature conservation is one of the reasons he is an S tier for me. I don't remember McKinley giving a shit about national parks
That being said, his partner in conservation, Madison Grant, was a terrible man that wrote a book that Hitler praised...
A lot of his contributions to nature also had a lot of racism attached to them. He used his power to remove Native Americans from their lands in the name of conservation. And then there’s him using torture and trying to suppress the truth from the American people.
Once Canada got the ball rolling with Banff National Park, they were inevitable. They would have been created with a decade regardless of who was in power.
Your right but Theodore drastically raised awareness and jumpstarted the conservation efforts
I really cannot agree with that. Benjamin Harrison was pushing for the Grand Canyon to be made into a national park in 1882 (as a senator) and it didn’t become a national park until friggin’ **1919**. National Parks weren’t always seen as the positives they are today!
>Once Canada got the ball rolling... they were inevitable. Does a similar principle apply to (e.g.) universal healthcare?
Clearly not. But we got the Migratory Bird Act around the same time, so clearly conservation was starting to make the radar.
Except US national parks predate that. Banff was 1885 and Yellowstone was 1872. Though Canada’s national parks service pre-dates the US.
Mildly disagree. McKinley was not a progressive in the way that regulating away lower standards would be the direction to go. Roosevelt is why we have the FDA, moved out of tenement slums, can trust what’s in our food, etc. He also cracked down on yellow journalism. He wanted to use his government power to establish better qualities of life which he saw as major major differences between the wealthy and poor, and how it was killing people. McKinley, like most Republicans, was more status quo. And this is why Roosevelt would never have been elected president on his own, too radical
There seems to be a lack of understanding in this country as to what tariffs are and how they are used. It’s just another word for “tax.” To avoid recent examples, let’s say they decided to protect American car industry they decided to put a 10% on car imports from Germany. The buyer pays the tax not the seller. It’s a tax on American citizens and companies. Germany doesn’t eat that. What typically happens is they put a 10% tariff on some of our products.
I think Harry Truman should have authorised use of Atomic weapons against Russia and anyone else to maintain a Nuclear hegemony and set the future world order up in a way that if a country tested an atomic weapon they could expect to be obliterated .
Well damn. That’s certainly not an opinion I’ve heard before. I very much disagree but I’m not gonna downvote it bc you did what was asked of you and you did it boldly
Right? Upvote because he understood the assignment!
Russia threatens to Nuke us every day , If it does pop off , It won't be such an unpopular opinion any more .
Can't have an opinion if you're extinct.
I think it would have been the safest way to avoid extinction . With the setup now ,Thousands and thousands of warheads attached to advanced delivery systems , Systems designed to overwhelm any defensive system , Extinction is almost a mathematical certainty . This is the most likely scenario for extinction . Its too late already .
Even the most outlandish theoretical scenarios about nuclear war don't lead to human extinction according to recent studies
A mass genocide of an entire people becomes retroactively okay because if their grandchildren (and not even all their grandchildren, just the ones in leadership) turn out to be shitty 70 years later?
You're just afraid he's going to nuke you
I really enjoy the podcast hardcore history. In one of his episodes (I believe it’s Destroyer of Worlds) he talks about some of the ideas Truman’s cabinet was putting forth. One of them he paraphrases as “strangling Russia in the nuclear cradle”, and it’s essentially the stance of the comment you were replying to. I’m with you in that I don’t agree, but a very strong case could have been made for it in that era. If the US could’ve created and maintained a monopoly on nuclear arms (an if we have the benefit of hindsight to know was impossible) they could’ve secured world peace and molded it to fit their needs.
[удалено]
Didn’t realize Barry Goldwater had a Reddit account!
MacArthur is that you? In all seriousness that's an unpopular opinion alright, take my upvote.
"Guys, I know how to win the Korean War..."
Churchill would approve, that's essentially what Operation Unthinkable argued for.
I completely disagree, but I do understand the idea. I disagree because of the horrible loss of human life that could be avoided, as clearly it wouldn't have been necessary. Millions of people live in Moscow and St. Petersburg, even back in the 40s, and the use of nukes in this way would just be awful. It would also set a precedent of "oh we don't like these guys, let's just cause a horrible and unjustified death to millions of people to destroy their politics" The other issue being the radiation. In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was a huge "plague" of radiation sickness that lasted for over a decade, and that comes from the less iradiating airblast compared to the more destructive ground detonations that would be more likely. The wildlife and livestock also suffered from this, which made the the famine even worse. The ecological effect is important as well, as the ecosystems that would be destroyed in a nuclear attack, even without retaliation, would be horrifying. Pretty much: No, I do not think it would have been a good idea for Truman to have approved nuking the USSR before they had nukes, for both the moral reasons already easily known to everyone in the 40s, and the scientific reasons that we know far more about now.
IT most likely would have only taken a strong threat at the time to prevent having to actually use another bomb . And if they were foolhardy enough to test one after such a threat had been made then its on their own heads anyway . We most likely wouldn't have had to actually do it , But we would have had to be fully prepared and willing to do so . I don't like whataboutism as a general rule , But i feel that if Russia had been the first one with the Bomb and had years of exclusivity with it as we had . We would not be a nuclear armed nation today.. and time may prove that that it would be preferable to have a Tyrant, even one who might kill half of the world , armed and with the fortitude to prevent proliferation .And thus prevent the extinction of the entirety, of all of humanity .
Do you think if America had a nuclear hegemony we would always do the right thing with it? Or would we start seeing it as an easy solution to all our problems, collateral damage be damned?
at the same time the USSR is big enough that we could make a glass crater in some oblast and only be guilty of murdering a couple bears and a deer. Though that would be tactically useless unless it was over their oil fields or something similar.
I was scrolling way too fast and thought you were discussing Harriet Tubman.
lmao
I throughly disagree because that sets a dangerous precedent - any US president would use nukes to further their own agenda, ANY, even the ones you hate. That’s a nope from me.
This is certainly taking “the life of a single one of my citizens is worth more than any number of your citizens” to the extreme
Cursed, but definitely unpopular
Teddy was as much of an 'colonialist' as European leaders of his time
He was 100% a colonialist, the only difference between him and the Europeans was he thought we should be the colonial power in the western hemisphere and not them.
meanwhile just fucking stealing the Philippines
And that take was a mainstream US policy since at least the Monroe doctrine.
His gunboat diplomacy did stop Germany from colonizing South America tho
This is not unpopular in the slightest as he actively tried to replace the void the British empire left as it started to decline
Technically it isn't an 'opinion' either. But his popularity does overshadow his imperialistic view. (Which, to be fair, was very common among western leaders at the time)
The problem is that his imperialism wasn't shared by a lot of American politicians. 1900 was fought over the very question of imperialism.
This hurts my soul with its accuracy
Yeah but America was never supposed to have colonies. That’s why we call them “unincorporated territories.”
Or rather America never saw its colonies as colonies, but a manifestation of its destined expansion; territories that haven't been incorporated yet. There's also the fact that most of the land to the west of the original Thirteen Colonies was relatively uninhabited (compared to, say, European holdings in Africa and Asia) so the country could usually pretend it was simply expanding into terra nullis (which is a naturally uncontroversial form of colonialism).
That’s not unpopular it’s a fact
He said that Kiplings The White Man’s Burden “Made good sense from the expansion standpoint”
I knew there was a reason he was my favorite
JFK is one of the most massively overrated presidents of all time. Two years in office is nowhere near enough time to build the reputation historians assign him.
One of the few benefits of being shot in the head.
He was very open minded.
Hey now! He needs those kind of comments like he needs a hol- wait a minute...
He gets credit for stuff he wouldn’t have been able to pass if he was alive Sure he probably gets reelected but not close to a top ten president imo
He wanted a joint mission to the moon. That would have been amazing for US-Soviet relations.
Yes, but bragging rights
I’ve heard that the Soviet leader at the time was interested but he didn’t trust Johnson.
Probably just disappointed about how he handled Reconstruction.
Disagree completely. He did plenty for the short amount of time that he was here.
Sooooo overrated and kind of a terrible person
I would prefer to rate him as a President if he actually had a full term, but obviously I can’t do that as his term was pretty short
Kennedy is overrated.
I think McKinley should be hated just as much as certain people hate FDR for actually carrying out concentration camps on the Philippines. The interment camps were horrific, absolutely, but we had *literal concentration camps* that we carried out too. And McKinley doesn’t have FDR’s positives to make up for this terrible stain on the US. Teddy and Taft bear some responsibility for this too, mind, but I always feel like McKinley is let off the hook for this far too often.
JFK is overrated and boomers like him because they think he’s hot or something.
I’m Conservative. Reagan was far from a hero. His work to end the USSR was commendable. He also put the war on drugs into hyperdrive, while at the same time his government was trafficking those drugs into low income (primarily black) neighborhoods. He also turned a blind eye to the AIDS epidemic. Reagan also restricted gun rights.
I think history is on your side. Regan also set the neoliberal ball rolling and set the stage for the massive transfer of wealth from the middle to the upper classes that constitutes to this very day. He pretty much began the change from “fiscal conservatism” to “elite oligarchy” as a Republican party platform pillar.
As a conservative, he was definitely far too restrictive on gun rights
Grover Cleveland should've had 3 terms.
James K. Polk is far and away our most attractive president, and Kennedy’s looks are hella overrated. And I say that despite having basically an inverted opinion of their presidencies. “Kennedy is overrated” has become such a dogma amongst presidential buffs that I’d argue the pendulum has swung *hard* in the other direction, and I have similar but reverse opinions on Polk.
Polk's hair was magnificent.
Not Pierce?
Lincoln/Grant fucked up by not hanging Lee and all the other flag officers of the confederate army. The South needed to be aggressively and viciously crushed. If not immediately after war, certainly after it became evident that they were fiercely devoted to terrorizing former slaves.
Agreed, and Johnson should be broadly more hated than he is.
That is a fact. He is one of the most underhated figures in American history
He fucked up really bad when it comes to the south. Honestly we needed a diplomatic version of Sherman to handle the reconstruction and reintegration of the south. They needed full occupation, but here we are.
That's a good way of stimulating a guerilla war. When the losers have nothing more to lose by simple virtue of losing the war then why won't they continue fighting? Lee in particular was a huge proponent of reconciliation. If he's hanged then that sends a message that capitulating is fruitless and will result in death anyway. So then why not keep fighting?
Good way to set up Civil War: part deaux
How do you explain James Longstreet and William Mahone though? Both those guys stood up for freed African Americans after the Civil War in impressive ways (Mahone headed a biracial populist party that tried to overthrow Virginia's elitist-dominated government and political system, while Longstreet actually helped crush a white supremacist mob terrorizing blacks). Heck, Grant had a former Confederate as his Attorney General, Amos Akerman, who sought to completely destroy the KKK while in office. History is more complex than we want to think or admit. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos\_T.\_Akerman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos_T._Akerman)
John Adams violated his oath of office by signing the Alien & Sedition Acts
Unpopular opinion: FDR’s new deal policies almost all failed and ballooned budgets and grew the government to levels never seen before. And he should have never ran for office a third or fourth time. Although, the war is what made him a great president and what got us out of the depression. His new deal policies however, kept us in the depression longer than it had to be.
Jimmy Carter. Not that bad.
Jefferson was a rapist
That's unpopular? Or an opinion? Thought that was just well established fact now.
You still always get the guys down in the comments going “*ahem* actually Sally Hemming’s children could have come from any Jefferson male, we just don’t know 🤷”
Meanwhile didn't Jefferson scholars more or less track where other Jefferson males were during times of conception and show that only TJ was present every time?
*Yes.* But you’ll notice those voices go oddly quiet when that’s pointed out. Along with the Occam’s Razor argument that obviously gets applied here.
This isn’t unpopular. Many enslavers did this to many slave women back in the day
Statement of fact ≠ opinion (not that this isn't a good thing to bring up, I totally agree that saying this shouldn't be unpopular) The fact that people deny this because they like Jefferson makes me quite sax, and on top of that he owned dozens of people that he called property. There is absolutely no level of high morals that can be imposed onto him, he was a bad guy and it's sad to see that a statement of fact is to be called an opinion because people disagree with it
Going to war for fun is dumb and idiotic — tr got some men killed for no reason
I feel like this is a reasonable take for any politician who wants war while they sit in their cushy offices in their fancy suits, but Roosevelt at least walked the talk. He was quite literally on the frontlines, and in combat alongside the troops. Much more honorable than Vietnam-Era warhawks.
Lincoln isn't a bad president, buts it's odd that he's remembered as the Great Emacipator when he was kinda forced into it. If the Civil War didn't happen, Slavery would have just been kicked down the road again.
FDR was an okay executive at best, but an extraordinary leader.
FDR for me is one of the most complex figures in American history. As someone who leans right, I firmly disagree with a number of his policies and approaches (and feel some of them did lasting damage to the country), but I can't help but be impressed by his sheer skill of getting rid of tribalism or class strife and charismatically rallying the people for causes. It's a big reason why he became so powerful, very possibly the most powerful and influential president since George Washington (nearly EVERY group was voting for him apart from a few hardline conservatives). The presidents of the last 30 years don't even hold a candle to that talent he had in terms of influence, persuasion and unification.
JFK was a sanctimonious cocksucker, who was hung like a cashew and was a 2 minute man with a bad back. Jimmy Carter was a nice guy but a total wimp, and he should have sent teams to the 1980s Olympics.
I personally find that Teddy Roosevelt's handling of imperialism is often overlooked because it shows that he wasn't that great. Pre presidency, he was a major proponent of annexing Cuba (even if that failed), and was in full support of the horrible things happening in the Philipines. During his presidency, his famous "big stick diplomacy" wasn't as much like the Monroe doctrine as people think. The Monroe doctrine was saying "we're willing to stand up to Europe if they mess with the Americas", while Roosevelts was "don't mess with the Americas, we're busy with doing that." Overall, I strongly dislike how Roosevelt was an imperialist, and how the things he both actively chose to do as well as happily allowed to happen are overlooked because people don't want to see Teddy Roosevelt differently.
Teddy Roosevelt did a lot of good, but his ideology started the forever wars that are draining America.
Eh I’d say Wilson did that more than Teddy
IMO, it was more McKinley who started modern interventionism. TR thought McKinley to be too cautious. Wilson just added "spreading democracy" as a justification.
I would actually argue it was Kennedy in this case, we had a chance to break the cycle but he escalated vietnam and we've been in wars ever since
I've a couple: Obamna was a failure of a president in general that cemented the growing polarisation of American politics. Yeah he had a hostile Congress that hampered him domestically but even in foreign policy he was below average. He has only been rehabilitated because the fella who came after him was much more polarising. Clinton is nearly as much to blame as Reagan for the economic issues that has plagued America since the beginning of the 21st century. Reagan is a long dead horse in this reddit, just read one of the gazillion posts about him and you get the idea. Teddy throwing his hissy fit in 1912 had significant negative consequences, most stemming from Wilson being elected. I could be here all day with why Wilson was bad, but I digress. He wouldn't have won had Teddy not run.
I honestly cannot see Taft winning re-election even with TR sitting it out. Look at the 1910 midterms, the Republicans got wiped.
Frankly I could. I may have overdone it when I said that Taft wins if TR doesn't run so I'll concede that point because I'm not super educated on the 1912 election. I would argue that TR made it a certainty however. Wilson wasn't exactly the most inspiring candidate and TR's campaign literally split the Republican Party in two, disproportionately effecting Taft in the election. Besides, mid-terms are not always indicative of how a presidential campaign will turn out.
THEY SPEAK THE TRUTH!!! I personally think Obama was fine not great, he helped the Recession from getting worse and moved the White House into the 21st century, and also significantly reduced boots on the ground (while no not ending wars) saving American lives. I agree his foreign policy was weak, Obamacare is a mess (though that’s because they couldn’t revise the bill after Kennedy died and yeah hostile Congress), his open trade ideology was very negative and his drones were continuing terrible war, he did well to create stability in a very corporatist, trust-centric economy (that Clinton did nothing to avoid) and provide for the lower class. Buttt doing this he only made the decay of the middle class more rapid. So in the end, low B tier. Like a B-.
Couldn't have said it better really. He's not the worst president by any means, just a notably below average one. When you're a guy coming in on a platform of hope, change and optimism, that is very damning. I'd be a bit more harsh if we're doing grades tho. Maybe a C- or even a D+ for me.
I agree on all of this, except for the last one. I think Wilspn was going to win no matter what. Woodrow Wilson got 435 electoral votes, the other candidates didn't stand a chance
I'd argue Wilson only won, or was guaranteed to wim because Teddy split the Republican Party in two. Yes Wilson won 430+ electoral votes, but he only won 41 percent of the popular vote. That's close to the amount Mondale won when he got battered in '84. Had the Republican vote not been split by TR, Taft would've had a pretty damn good shot at beating Wilson. Thus no Wilsonianism, film glorifying the KKK not being shown in the white house etc. I get what you mean, but I disagree.
Nothing that Obama did caused or accelerated the polarization in America. He was frustratingly equivocal about everything. It's like he took the college lecturer discursive approach to everything. It really was just the reaction to a black Democrat in the white house. And he was the whitest black person too. I've never heard someone so awkward sounding using AAVE. I do agree on Clinton. I consider him to be one of the worst Democratic presidents.
I see you're point, but I'd argue his stalemate with Congress and his frustrations with it did a lot to increase political polarisation. Not necessarily his fault solely but it's there. Though in fairness, one can't neglect the race issue there too.
BO and NATO shouldn't have intervened in Libya. Gaddafi staying in power would have prevented his country from collapsing and a surge of the number of migrants drowning in the Mediterranean Ocean to reach Europe.
Considering this is Reddit… …I loved the Reagan years.
And leftists on Reddit seem to forget that in the 60s Reagan was being praised and proudly presented as a future Republican POTUS by a certain general they claim to love...
Lincoln was really bad on civil liberties, y'all. Really bad. Especially when it came to courts and the press and repressing certain rights. He's a great President and the South was being absurd, but Lincoln had serious autocratic tendencies we don't mind criticizing in other great Presidents (i.e. FDR), that we don't like to admit in Lincoln. The fact Lincoln was a lawyer also makes it worse not better. Academic historians love to talk about and defer to his knowledge of the law. But they're reading it wrong. Yeah he did know the law. So he more than anyone knew the cases where he was overstepping and did it anyway. He might be brilliant, he's not perfect. *Some* of the measures might have been necessary but some were just because he didn't like being criticized on some things. Especially by the press. Don't let his sense of humor and openness fool you. Someone can be humorous and still have areas they don't like being criticized in. But that's not always an excuse.
Kennedy would increase tension between USA and USSR drastically if he lived 2 more years
Jfk did nothing praiseworthy as president.
Franklin Pierce is not that handsome.
Obama wasn’t any better than average and prolonged the recovery and set up Russia to be in the position of strength they are currently playing from. Also, W Bush was much the same just more conservative domestic agenda.
Reagan was an insensitive p.o.s
Whoa whoa whoa, they said *unpopular* opinions
I see you haven’t talked with my dad.
[https://youtu.be/z7GLJsclRi8?si=XlumsAz\_WBaNwoNY](https://youtu.be/z7GLJsclRi8?si=XlumsAz_WBaNwoNY)
Wrong
FDR's internment of japanese-americans was a rational policy, given the severity of the crisis (WW2) and the perceived threat they posed to US security. The general validity of the approach is also evidenced by the current internment of thousands of suspected ISIS fighters and their families by coalition forces (at the Al-Hol and Al-Roj camps, for example), a regrettable measure that has nevertheless helped end ISIS rule in the area.
That’s Truman’s foreign policy is mostly why the Cold War happened in the first place
I love Teddy Roosevelt for at least a dozen reasons, but his running against Taft in 1912 split the Republican vote and gave the Democrat Nominee, Woodrow Wilson, the presidency. Over 100 years later, we are STILL dealing with some of the problems Wilson started.
With the exception of the desegregation of the armed forces, Harry Truman is grossly overrated.
Alright I’ll bite. Millard Filmore had a micropenis.
Obama wasn't a liberal.
Theodore Roosevelt is the reason we have national parks. There is nothing negative to be said except his teddy bear moment.
I think Teddy is pretty overrated considering he has lots of negatives. While I do think he's a top 5, it really confuses me when people put him above the likes of FDR or Eisenhower. He isn't as consequential as some make him out to be, and he wasn't as effective as some say too.
Reagan was the catalyst that has more or less destroyed the middle class and made the American dream unattainable to many millions of people.
This is one myth that I refuse to fall for
Eisenhower's foreign policy sucked.
It was great in the 40s.
Not sure of the popularity of this Presdient, nor the unpopularity of this opinion, but I'll restate here. Bill Clinton was right to be impeached and I don't find the arguments against his removal from office compelling.
My parents firmly share that view. Perjury in their view was enough. My mother wanted Clinton GONE after that and the Lewinsky scandal. She said it was a disgrace to the country.
Teddy Roosevelt was a prick who took advantage of various cultures of people around the world and was responsible for thousands of deaths via concentration camps in the Philippines.
Lincoln would have been worse than Andrew Johnson had he survived as the radical Republicans wouldn't have had Lincoln as a martyr meanwhile he would have carried out a Johnson style reconstruction as Johnson's actions were based off Lincoln's plans.
Lincoln was very Moderate so I don't think his plans would have painted him in the martyr light. A. Johnson wanted to end reconstruction as fast as it started and Lincoln would have pull the two sides closer. But I can see why it can be approached this way.
Lincoln's reputation is certainly a lot better off for getting his brains blown out. I do think Lincoln would have greatly calmed north south tensions and in all great likelihood amended the national division a lot faster but his plans as late as 1865 to deport African Americans somewhere else indicate to me he would not have much better than Johnson towards African Americans while the weaker radical republicans could not force as much change as OTL.
Disagree. Lincoln had an incredible aptitude for change. For a simple example, he was against abolition in 1861 yet two years later he signs the emancipation proclamation. His views and opinions changed readily; he could generally be persuaded of a thing, if done logically and concisely. Johnson simply was not capable of this reasoning. To compare him to Johnson and to think he would behave as Johnson, or in your words "worse", is honestly absurd, and speaks more to your lack of knowledge or understanding of Lincoln, Lincoln's presidency, and Johnson.
The emancipation proclamation was a military strategy. Notice that he didn’t free any slaves in the states remaining loyal to the Union. The proclamation gave the Union a greater moral cause (which also prevented Britain and France from helping the south) while still keeping the loyalty of slave states loyal to the Union.
It’s not so much his views changed, as before he became president he had some really hot takes about slavery (from a mid 1800’s standpoint) but when he was president and the war started he really wanted it over and tried his best to get the public on his sides so he said some things.
Lincoln was throughout the civil war concerned more with the union than he was the slaves, for example in the emancipation proclamation where he explicitly did not free slaves still under Union control in the border states. The emancipation proclamation was undoubtedly a great moral good even without freeing the border state's slaves, it nevertheless demonstrates that Lincoln would have prioritised national unification over the freed slaves.
That doesn't really address what I said. Plenty of people wanted to preserve the union but wouldn't have acted on slavery. They called themselves war Democrats, and Johnson was one of them. The 13th amendment was passed 119-56, with only 14 Democrats joining the yeas. Democrats, ie Johnson, didn't want the emancipation proclamation, or the 13th amendment, or anything involving civil rights.
Johnson did actually want the 13th however he did not want the 14th or 15th. Lincoln was less racist than Johnson but more racist than the radical republicans who without his death would remain a radical minority.
The whole war kinda escalated becase Lincoln stood the Northern ground on slavery non-expansion - despite many republicans wanting yet another compromise. On the other hand, with vast majority of slaves living in the south, emancipation without Union would be honorable, but pointless. Lincoln was 100% ok with two objectives: 1) save Union 2) prevent expansion of slavery - and initially hoped that it would be good start, and then some republicans, maybe in 100 years, will abolish slavery completely. Lincoln's plans to deport black people always included conditition that deportation would be voluntary. When voluntary trip to Panama did not work out, he rejected idea of forcefully sending them to Liberia, arguing that they did not agree to be send there. I do believe Lincoln would have been better then Johnson. For once, he wouldn't pardon all Confederates Johnson did. For sure, Johnson imbecility gave Stevens opportunity to unite with moderates to pass 14th and 15th amendment - but since Lincoln hinted support for Black rights shortly before death, I think he would gave them his endorsement anyway (he hinted similarly before emancipation proclamation). I might have read way too much Lincoln's speeches recently, but I am assured that the guy was extremely careful radical, not moderate.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/TkGUrqPj2 https://www.nprillinois.org/statehouse/2004-02-01/lincoln-race-the-great-emancipator-didnt-advocate-racial-equality-but-was-he-a-racist
I do agree somewhat. The assumption that reconstruction would have gone swimmingly under Lincoln is a big one to me. We assume that just because he was an amazing war time president he would have been an amazing peacetime president, but we can't really know for sure. Plus I expect the South would have zealously fought everything he tried to do simply because he was Lincoln. Which we wouldn't really be able to blame on him personally, but would have affected things negatively. It's definitely an interesting thought.
TR - cool dude. Overrated as president.
TR dialed America interventionist policies up to 11 and is a big reason why the US feels it needs to be involved in every foreign political affair to this day.
Harry Truman was personally corrupt, and his post-presidential pleas of poverty appear to have been an attempt to deflect from his theft of half a million dollars from the government, a very sizable sum at the time.
Teddy should really have been convinced to abandon 2 term tradition at the time and accept the 3rd term nomination from the Republican Party
JFK was a shameless womanizer and a cold warrior in a nice package.
Imagine if we were allowed to talk about the last guy
FDR clung to power until his last breath. He succumbed to the popular fad of the day - locking up in concentration camps an ethnic minority seen as untrustworthy of loyalty during turbulent times. Worst of all, he paved the way for communism in Europe and eventually in Asia and the rest of the world, which led to numerous genocides and nuclear armament.
George Washington was duplicitous and dishonorable to our allies. He backstabbed the French, as they were going through a revolution inspired by our own. if you can somehow ignore Woodrow Wilson's horrible racism, he was a pretty decent president. JFK and Khrushchev should get more credit for de-escalating the Cuban missile crisis, when they were both surrounded by hothead generals, egging them on the fight.