MAGA freaks out after Fox News reports Obama in top 10 presidents — and Trump in dead last

Fox News reported on some new presidential rankings, which purportedly show Barack Obama as the #6 president in U.S. history and Donald Trump dead last, and MAGA was not happy.

Fox News on Sunday posted an article about the new rankings by the Presidential Greatness Project, which Fox describes as “a group of self-styled experts.” It states that Abraham “Lincoln topped the list of presidents in the 2024 Presidential Greatness Project expert survey for the third time, following his top spot in the rankings in the 2015 and 2018 versions of the survey.”

…

“Rounding out the top five in the rankings were Franklin Delano Roosevelt at number two, George Washington at three, Theodore Roosevelt at four, and Thomas Jefferson at five,” according to the report. “Trump was ranked in last place in the survey, being ranked worse than James Buchanan at 44, Andrew Johnson at 43, Franklin Pierce at 42, and William Henry Harrison at 41.”

The report states that Obama and Joe Biden “ranked an average of 6th and 13th, respectively, among Democrat respondents, and 15th and 30th by Republicans.”

Syo,
Syo avatar

Two things that make Trump the worst and arguably traitor to the US. Just so you know where I stand.

  1. He literally try to overturn an election and remain king.

  2. He piled on $8,400,000,000,000 to national debt. $2.5T came from his stupid tax cut law, which were only off set in the billions of increased tariffs, and about $2.3 from discretionary spending increase, plain old Republicans in charge and spending out the wazzu. Saving the last one $3.6T for COVID relief and laws, which everyone and their grandma pointed out the potential for fraud and abuse, but no guard rails were put in place and DOJ is merely chasing back millions in peanuts only because some fraudster was too stupid to keep their mouths shut.

Circumventing the Constitution and exacerbating the wealth inequality, were real acts of degrading the US, and at best just not giving a damn about the American people. Compared to all the other crap he did that were more performative, while below the office if the President, these two things have long term effect of weakening the county that I love. He's the worst President and the modern Republicans are only in for themselves.

Dagwood222,

I think you should add in the incompetence in handling the whole covid fiasco.

Zink,

I think calling it incompetence is being too nice.

tigeruppercut,

For sure-- the cities got hit hardest early on, so what he saw initially was blue votes dying and just let it happen.

Dagwood222,

Sigh. I mean, we could go deep into the rabbit hole and talk about how he thought that he could kill off Blue State voters, but let’s be charitable and just call him a nitwit and not a genocidal lunatic.

Sometimes, I’m just too nice.

businessinsider.com/kushner-covid-19-plan-maybe-a…

Zink,

Even without any of that, his public actions alone are enough.

The full story is just worse. :/

HappycamperNZ,

Its funny because blue states actually got the vaccine by choice.

Always relaxing watching your opponents eliminate their own ability to vote.

Dagwood222,

I was in NYC and the whole town closed up pretty fast. I’d be seeing news reports of people in the Red States partying like it was 1999 and knew they’d end up paying the price. I’m not happy people died, but I am mad at the fools who let it happen.

HappycamperNZ,

Im in NZ - we went into lockdown at 3 cases.

The unfortunate result of free will- the fools let it happen but each person out there had a choice as well. We chose to follow our lockdowns and eliminated it (the first time around) and got to get out again, total of something like 28 deaths before the vax came out.

Dagwood222,

And there are people in America today who will tell you that the lockdown didn’t work. Thanks for your comment

HappycamperNZ,

The lockdown worked exactly as well as it could while those dropkicks ignored it.

Dagwood222,

As is so often the case, we can blame Ronald Reagan. He made all kinds of jokes about how government couldn’t work.

PatFussy,

You guys seem to forget that everyone was in panic mode when COVID started shutting everything down. Remember people actually dying over toilet paper? Remember 2020 George Floyd Riots and CHAZ taking over an entire city? Saying it’s due to incompetence is grossly disregarding the events that took place. It was a complete shit show all around and NOBODY wanted to take accountability.

Chuymatt,

CHAZ did not take over Seattle…. Come on.

Uranium3006,
Uranium3006 avatar

If only....

Dagwood222,

Can you link to anyone actually dying over toilet paper? Searched repeatedly and found nothing. Same with CHAZ taking over a city.

The riot I remember was when a neo-Nazi ran over an innocent woman in Charleston.

NOBODY else was President, and taking responsibility is in the job description

Finally, people died as the direct result of Trump tellign them to use unsafe treatments.

www.bbc.com/news/52012242

www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/…/ar-AA1mx4cd

trajekolus,

I think you should add in promoting the imperial interests of a very hostile power, Russia, to your list.

AlternatePersonMan,

I would argue the damage from stacking the Supreme Court with corrupt nut jobs may have the worst fall out in the end.

moistclump,

The Fox News report was teased on social media with this tagline: “New presidential rankings place Obama in top 10, Reagan and Trump below Biden.”

Seems like an understatement.

kandoh,

Gives the impression they’re all in the top 10 so it’s doing its job

eran_morad,

Dumbya and Nixon should be below Hoover.

xmunk,

Nixon is a vastly misremembered president, especially when it comes to US-native relations. He was a mixed bag in most ways - though he was deeply racist against African Americans.

eran_morad,

His corruption cannot be overstated. He was a criminal and there’s a straight line from him to Trump. For all of his achievements, he’s still swine.

chaogomu,

That line is named Roger Stone...

The man with a Nixon Tattoo on his back, and who was coordinating Jan 6th with Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.

afraid_of_zombies,

Roger Stone looks like a 90s movie evil villain. Especially when he wears black.

chaogomu,

Nixon and Kissinger sabotaged the 1968 Paris Peace Talks so that Nixon would have an advantage in the election. He then massively increased the US presence in Vietnam, while allowing Kissinger free rein to order the carpet bombing of Cambodian villages. Often overruling generals that said there were no military targets in said Cambodian villages.

Nixon then started the War on Drugs because he saw hippies and black people as his biggest detractors, but because he knew he couldn't make it illegal to be a hippy or black, he went after the drugs traditionally favored by both groups, in effect, making it illegal to be a hippy or black.

There's so much more...

eran_morad,

Trump is the most damaging traitor in American history.

CluckN,

Trump sucks but Benedict Arnold sucked so much his name became synonymous with traitor.

nickwitha_k,

Give it time.

teamevil,

So far

xmunk,

So eventually I can expect there to be a kickass way to cook eggs named after Trump?

PeckerBrown,

If by ‘kickass’ you mean ‘shirred in shit’, yeah.

bradorsomething,

If you serve me something trump-style, I will assume it is overpriced, poorly made, and possibly not even food.

Honytawk,

Don’t forget the side of hair

Alto,
Alto avatar

And that you didn't pay whoever made them.

Nollij,

The irony is that ‘trump’ used to mean overcoming, or offering something better than the previous offer. Originated from the word ‘triumph’. The common term was ‘trump card’, but it’s also a verb. In all cases, it was a positive idea.

Now I can’t even bring myself to use it during card games.

kablammy,

In the UK, ‘trump’ means fart.

jaybone,

So McDonalds.

InternetUser2012,

And made by someone that isn’t going to get paid.

Viking_Hippie,

Nah, it’s gonna be Steak Trump, which is just any steak with McDonald’s ketchup on it.

kittyjynx,
@kittyjynx@lemmy.world avatar

I took to calling a well done steak with ketchup “Presidential”.

Riven,
@Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Well done steak is understandable for older folks raised in a tiny town. My mom eats it well done because they didn’t even have fridges. Better make sure it’s well cooked so you don’t get sick. Some people cook it beyond well done where it’s getting into charcoal territory, that plus ketchup is what I call ala trump.

Schadrach,

This doesn’t describe me but I prefer my steaks well done. The thing is, it’s harder to do a well done steak right than most other levels of done-ness because there’s less leeway (basically there’s a wide spread where something is medium rare, but a fine line between well done and shoe leather). Usually the trick is to stop cooking it shortly before you think it’s actually done and then let it rest covered to finish from the residual heat.

The ketchup thing is just gross though. Mix a bit of red wine, worcestershire, soy sauce, garlic, onion and store-bought steak sauce and cook it a bit to let the wine reduce, let everything mix and thicken it a bit.

CharlesDarwin,
@CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world avatar

Cube steak.

psycho_driver,

Nah it would be one of the souls of the thousands of unsold sneakers with ketchup on it.

Mouselemming,

Trump Eggs : rotten to the yolk.

(And small. Very small.)

frezik,

The Revolution managed to succeed anyway. We’re still not sure our democracy (flawed as it is) can survive Trump.

Dkarma,

Go read about Benedict Arnold. He was actually kind of a hero iirc that fucked up.

DragonTypeWyvern,

He lost almost all his battles, picked a fight with every fellow officer around him, and committed treason because they wouldn’t let him openly be a war profiteer, everyone else having the good sense to hide their corruption. His naked ambition, greed, and open jealousy are simple historical fact.

There’s a fair enough point that losing battles and winning the war is just how the Revolution was, so he might well deserve more credit for military competence than his record implies, but Arnold did more than “make a mistake” by trying to sell West Point to the British.

Also, just fyi:

After defecting to the British he burned the city of New London to the ground and executed the garrison of Fort Grinswold after they surrendered.

WhiskyTangoFoxtrot,

Sure, he was a traitor for a period, and did some pretty horrible things during that time (such as the invasion of Quebec) but he did end up restoring his original loyalties eventually.

Marin_Rider,

think of it this way. noone outside America knows who that is.

everyone knows who Trump is

afraid_of_zombies,

Imagining: the British have a statue to Benedict Arnold with the inscription “loyal” on it that they throw a towel over every time American tourists walk by while innocently whistling

CustodialTeapot,

modern day media has a big impact on that, also you being part of that history.

cybersandwich,

Benedict Donald sounds right

kandoh,

Wasn’t he actually very patriotic? He just hated the French that bad.

DragonTypeWyvern,

The guys who won the Revolution for us?

Sounds like his “patriotism” was British.

HappycamperNZ,

Im not sure he’s going to be alone in that category much longer

cabron_offsets,

Trump has done worse damage.

afraid_of_zombies,

Says the person not currently haunted by the spirit of Benedict Arnold’s leg.

AA5B,

Benedict Arnold got in a position to be traitor by being a war hero. Even as a traitor , he followed his conscience.

Trump got in his position by being a real estate grifter, playing shell games with New York City real estate, hiding income to take multiple properties through bankruptcy while having a positive income, not paying contractors and employees, etc. Out of vanity he paid to host his own “reality” show then somehow stumbled into connecting with half the population through outrage and misdirection who nevertheless elected him president. Somehow this narcissistic incompetent bombastic sleazy salesman commanded enough popular support for the Republican Party to worship at his feet, be afraid to contradict his words. Somehow this treasonous buffoon spouts sexist garbage worse than what got Clinton impeached but that’s ok, supports our Cold War enemy and current yet people are ok with it, reduces government services while enriching himself and his family, incites an attempt to circumvent the election but people still want to choose him, actually says he will act as a dictator yet there’s still support, damaged the ability of our government to function but that’s cool, started trade wars out of spite or impulse yet no one objects, then there’s the matter of hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths by contradicting his own public health advisors on how to handle an epidemic

Eldritch,

Not even remotely. Without massive help from the Republican party, he would have gotten nothing accomplished. Despite being the second coming of Reagan. Even Reagan was far worse than Trump. The collective efforts of the Bush family over the last 100 years dwarf and are also part of Reagan’s legacy.

Don’t get me wrong. Trump is awful. The Republican party is the problem however. They could stop him at a moment’s notice and kick him out. But they refuse to simply because their monster got away from them. And he’s currently got control.

eran_morad,

You’ve put the cart before the horse. It’s trump who controls the republicans. It’s the republicans who need him, not the other way around. It’s he who has co-opted them. And, no, Reagan, evil though he was, did not damage the Republic like Trump has. Bush, the insipid fool that he was, hasn’t attempted to bring down the Republic. Trump very nearly succeeded in doing that. In destroying America. And he very well might still achieve it.

Eldritch,

Nope. Literally it isn’t. They could kick him to the curb at any point. If he’s controlling them, why did he do largely what they wanted in office. Yes they throw red meat to the morons too. But make no mistake as to who’s in control. It’s still the same wealthy people who were before.

All Trump has done is give the permission to openly be themselves. They’re still the same crazies they were before he got in office.

Schadrach,

The Republican party is the problem however. They could stop him at a moment’s notice and kick him out.

So, we have a two party system because FPTP voting always collapses into one given enough time. But there’s no requirement that those two parties be “Democrats” and “Republicans”, especially not as you know them now.

The GOP is worried that Trump’s cult is large enough that if they tried to boot him out directly that it would cause a massive party split of the sort that leads to a decade or so having three parties (and Democrats winning a lot because the right wing vote is split) until either the GOP or MAGA comes out on top and absorbs the other - and they aren’t sure MAGA wouldn’t win that in the end.

It’s better for the GOP long term if they let him tucker himself out or ideally get criminally convicted of things that make him ineligible under 14A Sec 3 in the hopes they can fold much of the cult back into their numbers but keep them politically active. If he gets barred under 14A Sec 3 then the GOP can get cultists to vote for them under claims that they’ll fix that, and then just not bother to.

Eldritch,

That’s cynical thinking and it’s untrue. He can do a lot of damage in the interim. It would be worse than 20 to 30 years in the wilderness. Especially seeing as a Democratic party isn’t a solid cohesive group itself. It’s already a coalition party. And if there were less pressure to force a lot of us together, we’d split into other parties ourselves and pursue goals that actually align with our beliefs. For a lot of people including myself. Democrats simply represent a slower, slightly more humane slide into fascism.

We’re literally staring down the barrel at the end of democracy. As they try to play chicken with the lead addled losers they’ve engineered. Thinking to themselves “hey, maybe if we keep our heads down and keep enabling them we can be in charge of whatever is left someday” That shit isn’t rational, or reasonable. Especially considering how many Democrats would sorely love to work with them again if they just kicked the greasy toad to the side of the road.

HelixDab2,

The conservative outlet noted that the figures were based on a survey of **154 respondents **[…]

That’s… Not what we call a statistically valid sample size.

TAG,
@TAG@lemmy.world avatar

Note, that is not 154 random people on the street. That is 154 US academics specializing in presidential politics, a much smaller total population.

HelixDab2,

That’s not the way that I read that. If that’s true, then the phrasing was very unclear.

TAG,
@TAG@lemmy.world avatar

I did not read this article in particular, but the actual report: brandonrottinghaus.com/…/presidential_greatness_w…

Respondents included current and recent members of the Presidents & Executive Politics Section of the American Political Science Association, which is the foremost organization of social science experts in presidential politics, as well as scholars who had recently published peer-reviewed academic research in key related scholarly journals or academic presses. 525 respondents were invited to participate, and 154 usable responses were received, yielding a 29.3% response rate.

UnderpantsWeevil,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

Its so tiresome, because none of this shit is going to matter once the next Big Hurricane wipes a few more Gulf Coast cities off the map. The “Best/Worst” Presidents are all yet to be written, not set in stone by some dipshit Frank Luntz poll of 50-something ivy league academics.

People are going to be looking back at the Obama/Trump/Biden Era as absolutely utopian, with the way our economy is pitched. Its the Kamala Harris / Greg Abbott / Beyonce / Tucker Carlson presidencies you’re really going to have feelings about over the next thirty years.

HelixDab2,

TBH, once the really hard consequences of climate change hit–blue ocean events, mass die-offs of fish across all oceans, dust bowls in regions that are currently bread baskets, etc.–I don’t think that most people are going to be worrying about a president at all.

If humanity is lucky, we’ll all die from a previously unclassified pathogen from melting arctic ice. If humanity is unlucky, it’s going to be death from a century of famines.

UnderpantsWeevil,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

I don’t think that most people are going to be worrying about a president at all.

We worried quite a bit about the President during the last 30s-era Dust Bowl.

If humanity is lucky, we’ll all die

Its not the end of the world. Its the end of a particular way of life. As the old world dies, the new world struggles to be born.

HelixDab2,

No, it’s not the end of the world; the planet will shrug humanity off and continue without us just fine. The world will do just fine, right up until the sun turns into a red giant and the expanding corona envelops this planet and burns it away, in a few billion years.

It will probably be the end of civilization as we understand it though.

UnderpantsWeevil,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

More primitive civilizations have endured more desperate conditions.

HelixDab2,

We are not more primitive civilizations. We have culturally forgotten most of the things that are absolutely necessary for more primitive cultures to survive, and there are not nearly enough people have have any of these cultural memories to pass knowledge on at a meaningful scale. Tribes in sub-Saharan Africa might be able to survive, if climate change doesn’t wipe out their prey animals. Same with certain tribes in Brazil, assuming that temperatures don’t go past 95F for wet-bulb temperatures in the Amazon.

But we’re not them.

UnderpantsWeevil,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

We have culturally forgotten most of the things that are absolutely necessary for more primitive cultures to survive

Developing large agriculture surpluses and potable water reserves, while expanding safe arteries of travel and maintaining peaceful coexistence with our surrounding neighbors?

there are not nearly enough people have have any of these cultural memories to pass knowledge on at a meaningful scale

Global literacy is at a historical peak. And methods of archiving/distributing information have never been more diverse or prolific.

Tribes in sub-Saharan Africa might be able to survive, if climate change doesn’t wipe out their prey animals. Same with certain tribes in Brazil

They’ll be some of the first to go, precisely because they don’t have industrial agriculture or advanced pluming and A/C.

HelixDab2,

Advanced plumbing doesn’t help you when you no longer have ground water, and there’s no snow melt to feed your reservoirs. Agricultural surpluses dry up when the topsoil is exhausted, there’s no water for the crops, and the growing zones have shifted so that the land that used to be perfect for corn and soybeans can’t grow them at all anymore. Peaceful co-existence stops the minute famine hits. Those safe arteries for travel? That’s in large part what’s causing this. We keep pumping out carbon dioxide at ever increasing rates with out global production, and blithely assume that there will always be a new technology to prevent the whole house of cards from tumbling down.

And literacy? That’s not the same as being able to do a thing. I’m talking about skills, thing that need to be learned and practiced from a young age.

UnderpantsWeevil,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

Advanced plumbing doesn’t help you when you no longer have ground water

The great thing about the enormous storms powered by climate change that have been deluging the Midwest and the California coast is how quickly they’re replenishing snowpack in the mountains and groundwater in the plains.

Peaceful co-existence stops the minute famine hits.

Hence the need for advanced (specifically nitrogen fertilizer) agriculture techniques.

Those safe arteries for travel? That’s in large part what’s causing this

The majority of climate fumes arise from coal powered electric generation, split between industrial and retail consumption. Car transport makes up the plurality of the remaining quarter for transportation, but that’s easily mitigated with public transport (a thing we’re headed for anyway as the economy shrinks overall and demand for new vehicles contracts).

And literacy? That’s not the same as being able to do a thing.

Knowing how to do a thing is central to doing it.

HelixDab2,

quickly they’re replenishing snowpack in the mountains and groundwater in the plains.

That’s temporary, as you would know if you had paid attention.

Hence the need for advanced (specifically nitrogen fertilizer) agriculture techniques.

…

That whooshing sound was the point going right over your head.

We’re past the point of fixing the soil. The advanced farming we’ve been doing is what has been depleting topsoil. When your growing regions change around you, it’s not going to matter how much you try to compost.

The majority of climate fumes

And concrete production, which is a cornerstone (pun not intended) of our civilization. At this point, there is no viable electric alternative for commercial transport (Nikola is bankrupt, and the owner if going to jail for fraud), and there’s no viable way to make public transport work in about 99% of the country. You would need to entirely re-build the infrastructure of the US in order for public transit to be practical for the majority of people, and we’re already out of time. Let’s say you could do that in a mere ten years (which is hopelessly, impossibly optimistic); you’d still have ten years of increasing carbon emissions that have already started to create a cascading, self-perpetuating chain reaction. We’re already seeing a 1.5C rise in seawater temperatures, and that’s over a decade earlier than was worried about. We’re fucked. We’re bleeding out from a severed artery, EMS hasn’t even gotten in the bus, and you’re saying, nah, it’s just a little cut. It’s fucking delusional. If we’d been doing this shit 40 years ago, when I was a kid and we were talking about stopping acid rain and holes in the ozone, maybe we wouldn’t be fucked. But it’s all too little, too late.

UnderpantsWeevil,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

That’s temporary

That’s cyclical. More heat generating larger stormfronts is the norm. A destabilized jetstream that triggers more polar drift is the norm. The fundamental hazard of the next century isn’t simply going to be higher-than-average temperatures but enormous hurricanes plowing through urban areas, unleashing megatons of wind force and teraliters of water, onto real estate wholly unprepared for the damage.

But the notion that we’re simply not going to have rain anymore because of rising heat is… incorrect on a few very basic levels.

We’re past the point of fixing the soil.

We’ve made more progress reclaiming desert territory in the last twenty years than humans have achieved in the last millennia. The question isn’t whether we can but whether we choose to dedicate the human labor and industrial capital to actually do the thing.

And concrete production, which is a cornerstone (pun not intended) of our civilization.

The great thing about a shrinking global population is a decreased demand for new concrete.

At this point, there is no viable electric alternative for commercial transport

Denying that trains even exist.

there’s no viable way to make public transport work in about 99% of the country

Denying that buses actually exist

You would need to entirely re-build the infrastructure of the US

You would not. If anything, we’ve overbuilt infrastructure and would do well to tear down a bunch of the surplus and consolidate in denser urban centers. But we can get by just fine on what we’ve already built, assuming we’re willing to maintain it and shift to bus/train transit over everyone driving their own cars.

Let’s say you could do that in a mere ten years (which is hopelessly, impossibly optimistic); you’d still have ten years of increasing carbon emissions that have already started to create a cascading, self-perpetuating chain reaction.

Industrial scale changes are going to take place whether we want them to or not. The current pace and direction of development isn’t sustainable.

But huge drop-offs in human activity - the Mississippi cultural collapse being a classic example as is the Chernobyl zone - can and does result in quick reversals and reclamation of territory by wildlife.

nutsack,

why in the unholy shitting fuck is MAGA considered a person

HEXN3T,
@HEXN3T@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Because they’re all just clones

Leg,

The cool thing about a propagandized population is it creates something akin to a hivemind people. All you really have to do is determine whether or not X person has fallen victim to a certain flavor of propaganda, and it’s a decent indicator of whether or not that person believes several other falsehoods and behaves in accordance with actions laid out by the source of the propaganda. MAGA is a solid example of a propagandized people who behave and believe in very predictable ways: They skew alt-right, believe Trump is good for the country, range from racially apathetic to completely racist, champion capitalism and billionaires, are unable to be swayed by new information that runs counter to their established narrative, are aggressively white and Christian, and they generally align with Republican politicians across the board, as long as those politicians are in the same realm of insanity that Trump inhabits. MAGA is a philosophy born and raised by bad faith propaganda.

nutsack, (edited )

i would stop using the tagline they picked out and instead just call them right wing fascists

Leg,

Doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as easy.

hamid,

Yeah, no on this sorry this article is bullshit… Trump is a bad guy and was a bad president but Andrew Jackson ordered the Trail of Tears and forced over a hundred thousand people to walk into desert concentration camps.

corsicanguppy,

forced over a hundred thousand people to walk

I’m told that a hundred thousand people is [checks notes] less than hundreds of thousands. It’s a shock to me too, but the math does check out.

laughterlaughter,

Drop the [check notes] cliche. It’s so overused. The rest of your comment is on point.

laughterlaughter,

I side with you, but we should also put things in context.

What communication technologies were available back then?

And how large was the U.S. population?

hamid, (edited )

Not sure what your point is, at the time this was literally all of them. The trail of tears totally erased many cultures to where they never recovered and was a total and complete genocide.

CptEnder,

Pandemic

arc,

I wouldn’t say Obama is a top 10 president but he was a good president.

Meanwhile Trump was objectively a terrible president - a venal, mercurial, criminal narcissist who sold out his allies and whose incompetence managed to kill hundreds of thousands of people during a pandemic and capped off his term with an insurrection. Not enough history has passed to judge exactly where he is in relation to some other terrible presidents but I reckon he’ll be in the bottom 3 for sure.

laughterlaughter,

What are 10 presidents that are better than Obama, according to you?

vaultdweller013,

Not the other guy but ill throw out a list of mine.

  1. Theodore Roosevel
  2. Franklin D. Roosevelt
  3. Harry Truman
  4. JFK
  5. LBJ
  6. Abraham Lincoln
  7. Thomas Jefferson
  8. Martin Van Buren
  9. Jimmy Carter
  10. George Washington
  11. Dwight D. Eisenhower

This aint an organized list, just those I considerr better than Obama. Also using Washington is a bit of an asspull on my part but I dont care.

laughterlaughter,

Ok, thanks for sharing.

CompostMaterial,

I think it is less a judgment of how good Obama was buy rather an indictment of how bad (or inconsequential) most presidents have been.

That being said, the executive branch was really only as powerful was it is today rather recently. For the majority of the US existence it was just another bureaucratic office of government.

prole, (edited )

I’d be hard pressed to name 10 presidents that were better…

Edit: would love for someone to give me an actual list (with actual reasons for the non-obvious ones. The only person who even attempted so far didn’t name 10, and included famous KKK supporter (member?) Woodrow Wilson, so…

crimroy,

I bet you would be.

prole,

Go ahead and do it then. I think we’re both probably a bit too old for the whole “lul you can’t name all of the presidents” shit, but hey if that’s all ya got…

Or you can go ahead and do it. Make me look like an idiot.

And tell me why you think the non-obvious ones that you pull out of your ass deserve higher on the list.

arc, (edited )

You might not but there are plenty of lists that do and give their reasons. The likes of Lincoln, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Washington, Wilson, Kennedy, Reagan, Lyndon Johnson are frequently listed ahead of him and for some obvious reasons. Obama might squeak into the top 10 of some compilation lists, maybe higher if people only consider modern presidents.

prole,

Lol Wilson? Ummm…

Also, no way Reagan deserves to be ever close.

arc,

Argue with the scholars who made the lists, not me

prole,

I mean ok I will…

But I don’t remember asking for 10 presidents that scholars think were better than Obama. That’s literally their job, I’m sure they could have discussions on the topic for countless hours.

I was asking you, a normal American citizen in the year 2024, to name 9 presidents that were better than Obama (and the reasoning would be nice, but I know the caliber of discussion here, so I won’t hold my breath).

Besides, if you’re going to put a Wilson on the list, it should probably be Edith, as she essentially ran the county while good ol’ KKK Woody was stroked out and incapacitated. Something the public wasn’t fully aware of until much later. We have laws governing who assumes control in such situations, but I guess fuck all that shit, right? Good presidents don’t lie about being incapacitated while their wife covers for them.

People like to attach Wilson’s name/legacy to the League of Nations (which the US never joined, and ultimately failed), and tend to rank him highly entirely for this reason, ignoring all of the awful and racist shit he did. And yeah maybe that was par for the course at the time for rich old white dudes, but that’s exactly why he doesn’t stand out among his peers enough to be top 10 imo.

TL;DR - I wasn’t looking for some scholar’s list, but just a normal US citizen in (current year) for a top 10 that is actually well informed and well reasoned, and doesn’t include Obama. I think most people would be hard pressed to do so.

At this point I’d be happy to take an average American that can name ten presidents that don’t include: Trump, Bush, Obama, Biden, or Clinton.

jordanlund,
@jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

If it makes them feel better… Trump makes the top 10 in my lifetime…

  1. Obama
  2. Clinton
  3. Carter
  4. Reagan
  5. Biden
  6. H.W. Bush
  7. Ford
  8. W. Bush
  9. Nixon
  10. Trump
Isthisreddit,

Sort of amazed you have Reagan so high

jordanlund,
@jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

Reagan gets a pass for not fucking up Glasnost.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasnost

Kethal,

His campaign conspired to prevent the release of American hostages so he could get some political gain. Using American citizens as political pawns is unimaginable to me.

laughterlaughter,

Uh, um… you must feel quite overwhelmed since 2016, then.

BilboBargains,

Surely his denial and bungling of AIDS, the abject hypocrisy of his drug policy while profiting from the sale of drugs during Iran-Contra knock him right back down that list?

This B movie actor had no business running any country, never mind a murderously hegemonic one. They badly need someone with good values and personal integrity.

prole,

They badly need someone with good values and personal integrity.

Which is why they kicked him out in favor of Jimmy Carter… Er wait…

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Also, why is Ford so far below Reagan? Other than pardoning Nixon, which was admittedly awful, he didn’t do shit as president. Why is Clinton above Carter? The list is certainly not one I would agree with. In fact, I would put Reagan below Trump. We wouldn’t have Trump if it wasn’t for Reagan.

BilboBargains,

Clinton is a villain, a well known sexual predator. He was sustained by a psychopathic charisma but his record in office is appalling. Hitchens made a tidy hatchet job in his book, No One Left to Lie To. Give me Carter any day of the week, people still respect that guy. The mendacious Clinton’s are money grubbing megalomaniacs and should never be anywhere near the levers of power.

TokenBoomer,

Bullshit! Everybody knows Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho is #1.

AngryCommieKender,

With Teddy Roosevelt being #2, Jefferson #3, and Monroe being , and Wilson .

generichate1546,

GO AWAY BATIN!

fine_sandy_bottom,

“… we got this guy not sure …”

kerrigan778,

Lol, imagine being ranked as a worse president than William Henry Harrison who died immediately.

postmateDumbass,

He sets the bar for break-even.

Didnt make things better or worse.

Judt gave a speech and then died.

Some would consoder that ideal.

AngryCommieKender,

I would expect WHH to be somewhere around 22nd or 23rd. By dying he is basically middle of the pack. Neither good nor bad, just a bit foolish. That can be forgiven since, as far as we know, he’s the only one that paid the price.

The worst six in my opinion would be, in this order, #1 Wilson, #2 Jackson, #3 Reagan, #4 Nixon, #5 Polk, #6 Monroe.

dejected_warp_core,

Speedrun: President of the USA, Any%.

Everythingispenguins,

Hell he may be the best president

Bluefalcon,

Jackson is not in the bottom but Harrison is? People need to read some history books. Dying 35 days into your presidency is worse than a genocide?

JPAKx4,

The fact that he is still on our currency is insane enough

Bluefalcon, (edited )

I wish I could like this more than once.

DirkMcCallahan,

I’ve always thought that Harrison should be ranked much higher in these lists. If you equate his presidency with “doing absolutely nothing,” then logically he should rank above all of the presidents who actively harmed the country/world. And there are quite a few of 'em.

Everythingispenguins,

Let’s get tee shirts “Harrison was #1”

Confuse the shit out of people

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA,
@HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world avatar

George was pretty great.

postmateDumbass,

Pete is my favorite Beatle.

Bluefalcon,

Drew was my favorite beetle.

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Billy Preston is my favorite Beatle.

And don’t tell me he wasn’t a Beatle.

postmateDumbass,

Pete was Best.

yesman,

Raw Story is garbage. Not because it’s partizan, but because it’s lazy.

“MAGA freaks out…” is 3 people responding to a fox news tweet identified by their twitter handle, another who’s not even identified that way, and some other rando who doesn’t agree. That’s it, that’s the story.

IDK what kind of sweatshop the reporters working for that outlet are laboring under, but there is nothing in this “article” that couldn’t be hammered out in 10 min on a smartphone.

Just because it’s lefty garbage, doesn’t mean it’s not garbage.

dejected_warp_core,

there is nothing in this “article” that couldn’t be hammered out in 10 min on a smartphone.

Bonus points if this article was published while on the can.

Sad thing is: it’s generating clicks regardless of how crap the article is, because that title is just so bait-y. :(

Pratai,

deleted_by_author

    •
    AngryCommieKender, (edited )

    Ummm… It’s not new. Noam Chompsky may have gone off the deep end here in the last few years, but he had a point when he wrote that book in 1988, about events that happened between ≈1960 till ≈1980. This is a well known political strategy that has been used by multiple countries since 1898 when William Randolph Hearst declared, “You furnish the pictures, I’ll furnish the war.”

    The only real “new” part is that we now have the ability to network so inefficiently that we constantly form echo chambers, emboldening the fringe elements, allowing them to connect to each other extremely efficiently, and maybe allowing the people that are supposed to be watching, to actually watch. I suspect the last part is severely corrupted though.

    Flumpkin,

    Step 1: Put out outrageous conspiracy theories or policies on twitter
    Step 2: Wait for crazies to comment and create a high engagement shitstorm
    Step 3: Now you can reference those outrageous things on mainstream media
    …
    Step 4: Profit
    Step 5: Armageddon

    Pratai,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    Socsa,

    Narrator: it was actually the exact same flavor

    Flumpkin,

    Check out Hexbear or

    Ah damn you, I’ve been banned already just for viewing your comment!

    corsicanguppy,

    so it is on lemmy as well

    Painting an entire federation with the actions of its worst is fun. It’s like how all americans are Ted Bundy.

    arc,

    That is basically the schtick that every tabloid and every partisan site puts out. Visit the Daily Mail (actuall don’t) and every other story is some garbage from social media that they’ve decided to turn into click bait.

    RizzRustbolt,

    Putting Harrison in the bottom five is just mean. It wasn’t his fault he died 20 days into his term.

    Well, it was kind of his fault. But more the doctors’ fault.

    afraid_of_zombies,

    Wiki says the doc used cupping, blood letting, and gave him booze for pneumonia.

    LaFinlandia,

    We were assigned a random president in high school, and I had to write a paper on his presidency. My paper was too short.

    Thoth19,

    Same. I wrote a ton of pages about his work as governor and lost points bc it didn’t cover his achievements as president. I asked the teacher if she could name one, and she told me that was my job. She was forced to retire after that year.

    CharlesDarwin,
    @CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world avatar

    Seems very on-brand for that bunch. They are always angry.

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