Rank the Presidents of your lifetime

[BunnysBastatrds 2,442]

GW Bush sent me a 600$ check once. That puts him at the top.

 

Everyone else...Bupkiss so dont care. Bush all the way. Dont care that he rigged 911 or whatever.

Which you ended up paying back.

 

I got two grand from FEMA after Katrina. That was nice.

[frank 2,306]

 

I am curious who he was higher on, John Adams or John Quincy Adams.

You suck. I only came on here to ask where phurfur ranked the Adams'

Fock you

[mighty_thor 115]

Reagan

Clinton

 

Bush 1

Ford

 

Johnson

Nixon

 

Carter

 

Obama, Bush 2 (Tie)

 

I think Ford and Bush 1 were a little underrated. Ford could never shake the bumbling idiot reputation.

Reagan was a leader and decisive. You could disagree with his policies but the country needed his leadership at the time

Johnson - Ramped up Vietnam. Pushed through Civil Rights. mixed bag

Nixon was a paranoid fock who dragged out Vietnam longer than he needed to.

Carter was a weak leader and was President during a low point in America. A lot of it beyond his control.

Obama and Bush 2 - awful.

Clinton - Had an easy presidency. Didn't fock anything up.

 

I don't think any of the Presidents in my lifetime are among the best of all time.

[Thornton Melon 620]

 

 

I'm suprised you have Ford on top. He's fallen down most peoples lists.

 

Pound for pound, the most vetoes of any president in my lifetime. I like that...

[Magnificent Bastard 191]

Was America in some sort of Great Depression or world war when Reagan came along? What exactly did he save us from? Rubiks cube and Alf?If you think the early 1980's were some great rough patch in American history, you need to do some reading.

[edjr 6,591]

Was America in some sort of Great Depression or world war when Reagan came along? What exactly did he save us from? Rubiks cube and Alff?

 

Nice

[mighty_thor 115]

Was America in some sort of Great Depression or world war when Reagan came along? What exactly did he save us from? Rubiks cube and Alf?If you think the early 1980's were some great rough patch in American history, you need to do some reading.

Reagan came along in 1980. It was the 70's that he brought us out of. The economy was crappy. Inflation rates around 14% or so. They had massive lines at the gas stations. But I think it was deeper than the economy. we were brought to our feet by Iran. They had a TV show that would count every day the hostages were still in captivity. Day 252, day 253, etc., It may not have been a depression but the general feeling about the country was depressing and that we were in decline. Crime was rampant in the cities.

Reagan brought a confidence and decisiveness that boosted the country's esteem.

[Magnificent Bastard 191]

Reagan came along in 1980. It was the 70's that he brought us out of. The economy was crappy. Inflation rates around 14% or so. They had massive lines at the gas stations. But I think it was deeper than the economy. we were brought to our feet by Iran. They had a TV show that would count every day the hostages were still in captivity. Day 252, day 253, etc., It may not have been a depression but the general feeling about the country was depressing and that we were in decline. Crime was rampant in the cities.

Reagan brought a confidence and decisiveness that boosted the country's esteem.

Speak for yourself. He didn't do anything for my esteem, and his stunt in Beirut was a lot worse than anything Carter did. The gas "crisis" was long over when he came along. And the crime rate skyrocketed in the 80's. And he did almost nothing about it.

[Magnificent Bastard 191]

Sorry, my bad, Nixon to the bottom of the list for leaving our P O W's behind in Vietnam. And that's that.

[Vince44 205]

William Jefferson Clinton should be ranked first and George Walker Bush should be ranked last and anyone who says otherwise is ignoring proven solid facts over the last 35 years.

 

 

1. William Jefferson Clinton

 

2. Ronald Wilson Reagan

 

3. Barack Hussein Obama II

 

4. George Herbert Walker Bush

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. George Walker Bush

 

 

 

[IGotWorms 4,058]

William Jefferson Clinton should be ranked first and George Walker Bush should be ranked last and anyone who says otherwise is ignoring proven solid facts over the last 35 years.

 

 

1. William Jefferson Clinton

 

2. Ronald Wilson Reagan

 

3. Barack Hussein Obama II

 

4. George Herbert Walker Bush

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. George Walker Bush

 

 

 

Why H.W. so low? Even I'd put him ahead of Obummer and I'm a flaming libtard homo

[Voltaire 5,316]

Clinton

Reagan

H.W.

Nixon***

Obummer

Ford***

Carter***

Trump

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

W

 

***too young to remember

quoting myself and edited to add Trump

[Mike Honcho 5,281]

Probably by height.

[mobb_deep 920]

White

Black

White

White

White

White

Orange

[Cdub100 3,908]

Trump

Reagan

* The rest where all the same deep swamp.

[IMMensaMind 462]

Reagan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trump

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bush 1

Bush 2

Ford

Clinton

Carter

Obama

[ZeroTolerance 584]

Clinton

Reagan

Bush 1

 

 

 

Bush 2/Trump/Obama together in the toilet.

[edjr 6,591]

Clinton and the smart Bush are the only ones worth a Damn

 

[LOD01 198]

Black

Orange - potential to top black by the end of term.

White

White

White

White

White

White

White

White

.

.

.

.

Dogshit - Bush II

[MTSkiBum 1,620]

Black

Orange - potential to top black by the end of term.

White

White

White

White

White

White

White

White

.

.

.

.

Dogshit - Bush II

How old are you?

[tikigods 76]

1. Nixon

2. Ford

3. Carter

 

First three of my lifetime

[LOD01 198]

How old are you?

Remember, Nixon and then Ford took his place. I arrived right after Kennedy got his head blown off. Johnson took his place.

[GuardBum 83]

Clinton

Bush 1

.

.

.

.

Obama

Reagan

.

.

Trump

.

.
Carter

Nixon

Do I really have to include Ford and GW on this list at all? Both worthless schumcks.

[Baker Boy 1,699]

Trump Presidency is not over so he cannot be ranked!

 

Reagan

 

Clinton

First Bush

 

 

 

Second Bush

 

 

 

 

 

Obama

[MDC 7,427]

Clinton

Bush the elder

L B J

Nixon

Obama

Reagan

Carter

Ford

Bush the Dumber

lol

[JustinCharge 2,397]

Its probably more fun to assess the presidents back to Eisenhower than to my birth.

 

Eisenhower: He had one mission. To make republicans electable again. He did so by basically promising the same things democrats did but drawing a line that he, unlike Truman or Stevenson, was NOT a communist. Every future republican nominee had more or less made this claim by silently embracing the huge federal machine while claiming to hate it. Eisenhower also embraced "slower" change than the democrats offered. As president, that meant simply throwing Washington into gridlock for 8 years and playing golf. Eisenhower won in 52 and the republicans won both houses of congress under him as well. Eisenhower was very critical of the right-wing of his own party as president, and was very progressive himself, and it ultimately dampened enthusiasm enough to allow democrats to win congress in 1954. Eisenhower was a lame duck the rest of his two terms. He almost picked a democrat as vice president in 1956 over Nixon and kept decidedly moving left as his administration went on.

 

Kennedy: Looked great on TV and his strength was in inspiring others. Gave that great speech about going to the moon. Have to give him an incomplete in terms of running the country because his term was so short. The Irish vote went heavily democrat in 1960 and the general thinking was the democrats would never lose a presidential election again after capturing the Irish vote with him as president.

 

LBJ: Basically the democrat version of Trump as a human being. Strong personality, huge ego, had no qualms about embarrassing his enemies. LBJ has to take the blame for Vietnam. We also began to suffer from high inflation under LBJ due to trying to pay for the war and huge new government programs at the same time. His presidency was so bad that he's the only one on this list that ran for re-election and was forced to withdraw due to how poorly he ran in the primaries due to how unpopular the Vietnam War had become.

 

Nixon: Its very difficult to grade him because he never had a republican congress, which meant his domestic agenda was DOA. To justify his existence as president, he needed to be a foreign policy / military president. He won by promising to restore law and order to a nation facing riots in its cities and cultural turmoil. He slowly closed down the Vietnam war. He met with the USSR and did the SALT treaty. He changed US foreign policy from one of direct engagement to selling weapons to allies such as publicly selling arms to Israel in Operation Nickel Grass. In response to Nickel Grass, OPEC declared they would use oil as a weapon against the US and cut production causing the 1973 oil crisis. This eventually led future presidents to sell arms in secret. In fact, there were many price shocks rippling through the economy under Nixon as inflation rose. Nixon had little power to do anything domestically to combat inflation facing a democrat congress, so he issued executive orders to implement wage and price controls on the US economy. These failed, leading to shortages of goods, and when the controls were lifted, prices exploded even higher. And then he gets caught in the Watergate scandal and resigns. Wonderful.

 

Ford: He pardons Nixon and his popularity immediately craters. It never recovers enough for him to beat Carter. He also faces a democrat congress so he can do little domestically. His plan to stop inflation was Whip Inflation Now, which amounted to a public relations campaign to beg Americans to stop spending which of course failed. He made some proposals for tax cuts or tax increases but congress ignored him. He puttered around in foreign policy. Then lost to Carter.

 

Carter: He has a democrat congress but actually tilts conservative. The mood of the nation was that big government policies were not solving inflation. There was a loss of faith in government. Carter's domestic policy could be summed up in one word: deregulation. He believed the path to bringing inflation under control was by deregulating industries and increasing competition. He deregulated the airline industry which led to a price collapse for consumers that persists to this day. He deregulated the beer industry to allow for more competition in brewing and led to the creation of the microbrew industry. Carter deregulated the trucking industry, which led to an explosion of new cheap trucking companies that helped curtail shortages of goods nationwide. Carter embraced the innovative policy of having the Federal Reserve use interest rates to manage the economy. Under Carter's policy, the Federal Reserve set interest rates sky high in 1979 to kill inflation. it worked. Inflation was dead. A brief but hard recession followed which could be fixed by stimulus spending to smooth out the bumps and get back on track. This worked as well. But before the economy could recover, the 1980 election arrived and voters kicked Carter out for Reagan, and Reagan simply took credit for fixing the economy.

 

Reagan: Reagan faced a democrat House and so his domestic agenda was DOA. Reagan simply continued the Carter Innovations by continuing Carter's plans of deregulation and continuing Carter's plans of using the Federal Reserve to set interest rates to make sure inflation nor recession occurred. On foreign policy, he was the opposite of Carter with aggressive actions to protect the interests of the US. He was aggressive in Central America. He pursued an arms race with the USSR with great vigor. The USSR, which was already suffering from severe economic pains just could not keep up. It would eventually collapse under Bush's first term. Reagan knew what part of Carter's policies to keep and what part to throw away.

 

Bush I: A weak man and a weak president. He allowed events to dictate to him instead of the other way around. Bush was facing a savings and loan crisis that threatened to cause a recession. Bush went to Fed Chair Alan Greenspan and asked him to cut interest rates to ensure a recession never arose from the S&L crisis. Greenspan sensed the weakness in the man and decided to negotiate with his president, and promised that he would cut rates on one condition - that Bush go back on his "no new taxes" pledge and agree to a tax hike. Bush had plenty of options here. He could have been a strong man and threatened Greenspan's job. He could have countered by suggesting he could issue executive orders to cut oil regulations and allow for more drilling and refining to spur the economy that way, or a slew of regulations cuts in any number of fields. But Bush was a weak and naive man. He just said yes and blindly trusted Greenspan. So Bush goes out there and agrees to a tax hike. Bush's base is FURIOUS. And then once the deed is done, Greenspan just stabs him in the back and does a series of rate HIKES, citing the need for more ammunition in case a recession hits. The tax hike and rate hikes combined push the economy over the edge and into a recession. Bush just gets walked on by everyone. Left in disarray, he frantically blathers about sweeping tax cuts to try to fix his mess but no one buys it and he is a one termer. Oh and he had a small war in Iraq that went great but it didn't help him at all.

 

Clinton: His first act is probably pinning a medal on Greenspan for getting him in office. Clinton himself is incompetent. he pledges to do health care reform and he and Hillary lock themselves away and work on writing the bill themselves, and then present it to congress as a mostly finished product with no input from them. The democrats in congress responded by offering a bunch of competing plans to get their pork or ideals stuffed in there. With legislation a total mess, and unified republican resistance, they actually fail to push the bill through a congress they control. Not only that, but Bill Clinton loses control of congress to the republicans for the first time in 40 years in 1994 thanks to a botched health care bill and a tax hike. After that, Clinton can do nothing domestically. His second term is filled with his own sex scandal plus a failed attempt to remove Saddam Hussein for compiling weapons of mass destruction. He signed the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998 dedicated to regime change in Iraq, bombs Iraq builds up forces on the Iraq border, sends Madeline Albright around the country to campaign for war, but there is no enthusiasm for it, so he backs off. Finally, the economy collapses in 2000 in the dotcom crash at the end of his second term.

 

Bush II: Limited domestically because while the republicans had both houses of congress, they did not hold supermajorities. He would have been forced to focus on foreign policy but 911 sped that up considerably. He sold the nation on invading Iraq in 2003 claiming Saddam had WMDs, but once we invaded WMDs were not found (or not in sufficient quantities to be of any threat to the US). This destroyed his entire presidency. Then America suffered a massive credit crisis in 2008 at the end of his second term to lock him down as a terrible president. Plus he got blamed for a hurricane.

 

Obama: His 2008 win was a shock considering Hillary Clinton seemed to be a shoo-in. Obama wrestled it away by being able to claim he never voted for the Iraq Invasion in 2003 and on the strength of massive charisma. This is a guy that, given his charisma, his lack of voting for the Iraq Invasion, and riding a change election spurred by an economic collapse, would have won 49 states in most cases. He still loses 22 states because the US is entering a new period in American history. The US is beginning to destabilize as a nation. Trust in american institutions like government, the police, the military, media, religion, the courts, health care, and education have slowly but surely fallen since there was near universal trust in the 1950s. In 2008, we start to see this begin to seriously alter events, as Obama cannot unite the nation because trust is simply too low. So 22 states vote against him. Obama does barely manage to scrape by with a supermajority in congress by ONE vote. He uses this supermajority to try to pass health care reform and it is really hard. Obama's strength is public speaking, not legislation, so this time around, the health care reform bill is entirely written by congress and Obama's job is to tour the nation promoting the new bill. They come up with the idea of insurance for all despite pre-existing conditions with a tax on those without coverage to pay for it. Ted Kennedy's death and a republican being elected in his place threatens to derail it because that means their supermajority is gone so they manage to JUST push it through congress in time. After that, its just downhill. Trust continues to fall. It manifests as Tea Party Patriots who gain enough support to decimate the democrats in the 2010 elections and flip the House. Obama's domestic agenda is now DOA and Obama actually does next to nothing after that. He loses the Senate in 2014. Obama does nothing to heal the divisions between the parties and the divisions get worse. At the end of Obama's second term, trust in the system suffers a large collapse which allows a total outsider to win the White House.

 

Trump: He correctly identifies lack of trust in American institutions as the key issue in the nation. While all of his opponents ran a campaign suitable for 1950 when trust was sky high, Trump was the only candidate who ran a campaign centered in reality and attacked the system savagely, tapping into the primal gut feelings of modern voters that things are not right. America was no longer great. Drain the swamp. We're getting screwed on trade deals. Our good jobs got shipped out of the country. The media is biased and won't tell us anything true. Trump is a god damn HAMMER. And yet, his opponents refuse to accept reality, living in a dream world where its still 1950. Trump breaks through and wins the white house. By the time Trump is elected, effectively ZERO PERCENT of republicans trust the press. The nation is BROKEN. Trump's GOP has both houses of congress but no supermajority, so he cannot aggressively pursue a domestic agenda. So he tours the nation on what are effectively campaign stops and using twitter to make his case that we need fundamental change while trying to use executive orders. He does manage to basically repeal Obamacare by ending the Obamacare Tax. He renegotiates trade deals with several nations. Protests, marches, and violence begin to increase on both sides. Democrats think the top issue in America is to destroy the republican party. Republicans think the top issue is to destroy the democrat party. Antifa and the nazis are on the rise. There is widespread fear of communist sympathizers, nazi white supremacists, illegal Mexicans corrupting the vote and Russian meddling. Corporations start acting against many individuals and publicly ban them from services and support for their opinions. Trump aggressively sets to block a huge illegal immigrant caravan from Mexico using the military. Elections loom. The nation is a powder keg.

[JustinCharge 2,397]

I'd rank the presidents as:

Quality presidents:

1. Carter (the best president because a shitload of modern policy beliefs were actually innovations by him like deregulation and the modern Federal Reserve, he was just a terrible terrible salesman)
2. Reagan (knew how to sell Carter's great innovations and what parts of it to throw away)
3. Eisenhower (knew how to make the republicans credible again)

Morons:

4. Ford (I think at this point is universally agreed that pardoning Nixon was the correct move and a bold one but didn't know what to do after that)

5. Bill Clinton (botched health care, lost congress for the first time in 40 years, couldn't sell public on invading Iraq, sex scandal)

6. Bush II (a strong leader but unfortunately trusted the wrong people who gave him awful intel on Iraq)
7. Obama (with the repeal of Obamacare, he accomplished zilch with his supermajority and failed to heal the divisions in the nation)
8. Bush I (a weak leader, not even a leader at all really, just got pushed around)
9. LBJ (Got everything wrong in domestic and foreign policy)

Incomplete:

a. Kennedy (too short)
b. Trump (too short)

[Voltaire 5,316]

I'd rank the presidents as:

 

Quality presidents:

 

1. Carter (the best president because a shitload of modern policy beliefs were actually innovations by him like deregulation and the modern Federal Reserve, he was just a terrible terrible salesman)

2. Reagan (knew how to sell Carter's great innovations and what parts of it to throw away)

3. Eisenhower (knew how to make the republicans credible again)

 

Morons:

 

4. Ford (I think at this point is universally agreed that pardoning Nixon was the correct move and a bold one but didn't know what to do after that)

5. Bush II (a strong leader but unfortunately trusted the wrong people who gave him awful intel on Iraq)

5. Obama (with the repeal of Obamacare, he accomplished zilch with his supermajority and failed to heal the divisions in the nation)

6. Bush I (a weak leader, not even a leader at all really, just got pushed around)

7. LBJ (Got everything wrong in domestic and foreign policy)

 

Incomplete:

 

a. Kennedy (too short)

b. Trump (too short)

Bubba Bill?

[MDC 7,427]

Bubba Bill?

Best of our lifetime according to RP/HT.

[Voltaire 5,316]

Best of our lifetime according to RP/HT.

The only president in my lifetime to preside over a balanced budget (twice).

[Hardcore troubadour 15,433]

This hasn't worked out quite the way MDC had hoped. Lol.

[MDC 7,427]

The only president in my lifetime to preside over a balanced budget (twice).

He was pretty great.

 

Obama over Reagan is a spicy hot take by HT. lol

[JustinCharge 2,397]

Bubba Bill?

 

Added him.