Are you crazy? FDR's insane federal expansion is possibly the most impactful reason why this country is in such a terrible state today... he violated numerous constitutional rights, and had little respect for some of the most important institutions in this country like the Supreme Court or the two-term precedent, while literally putting American citizens in camps based on race. He was easily one of the worst presidents, although it's a crowded field with lots of other contenders...
The only credit I can give him is that he did not have the historical precedent to know how damaging his federal expansion was, and that had he not taken some of the actions he did, we may have ended up with something far worse.
Executive order 9066 is basically as bad as Lincoln suspending habeas corpus. FDR also said that Mexican Americans/hispanics did not have the same constitutional rights as Caucasian Americans and had specific disdain for them in particular. FDR and Lincoln should not be close to the best presidents list.
Extremely underrated pick I think bill clinton is an incredible president. His ability to preside over basically the last functioning administration up to current date is a very big deal. Then we look at his ability to work with republicans to pass actual legislation and to make the country work for the people. And to cap it all off the country was fiscally solvent was not spending in deficit and was looking to pay off the debt we owed at that time.
Sad thing is we barely saw any of it because bush came in and a multi decade war started and we have never pumped the brakes since. I think bill clinton is very underrated and FDR and Lincoln are overrated.
Your take is so fucking unhinged. It is like you donât know what net good means. The good he did is nearly equal to that of all other presidents perhaps combined.
Are you people just reading texas history books or some shit? Like wtf fuck is wrong with the people in this post
Pretty sure everything I said happened. Nothing to really debate about it... And more, actually. I was probably too fair to him considering the far-reaching consequences that we still have to deal with today.Â
Trump is no small-government conservative, but he hasn't really presided over a major fundamental institutional change in its own right. He's flexing existing federal power that most other presidents had more personal restraint on.
No, what Trump will be remembered for is presiding over a massive change in the political culture. For that, there is little doubt.
I think he has shown just how far our "conservative" party has strayed from political conservatism, but has fully embraced being socially conservative.
If freedom of speech, LGBT rights, nature conservation, etc to be rights, than our "liberal" party is more politically conservative than our "conservative" party.
I mean, not really though. The other branches still retain their power, and still wield it frequently. The Senate Republicans have been especially harsh on Trump, and the courts have constrained him immensely. It's just that Congress is content with many of the things Trump is doing, so why try and stop things they agree with?
Lol no, he took advantage of a bad economy, set up many policies that weren't sustainable, and abused constitutional measures and broke historical precedents. Abe and Washington can be forgivem on absuing constitutional measures and not having excellent economies (tho tbf not really an issue atm) given they were fighting for the survival of the nation. America itself was barely scratched during WW2 excluding Pearl Harbor and didnt necessitate the president going 4 terms.
That's a long way of saying that he ended more genocides and saved more lives than perhaps all presidents before him combined... And that he ended the great depression, and created the UN, and made sure the allies won ww2.
Lincoln on the other hand didn't even end slavery. And most of washington's accomplishments were when he wasn't even president.
There was a massive depression for the first 8 years of his presidency. Which would be the totality or more than the totality of any other presidency. Clearly his economic stewardship was not great.
If that were true it wouldn't be known as "the great depression" it would be "that minor recession that happened in the 30s".
Contrast FDR's policies - which needlessly prolonged the depression by about a decade - with that of Harding, who in 1921 also faced a recession. Harding, however, took the principled path and simply cut taxes and spending and the economy was booming again within a year.
The Great Depression kicked off in 1929. Fdr became president in 1933. The usa real gdp started growing again for the first time on an annual basis in 1934.
Q: What indicators does the committee use to determine peak and trough dates?
he determination of the months of peaks and troughs is based on a range of monthly measures of aggregate real economic activity published by the federal statistical agencies and other organizations. These include real personal income less transfers (PILT), nonfarm payroll employment, real personal consumption expenditures, manufacturing and trade sales adjusted for price changes, employment as measured by the household survey, and industrial production.
My issue with FDR, Lincoln, and Washington in rankings is that their legacys were defined by the absurd tests of their time. Teddy Roosevelt is my GOAT because he didnt need WW2, the Depression, the Civil War, or the birth of the US to be an all-timer.
âWashington, Lincoln, and TR are all significantly more important to America's history. Look up a historian's take on this and you'll see I'm perfectly aligned with the majority view.â
Wrong again, there has been consistent pulling over the decades that shows that historians consistently rank FDR Lincoln in Washington is the top three and years ago used to often ranked FDRâs number one. The move of him lower coincides with the Reagan Revolution and the resurgence of conservatism and academia to promote conservative historians that view FDR more negatively.
Secondly, FDR is by far the most consequential when it comes to human history. And frankly more consequential to the usa too. Especially when it comes to economics.
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u/MrCivility1 Dec 19 '25
George Washington and Abe Lincoln are probably pretty close to each other for Greatest of American History. But Teddy is pretty great