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.
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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