Who is a genuinely good US president (or speaker) not called Abraham Lincoln?

A fun,light hearted topic where we discus historical US presidents and which ones we like,and which we don't,should be fairly easy to narrow down the good presidents from the bad after all there's only so many people named Lincoln.

and if you say George Washington you get the wooden spoon prize...

Edited by Ultimatum on Nov 3rd 2023 at 9:52:15 AM

Since I like causing provocative discussions, I will vote for... Theodore Roosevelt!

Bully!

FDR was pretty good

Who was it that died after a few weeks because of pneumonia so didn't have time to do anything wrong? I vote for him.

Why, what did he do?

I think that would be Willian Henry Harrison. He was also the last US president to have been born a British subject in the Thirteen Colonies, and his death caused a constitutional crisis since there wasn't a presidential succession yet. His vice president, John Tyler, took over the office, and that set the precedent afterwards.

Edited by Redmess on Nov 5th 2023 at 5:09:00 PM

Nothing. That's the point. Every single president except him has some pretty awful stuff under their tenure no matter who they are.

William Henry Harrison did his inauguration speech in the rain, got pneumonia and died 31 days later, meaning he did absolutely nothing.

I meant FDR.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He was president for most of WWII and he was the architect of the New Deal. He also authorized the Japanese internment camps.

I like Ike.

...and his itty-bitty A-bomb.

More seriously, I do find it interesting how pop culture and fiction in general latch onto certain presidents and completely ignore others. You'd think every single one would have some sort of notable dramatisation by now.

They all have raw material there for a good story. Including Harrison.

Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 5th 2023 at 5:52:20 PM

The Congo very much doesn't.

But wouldn't that eventually fall into a bit of a Nirvana Fallacy where we dismiss anyone who isn't perfect? Regrettably oftentimes in politics it is a battle between shades of light grey all the way to dark black.

I don't think the Congo likes anybody from the west. Especially anyone by the name of Leopold.

Also, since nobody has mentioned JFK I suppose I should. Also Truman.

For the US, you get a lot of presidents who signed off on genocide or blunt racism or useless wars that just caused a lot of damage and accomplished nothing.

Truman signed off on nuking Japan . . .

A large scale wartime attack on a military target of a nation that attacked the US first is pretty morally strong by US presidential standards.

Something like this comes down to how you define a good president, because if you define it as “someone who didn’t do anything bad” then the answer is always going to be none, that’s the nature of leading a large nation.

Edited by Silasw on Nov 5th 2023 at 6:43:01 PM

Japan had already been firebombed to hell, nuking it was arguably unnecessary and merely an opportunity for the US to show off it's fancy new weapon

Depending on your point of view, that is either a necessary evil or a war crime.

Your comment implies its a black and white issue. When it remains controversial today.

Also find it interesting that the bomb was originally designed for bombing Germany. Had this happened, would the same people who decry this as a war crime suddenly switch sides and say it was justified?

Edited by Patar136 on Nov 5th 2023 at 10:44:47 AM

Well, Oppenheimer didn't portray Truman in a flattering way , if we're talking about pop culture depictions

My favorite POTUS after Lincoln is FDR. He took the US from the Great Depression to being a major force against the Axis powers. Yes, he definitely did some bad things, or in the case of the Japanese internment camps, a very awful thing, but I would still call his presidency a major net positive.

X3, X4 What I’m saying is that compared to things other presidents have done that’s a pretty morally light thing to do.

You’re looking at a group that includes a bunch of slavers, a ton of people who committed or aided genocides and a great many people connected to the deliberate targeting of civilians during peacetime or a war the US started for reasons of greed or paranoia.

An unnecessary and grossly disproportionate attack on a military target during a declared war the US didn’t start is downright rosey compared to those options. What other president’s worst act was only “arguably unnecessary” or “controversial”?

Edited by Silasw on Nov 5th 2023 at 6:48:50 PM

Fair point

@Petar Some would switch sides, but certainly not all. Frankly, I think your accusation is uncalled-for. Also, I what would the difference between Germany and Japan even be here ?

If you are looking for a perfect president you won't find one. Even besides humans are flawed, many of the US presidents were involved with controversy in some form.

Part of this comes down to at the end of the day, can you see past the bad things from certain presidents or are certain things too hard to swallow?

I will note that the allies, particularly the British, did fairly regularly engage in bombings that were primarily targeting the homes of German civilians.