The Presidents: 250 Years of American Political Leadership – Iain Dale

For Presidents' Day, figured I'd get to writing about the book on the gentlemen who have held the office I read earlier this month. I read about each of them, even the completely forgotten and/or terrible ones. Super interesting. All of them. Also, most of them were real pricks. 

Format of the book is each president gets an essay. Writers are academics, historians, journalists, and politicians. They were all carefully chosen based on expert knowledge of their subjects. The book goes through each of the presidents' achievements, influence, their lasting legacy, and how they were perceived in their own lifetimes. 

I am trying to put my political biases aside when looking at those I think are underrated, overrated, and those I think are truly great.

First off, the ranking systems I am looking at are the Siena Presidential Expert Poll and the C-Span Survey of Presidential Leadership. There are lots of others out there, but none of those get the respect or publicity of these two. 

Siena's been putting it's survey out since 1982. In total, they've published seven. Each has come out during the second year of the first term of each president since Ronald Reagan – 1982, 1990, 1994, 2002, 2010, 2018, and 2022. The rankings are based on surveys collected from historians, political scientists, and presidential scholars. The surveys judge the Presidents on attributes, abilities, and accomplishments. The Siena poll is more along with my rankings. 

The most recent C-Span survey, published in 2021, questioned 142 presidential historians and biographers. The questions consist of rankings based on effectiveness for ten categories. They are Public Persuasion, Crisis Leadership, Economic Management, Moral Authority, International Relations, Administrative Skills, Relations with Congress, Vision/Setting An Agenda, Pursued Equal Justice for All, and Performance Within the Context of His Times. 

In the 2022 Siena survey, the top five, which are unchanged from the 2018 version, were FDR, Lincoln, Washington, Teddy Roosevelt, and Jefferson. According to the C-SPAN survey, the five highest rated presidents are Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Rounding out the top ten are Eisenhower, Truman, LBJ, Kennedy, and Madison. This is the first time LBJ has entered the top ten, very much deserved by the by. 

Of the Presidents in my lifetime, from most recent. Biden ranks 19. Trump 43. Obama 11, up from 17. I think that will be much higher in the future. W comes in at 35. He has been all over the place but always in the bottom half. Started at 23 just a year after 9/11. Went down to 39 in 2010 whilst we were still in the financial crisis him, and the Republicans caused and with Katrina still fresh in everyone's minds, before moving up to 33 in 2018. Clinton, who has always been in the teens, comes in at 14. H.W. at 20. And Reagan dropped from 13 to 18. Still way too overrated.

The worst five, also unchanged from the 2018 survey, are Andrew Johnson, Buchanan, Trump, Harding, and Pierce. Those seem about right.

For C-Span, the top ten are Lincoln, Washington, FDR, Teddy, Eisenhower, Truman, Jeffereson, JFK, Reagan, and Obama. The bottom five are William Henry Harrison, Donald Trump, Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson and James Buchanan.

My top four are pretty firm. That list is FDR, Lincoln, Washington, and Truman. Fifth would probably be Obama or LBJ, though Teddy, Wilson, and both the Adamses were pretty strong as well. If I really had to choose though, I'd go with Obama as he didn't have something he really screwed up with like the others. But LBJ is easily the most underrated President. If we are just looking at the good, I'm putting him at fourth.

Each of my presidents in the top four faced significant existential challenges related to the nation’s survival. One and two are Lincoln and FDR. No question. The three defining crises for American were the Civil War, the Great Depression, and World War II. These two knocked that shit out of the park. Lincoln kept the country from breaking apart. He also ended slavery. Dude is practically a saint. 

FDR did more for economic justice than any other president. The only one that comes close is LBJ, one of the reasons why he ranks so highly on my list. Came in at the worst of the Great Depression, telling Americans "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Then he made lasting policy that dug us out of the shit. And Republicans still try to dismantle his legacy. 

This is why I think the C-Span poll is shit. Any poll that doesn't have Lincoln or FDR at the top is a masturbatory. Also, having Reagan in the top ten is a complete joke. 

Conservative "greatness"

Which brings me to the overrated. First up, Reagan. The Gipper. Revered by Republicans as all except Ike and H.W. in their lifetimes have been complete shit shows. He gets undeserved credit for ending the Cold War and jumpstarting the economy. His major achievement was trickle-down which is bullshit that didn't work, and Republicans are still grifting us on. Meanwhile, dude repeatedly caved to terrorist and fucking supplied them, i.e. our enemies, with weapons, and supported the violent overthrow of the democratically elected Nicaraguan government by supporting “freedom fighters,” i.e. Contras. His administration was the most corrupt in U.S. history up until Trump with well over 100 administration officials, including several cabinet members, being investigated, indicted, or convicted of crimes. Many of them were pardoned by Reagan or Bush before they could even stand trial, which was a hell of president. He tripled the national debt in his eight years, making him third worst. The two ahead of him, FDR and Wilson, had world wars that drove their totals up. Reagan had peace. He also completely ignored the AIDS epidemic, continued to give Saddam fucking Hussein weapons despite his many atrocities like using chemical weapons to kill 5,000 plus Kurdish civilians, and vetoed the Comprehensive Apartheid Act against South African in 1986 that would have levied economic sanctions. This is just some of his bullshit. Fuck that guy.

Second, JFK. Rates high for his public speaking skills and vision. Masturbatory bullshit. He did defuse the Cuban Missile Crisis and promise to put a man on the moon. But the Cold War raged on and the most the moon stuff happened under LBJ and Nixon. These are the big two. 

Now underrated. Gonna start with Obama. He not only provided the country with an incredibly important health care initiative—something that presidents have been trying to do for almost 100 years—he also got us out of a crisis that was deeper than the Great Depression when the stock market crashed in 1929. What we were experiencing right before he took office was worse than what FDR had to deal with, and he pulled us the fuck out. How the fuck is he so tremendously underrated? I guess that is what he gets for pointing out that Republican economic policies are shit and being black. Thanks Obama! 

Second, LBJ, mostly for his pursuit of equal justice for all Americans. Took office after JFK was assassinated and greatly surpassed his predecessor. He enacted the landmark Civil Rights Act. He urged the country "to build a Great Society, a place where the meaning of man's life matches the marvels of man's labor," which became his agenda. This resulted in Medicare for the elderly, increased aid for education, and anti-poverty programs. Dude was a legend. 

This guy has been around

But then he also gave us Vietnam. He was also pretty disgusting. Made cabinet members take meetings with him while he was on the shitter, and he was fond of taking dudes who tested him to the bathroom while he pissed and turning to zip up to show off his apparently massive unit. 

But let's look at the good. Born legit poor, he started out teaching at an extremely poor, segregated Mexican-American high school, which he took pride in and made him sympathetic to racial issues. 

In 1965, after signing the Higher Education Act of 1965, Johnson said:

“I shall never forget the faces of the boys and the girls in that little Welhausen Mexican School, and I remember even yet the pain of realizing and knowing then that college was closed to practically every one of those children because they were too poor. And I think it was then that I made up my mind that this nation could never rest while the door to knowledge remained closed to any American.”

After teaching for a little while, in 1931 he was appointed to legislative secretary for one Richard M. Kleberg after winning a special election to represent Texas in the United States House of Representatives. A staunch supporter of the New Deal, he was bounced around to various positions culminating in an appointment to head the Texas National Youth Administration in 1935. This enabled him to use the government to create education and job opportunities for young people. 

This eventually led to him getting elected to the House in 1937, where he served until 1949, even taking on active military service during WWII. From there he went to the Senate from 1949 to 1961. While there he became Majority Whip, then Chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus, Minority Leader, Majority Leader, Vice President, and finally President. Incredible. 

One anecdote I loved that was not in the book that I heard about him was immediately after he left office he began smoking to everyone around him's shock. He suffered a near fatal heart attack at age 47. He was a heavy drinker, smoked 60 cigarettes a day, and never worked out. He quit for the next 15 years. Once he lit up that first time, his wife and daughter were like, what the fuck. He said something along the lines of, “I've given my life to my family and public service. The rest of my life is mine to do with as I want.” Now chain-smoking again, he said "I'm an old man, so what's the difference? I've been to the Mayo Clinic twice and the doctors tell me there is nothing they can do for me. My body is just aging in its own way. That's it. And I always loved cigarettes, missed them every day since I quit. Anyway, I don't want to linger the way Eisenhower did. When I go, I want to go fast." Right on. You can read about that time of his life in this Atlantic article from 1973. 

Next we have the Adamses. The elder, the nation's second president, known for his integrity; he deftly dealt with growing hostilities with France. We never went to war because he negotiated a peace deal. He was also opposed to slavery, as was his son, who had the misfortune of the first great recession. He His served during a time with a contentious Congress with great division. However, he fought for civil liberties and the unification of the country. But ended up losing to that fucker Jackson. 

Lastly, I'm going to mention Wilson. Dude had a strong vision for the country and moved many pieces of important legislation through Congress. He also convinced Congress in 1917 that America could no longer remain neutral in World War I. However, like Teddy Roosevelt, dude was incredibly racist and made the lives of black people much worse, basically turning a blind eye to lynching and watching Birth of a Nation in the White House.