What does a BIDEN Presidency look like?

[The Larch]

Similarly I think the Spanish-American War is now possibly viewed differently than it used to be?

The war itself was not horribly unjust

*grumble grumble* So what about Hearst? *grumble grumble* What about the Maine? *grumble grumble*

I can see why you might see it differently

To be honest, I think that in the long term it was good for Spain to get whalopped in the Spanish - American War, as the short term trauma made for a relatively less traumatic XXth century, which already had plenty of grief in store for the country. Or maybe in some alt-history scenario Franco languished as a colonial officer in the Philippines instead of screwing around, so who knows.

[celedhring]

The Generation of '98 writers were also fucking great.

[Berkut]

Ike and Reagan have benefitted from the modern GOP's descent into idiocy - which makes them look even stateman-like in comparison; for Reagan in particular it has taken some of the harder ideological edge off.  Reagan's awful response to the AIDS crisis seems to have gone into the memory hole. His credit for handling the Cold War has been solidified into historical orthodoxy, which partly is deserved and partly is a failure by historians to use probabilistic reasoning (i.e. there is good reason to think that Reagan's conduct materially increased the risk of nuclear catastrophe in the 81-84 period which is a negative even if that bad outcome wasn't realized).

He's another one which I think will change - I see more about the AIDS crisis in recent years percolating into mainstream awareness. It used to be something that I think was fairly limited to LGBT writers/historians.

I think what you say will continue to mean he does well - plus I think historians don't want to basically rate every Republican since Ike (except for Bush I) negatively. I suspect in the future Reagan's response to AIDS will come more to the fore and his rating will drop.

Ive never understood any of what sober people would consider Reagans accomplishments.

Nobody serious, I don't think, would actually argue that the downfall of Communism was the result on anything as singular as who was President of the USA. I mean...that doesn't even make sense from the standpoint of the ideology of Reaganesque anti-communists! Isn't that entire argument that Communism simply does not work? If so, then it was doomed to fail no matter who was President of the USA.

So what exactly is it that Regan was so star spangled awesome at?

[The Larch]

Back to the presidential rankings, I get that Lincoln is basically a civil saint in the country, but I wonder if any somehow critical read of his presidency has been made, as this ranking seems to basically give him top spots by default in all categories. I mean, was he really the best US president of all time in "Economic Management" or "Administrative Skills"?

[Berkut]

Back to the presidential rankings, I get that Lincoln is basically a civil saint in the country, but I wonder if any somehow critical read of his presidency has been made, as this ranking seems to basically give him top spots by default in all categories. I mean, was he really the best US president of all time in "Economic Management" or "Administrative Skills"?

Yes, in both cases.

He managed the economy (or put people in charge to do so) of a nation in a civil war, that ended the civil war with the Union in better economic condition then when it started.

His management of his own cabinet, and creating an entire federal infrastructure at a scale that was at least an order of magnitude greater than what he came into the office with was nothing short of astounding.

I think he gets top marks in both categories, the latter moreso than the former.


Lincoln as a President, for me personally, went like this:


- I was young, and everyone said Lincoln was TEH BESTEST so ok, he was the bestest!


- I got older, and started forming my own opinions, and being older was inclined towards "Well, popular opinion is that Lincoln was TEH BESTEST and mostly people are dumb, so I bet he really wasn't that great!"


- I actually started reading a lot of history, but nothing super specific about the ACW, and there seemed to be a lot of consensus about Lincoln even among professionals....so hmmm. Maybe he really was pretty good?


- I got a ACW itch and read a lot about the conduct of the war, and revised to "Well damn - the Union had a pretty fucking tough road there, and they won despite some pretty terrible generals, and Lincoln sure seemed to know when to interfere and when to get out of the way....so I guess he was actually pretty good!"


- I spent some effort reading a few specific Lincoln biographies, and biogrpahies of other notable US CW decision makers, and realized that not only was the outcome of his leadership exceptional, the details of HOW he did what he did are fucking amazing. His political instincts were incredible, and more importantly, how he was able to use those instincts to manipulate the other political figures around him to achieve his goals was impressive. And finally, the fact that those goals he was manipulating them towards were genuinely aligned with his views on what was best for his country, rather then just himself personally, put him over the top, IMO.


The canonical great man at the right time, combined with humility and near perfect alignment of his personal views with the greater good of his society.

[The Brain]

How good a painter was he?

[PDH]

How good a painter was he?

He could paint a house in 5 hours.

[The Minsky Moment]

In case anyone wants to check the nitty gritty details of the rankings:

https://www.c-span.org/presidentsurvey2021/

So most of Polk's drop is due to a dip in "performance in the context of his time" - seems like more historians are coming around to my own view in that.   Same dynamic but going in the other direction with Grant.   

Jackson went way down on "moral authority".  Cant argue that one.

Reagan went up on crisis leadership and international relations, which isn't totally unreasonable, as long as one takes the view that a key problem in the 1980s Middle East was Iran not having enough weapons.  Basically Ike and Reagan are going up in international relations at the expense of Wilson, Nixon, and John Adams.  Defensible but not unarguable.

Monroe went up in admin skills - was there some new bio that justified this?  I always thought of Monroe as a CEO model President with a strong cabinet.

Given the criteria the B Hussein Obama ranking isn't totally whacky.  He ranks well in public persuasion, moral authority, pursues equal justice, and economic management - all justifiable. Does poorly in relations with Congress.

As for Harry S - somewhere the Pendergast machine is still alive and running a protection racket on academic historians.

[The Brain]

How good a painter was he?

He could paint a house in 5 hours.

Pathetic. This took me less than a minute.

[The Minsky Moment]

I mean, was he really the best US president of all time in "Economic Management" or "Administrative Skills"?

The best? - hard to say - but he did really well in both areas.

[The Minsky Moment]

How good a painter was he?

OK but not as good as Hitler.

[Eddie Teach]

How good a painter was he?

He could paint a house in 5 hours.

How big was the house?

[Berkut]

Given the criteria the B Hussein Obama ranking isn't totally whacky.  He ranks well in public persuasion, moral authority, pursues equal justice, and economic management - all justifiable. Does poorly in relations with Congress.

If the US ends up with a single payer health system eventually (and I think it will) Obama's place in history, fair or otherwise, will be as the President who that started.

As for Harry S - somewhere the Pendergast machine is still alive and running a protection racket on academic historians.

I think Truman was a damn good President, again, working in a very, very tough time.

He managed the end of WW2 about as well as could be expected of anyone in his position, and no matter what else he did, he fucking fired MacArthur. So he will always be somewhere in the top...25%? Just for that alone.

[The Brain]

Did he fire MacArthur in cold blood?

[The Minsky Moment]

On economic management who are the viable candidates?

Washington - basically a proxy of one's view about the Hamiltonian program

Lincoln - the Southern economy collapsed during the war, the North came out even stronger than before.  The Northern war economy funnelled enormous resources to over 2 million men fighting across the continent yet he still found the time to push forward the trans-continental railroad, land grant universities, the Homestead act, and the national banking system.  Not too shabby.

FDR - polarizing choice.  Inherited very bad conditions and attacked them more energetically then his predecessors, but not always effectively.

Clinton - macro numbers were excellent.