There’s a growing school of thought that says FDRs consistent meddling with the economy did more harm than good, as is evidenced by other countries climbing out of the depression faster than the U.S. did.
- Abraham Lincoln
- FDR
- George Washington
- LBJ
- Harry Truman
- James K. Polk
- Thomas Jefferson
- Barack Obama
- Ulysses S. Grant
- Theodore Roosevelt
Lincoln. I know it’s cliche, but I don’t care. For nearly 70 years the United States, presidents and congress alike, talked about slavery and what to do with this peculiar institution, but nobody ever actually had the balls to deal with it. The United States was, in many ways, two different countries and cultures precariously tied and balanced together as one ‘union’. Abraham Lincoln’s resolve and decisiveness, in the face of so much loss, gave America the backbone it lacked before 1865, and it permanently forged the country as a single union together after 1865. There is no president who compares to Lincoln, and frankly, nobody belongs in the same discussion, save maybe George Washington who established the model of what the office ought to look like.
- Lincoln
- George Washington
- FDR
- TR
- Thomas Jefferson
Is that the Alt-Left List? How shockingly…not alternative.
“Growing school of thought” my ass. More like a “growing school of thoughtlessness,” if anything.
and yet you propose no alternative. . .how shocking, , ,
mc
Getting back to the OP (I realize four years late) I don’t think Nixon deserves as much credit for opening diplomatic relations with China as he is often given. The People’s Republic of China had been around for thirty years by the time the United States decided to acknowledge that reality. It’s not like America was a leader either: Britain, France, West Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, Pakistan, Turkey, and Japan had all recognized the People’s Republic by 1979. The United States was one of the last major nations to do so.
And the reason for that was domestic politics not sound foreign policy. There was a widespread anti-communist movement that went beyond reason and approached hysteria. And Nixon had been one of the major leaders in this movement. If Nixon was the man who opened the door with China, he was also one of the men who had kept it locked shut for decades. The same is true about Nixon’s detente policy with the Soviet Union, which tried to make our relations with that country less confrontational. Nixon’s foreign policy as President mostly consisted of untangling problems that he had had a big hand in creating before his presidency.
I have to give Lincoln the nod over Washington if you’re looking for our Greatest President. If you’re going for lifetime achievement, Washington would win. But a large share of Washington’s reputation is based on things he did before becoming President. His presidency was pretty quiet. Lincoln had to handle a lot more as President than Washington ever had to in that office.
There’s a lot to admire about Washington… but I just don’t see how one can give a slave owner the nod over the man who issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
You missed a lot. No love for LBJ whatsoever.
To me, it’s pretty much a time between Washington and Lincoln.
Mere recognition of the PRC isn’t really the key point here; what matters is Nixon’s move pivoted China away from the possibility of alliance with the USSR.
I suggested William Henry Harrison earlier in the thread. Top Ten:
- WHH
- Washington
- Harding
- Jefferson
- Tyler
- Cleveland
- Coolidge
- Van Buren
Can’t come up with any more than that.
But that possibility had existed all along. The only reason the United States hadn’t explored it earlier was because of a refusal to consider a working alliance with any communist regime.
If we had been a little more pragmatic, we could have encouraged nationalist interests over ideological solidarity in places like China, Vietnam, and Cuba and attempted to keep them neutral in our conflict with the Soviet Union. But we insisted on making communism as an ideology the enemy rather than specific communist nations like the Soviet Union.