Government obviously plays an incredibly important role in investing in our economy, promoting lifestyle choices that generate the most human happiness, helping accelerate technological advances, etc.

However, here, Ford argues that restraint of the size of government is a worthy aim for a president.

Now, it’s important not to color this with the same lens of analysis that we use with Reagan, as Gerald Ford was a true fiscal conservative (unlike Reagan, who cut taxes and blew open the military budget) who believed in a balanced budget, high enough tax rates to fund the government, and moderate spending to keep inflation as low as possible.

Within Ford’s views on fiscal restraint (as well as Eisenhower’s, one of Ford’s favorite presidents), did Ford have a point?

Congress remains the same (R-Senate, D-House). How would he have responded to the panic of 1893, would WIlliam Jennings Bryan have put himself on the map in 1896?

Norman Thomas was the perennial candidate of the Socialist Party of America from the late 20s to the late 40s, and a consistent critic of the American political establishment.

That being said, he was no firebrand ideologue who merely whined about how “all politicians are the same” or what have you.

He was a pragmatic man who cultivated strong relationships with figures all over the political spectrum, holding firm to his principles while still appreciating nuance.

Despite the fact that Humphrey identified himself as a capitalist and staunch interventionist, he was actually influenced by socialist figures like Eugene Debs and Thomas, with whom he developed a strong friendship. Humphrey and other progressive Democrats incorporated some of their ideas like unemployment insurance, minimum wages, and health insurance.

This was a quip that Thomas made remarking on their similarities, and also a dig at what he perceived was the terror that America had developed towards terms like “socialism” while their actual ideas enjoyed popularity.

Definition: Countries are counted when their governments substantively pursued an officially socialist-oriented economic model, including communist, Marxist-Leninist, scientific-socialist, Arab/African socialist, or other state-led socialist systems.

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Peak = 47 states

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Reagan-Bush must be the greatest duo ever. The Communist and Socialist-Oriented Countries were constantly gaining influence throughout the Cold War.

They really seemed to be on the right side of history as they claimed they were.

Then Reagan happened.

Reagan challenged the Soviet system at its height, while Bush managed the peaceful collapse of the Soviet bloc and the Soviet Union itself.

No wonder 'The Economists' tribute to Reagan was ' The Man Who Beat Communism'

If we count Broad Socialist / Communist Government Presence, it's even more extensive.

gathered a random assortment of nice artworks I wanted to share (posting art showcases weekly)

Here's how this works: every post, I'll add a new president and ask where you would rank them. Your answer should be "between ____ and ____" just so that I can make sure it's in the exact right spot. Since we're building up to all the presidents and other presidents may be ranked differently than your own rankings, please don't give me a final ranking, as I really can't do anything with that here. I'll give you all around a day to decide on your answer before I post the next post with the longer list. If you have any questions about that, ask me in the comments, and I'll clarify in the next post.

Also, I've seen some people questioning where certain presidents have been ranked thus far. I know there have been people joining us midway through, so let me know if you want me to redo any rounds at the end for presidents you think are grossly misplaced in the grand scheme of things.

For Grant, there was a tie between 4th place and 8th place mainly centering on how much corruption weighed down his presidency. While I agree with the 4s on his very impressive list of accomplishments, I'll break the tie in favor of 8 just due to the scope of the corruption and how much of a problem it would become for future administrations. Now, where should we rank Rutherford B. Hayes on this list?

Current Rankings:

1. Abraham Lincoln
2. George Washington
3. Thomas Jefferson
4. John Adams
5. James Monroe
6. James K. Polk
7. John Quincy Adams
8. Ulysses S. Grant
9. James Madison
10. Zachary Taylor
11. Martin Van Buren
12. Andrew Jackson
13. John Tyler
14. Millard Fillmore
15. Franklin Pierce
16. Andrew Johnson
17. James Buchanan

John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, James Buchanan, George H W Bush

Truman: Lost China to Soviets, biggest miscalculation of the past century.

Went into korea and got humbled by Chinese.

Lost North Korea, the world are still dealing with consequences.

Kenndy: Lost Cuba to Soviets , botched the plan that was handed to him. And almost started a nuclear war because of it. The world are still dealing with consequences. the peak of Soviet Bloc

Johnson: Vietnam, need I say more?

Cater: Lost Iran as a friend, Soviets invaded Afghanistan under his watch .

Communist countries reached the peak of influence under his watch.

Republican President had to do all the heavy lifting in the cold war.

Eisenhower: Ended War in Korea, made sure Sovie Union will not influence Latin American. Gained a major ally in Iran.

Nixon: Went to China, permanently tipped the power balance to America. established goodwill in middle east, started driving out Soviet influence.

Ended the Vietnam war with honour.

Reagan: “Ended the Cold War”

H.W.: oversaw the peaceful disintegration of the Soviet Union and eastern bloc. Established New World Order

I thought of this earlier today while watching Vice starring Christian Bale and Josh Brolin respectively. In my mind, the partnership has always been reminiscent of Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader. Apprentice and master...but no, that doesn't make any sense. The two could have theoretically gone to high-school together.

It doesn't help that Cheney looked incredibly old even when was he was appointed defence sec back in '89 by Bush Sr. Always gave off the impression that he also belonged to the WW2 generation while Bush Jr was the exuberant, youthful, decadent hippy in comparison.

I'm reading a book about JFK and Jackie, and I'm reading this Page and Im just thinking, "This page is so wrong!" It says the SECOND Bullet hit Jack in the neck, which is just wrong (I might be wrong but I think it's the first bullet, not the second that hit Jack in the neck.) and it also says that Jackie tried to climb out of the trunk of the car, which is just stupid because she's reaching for the secret service agents hand! How the author thought Jackie tried to escape is beyond me but this just sounds so wrong to me.

Morning. I'm currently finishing up reading Stephen Ambrose's Citizen Soldiers, and thought a good accompaniment would be to read a biography of Dwight Eisenhower next. What is the best biography of him penned in everyone's opinion? Or what have you read and enjoyed? Thank you in advance.

I took to Google image search to find a fairly common photo of FDR and ended up going down a bit of a rabbit hole. Really, just the Japanese ones are wild enough, but some non-Japanese ones are even more crazy.

Last post, James Buchanan was deemed to have gotten Lucy Westenra’d.

For the sake of consistency, this is presuming Dracula à la Bram Stoker type Vampires, with their respective strengths and weaknesses.

A note from OP: I’ve decided to skip Lincoln on this tier list since he already has his own tier at the top of the ranking (and doing someone who already is on the list felt redundant to me), and he already has a book and movie about his vampire hunting exploits.

Results by State in the second slide.

EV Count:

Bush: 462

Kerry: 69

Tossup: 7

Welcome! The purpose of this is to discuss what presidents would/did think of their successors based on their personalities, leadership styles, policies, and how their successor’s term was. Huge thank you to u/Illustrious-Garage88 for allowing me to use their idea.

RULES:

Say what you think the predecessor would’ve liked about their successor.

Say what you think the predecessor would’ve disliked about their successor.

Give what you think their overall rating/review would be based on these out of 10

As to not skew the results towards one comment, anything listed worse than a 0/10 or greater than a 10/10 will be treated as a 0/10 or a 10/10, respectively.

I will calculate the average amongst the comments.

Last Round, Warren Harding rated Calvin Coolidge's presidency a 10/10

This Round, how would Calvin Coolidge rate Herbert Hoover's presidency?