Clay almost nailed it @mcmurtry66. I’d flip Trump to 4 and Bush Sr. to 3. Needless to say we had pretty good Presidents in the 80s and 90s. Not so much since then. What are everyone else’s rankings?
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Rankings
- Thread starter snarlcakes
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Clay almost nailed it @mcmurtry66. I’d flip Trump to 4 and Bush Sr. to 3. Needless to say we had pretty good Presidents in the 80s and 90s. Not so much since then. What are everyone else’s rankings?
I’ve liked Clay Travis, but after his blistering attacks on IU, fvck him.
Don’t tell Murt that. Clay’s an SEC guy = crusty chode
1) Barack Obama 2008-2016
2) Bill Clinton 1992-2000
3) Ronald Reagan 1980-1988
4) George Bush Sr. 1988-1992
5) Joe Biden 2020-2024
6) George W. Bush 2000-2008
7) Donald Trump 2016-2020
These type of things are inevitably tied to situations and outcomes in the economy and other world events that Presidents often have little influence over.
I get some feel that way because of the seriousness of the Iraq mistake, but strong disagree. The policy of both was/is lame sloganeering, but there's a decency about W that Trump utterly lacks. More importantly, when confronted with a moment of national emergency that defines a Presidency, Bush rose to the occasion and united the country while Trump shit the bed. Bush ended up throwing that away, but he was an incredibly good leader in the initial response to 9/11.
Trump and Biden both worse IMO. And not even close.
The 2008 election outcomes would like to have a word with you twenty.
You donating to AOC for 28? Men for AOC t shirt ready to go?
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I don't give points for decency. It's all results for me. Compare the US COVID results to the rest of the West, and I think you'll see we were not an outlier. So to the extent you want to blame Trump there, the results aren't much different than what you see elsewhere.
Compare that to the U.S.'s disastrous misadventure in the Middle East, and count all the deaths the U.S. is responsible for there (Iraqi and Syrian lives matter, too) and I don't think there is any contest.
okay then. here's my final rankings
1. clinton
2. reagan
3. obama
4. bush sr
5. trump
6. W
7. Biden
Final answer
How can you not have Biden #1 in “power” rankings. He impacted more things and caused more damage in a single term than any other president ever. His negative impacts will endure for decades.
Trump should be #2, because of his impacts.
Obama should be last because his impacts are pretty meaningless except for his increasing racial tension.
The others are pretty much interchangeable.
I think there are a lot of potential correct answers, but any correct answer must follow this formula:
The top 4 are Clinton, Obama, Reagan, Bush Sr., in any order you like.
The bottom 3 are Trump, W, Biden, in any order you like.
You can make arguments for all sorts of orderings within these two groups, but it should be clear to everyone that the past seven presidents clearly divide into two groups with a huge gap between them.
Your thinking is very narrow on this point. Our handling of Iraq was terrible policy, but Trump's disastrous handling of Covid goes way beyond U.S. Covid deaths. He has poisoned the American experience in a multitude of ways that are far more damaging than anything GWB did.
Decency matters.
I don’t think any president has done more to damage the American experience than Biden and the Dems. From a 41 year inflation spike to open borders to absurd cultural positions.
Trump’s handling of Covid was disastrous but I bet we disagree as to why. The reality is the entrenched agencies were negligent and why we need doge and anything else that will remove rubber stampers like Biden. Imo trump turned Covid over to fauci and the scientists and that was his biggest mistake. There were broader policy issues that demanded attention that his lack of organizational experience exacerbated. To his credit he expedited vaccines and supported same. Unfortunately follow the science was proven so full of shit by that time millions were skeptical. Then the woke cult used Covid as another tool to virtue signal. Trump sucked but Biden and the woke cult of Harris and the rest are the suckiest sucks to ever suck.
Goat I’ve taken slight issue with your two groups. I’d argue Sr is perfect at 4 and has no business in the top 3 or bottom. He’s an island unto himself
Brad and I weren't discussing Trump and Biden. We were discussing Trump and W.
Yes, we disagree why Trump's handling of Covid was disastrous.
All due respect hoos, I think your thinking on Iraq is what is too narrow. That was a voluntary war--GWB made that call as the Decider. No one else would have even suggested it had he and his administration not put it forward.
What are you ranking? The OP is about power. I think you are ranking according to who, in your view, was best.
If memory serves W had the highest approval rating ever recorded. By the time he left he was in the low 30s
Most estimates I see have the death count from the Iraq War alone (which doesn't count ISIS and its carnage, the direct result of that war) at ~500,000 (total count from US Middle East wars has been estimated around 1 million).
Total US Covid deaths were 1 million. So for Trump to even approach Bush just on the number of deaths he directly caused from just Iraq, you'd have to argue Trump's policies doubled the number of COVID deaths in this country that would have occurred but for his policies. I find that notion implausible, to say the least.
Then you add on the fact that Bush's war decisions led to 38 million people in the Middle East being displaced as a result of those wars. That exceeds the number displaced by every single war over the last 124 years, excluding WW 2.
watson.brown.edu
Total US Covid deaths were 1 million. So for Trump to even approach Bush just on the number of deaths he directly caused from just Iraq, you'd have to argue Trump's policies doubled the number of COVID deaths in this country that would have occurred but for his policies. I find that notion implausible, to say the least.
Then you add on the fact that Bush's war decisions led to 38 million people in the Middle East being displaced as a result of those wars. That exceeds the number displaced by every single war over the last 124 years, excluding WW 2.
Human Costs | Costs of War
The Costs of War Project is a team of 35 scholars, legal experts, human rights practitioners, and physicians, which began its work in 2011. We use research and a public website to facilitate debate about the costs of the post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
The term "power ranking" is a sports term for ranking the best teams.
Agreed. Power in sports, particularly football, is directly related to the better team. Power politics is different. Biden exercises a lot of power and he is the worst president ever.
Certainly of the modern era he’s the worst. I bet you if he would have gotten the call in 2016 he’d have been very different and probably fine. I think by 20 he was hiding in the basement and already spent. The lefty cult used him like a puppet.
All due respect accepted and returned. I find Trump's damage to go beyond GWB's and suspect it will endure for much longer. It might be because I'm looking at this from an American perspective and not from an Iraqi perspective. Happy to agree to disagree on this.
I think you are all forgetting Musk. Where will he end up ranking?
I understand where you're coming from, and I don't think it's outrageous, but I have always been more pro-GHWB than others, so I will respectfully continue to disagree. There are days when I think he was better than Reagan or Clinton.
That's really the answer. The top 4 were effective presidents. The bottom 3 were disasters. Anyone attempting to shift anyone either way over that hard line is just politicking.
Clay Travis was born in 1979. That means he was nine years old when his No.1 pick left office.
i doubt Musk meets the qualifications:
"No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."
