vcczar Posted February 20, 2023 Share Posted February 20, 2023 My rankings are never consistent because I frequently reevaluate presidents in my mind, but I suppose my ranking is generally about the same. Here's how I rank the presidents by preference. This doesn't take into account success, party leader, and things like that. This has more to do with progressive vision, national leadership, and general appeal for me. FDR Lincoln Th Roosevelt LBJ Obama JQ Adams Grant Biden J Adams Washington Clinton Truman JFK Eisenhower Jefferson Carter B Harrison Taylor Taft Garfield Arthur Hayes Wilson McKinley Monroe WH Harrison Ford Nixon GHW Bush Hoover Reagan Fillmore Harding Coolidge Van Buren Polk Cleveland Jackson Madison GW Bush A Johnson Tyler Trump Pierce Buchanan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NCblue1 Posted February 20, 2023 Share Posted February 20, 2023 @vcczarMadison is very low, I'm curious to know why? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vcczar Posted February 21, 2023 Author Share Posted February 21, 2023 2 minutes ago, NCblue1 said: @vcczarMadison is very low, I'm curious to know why? I think he was domestically and foreign policy-wise out of his senses until the end of the war. I'm not a fan of the war of 1812 or the invasion of Canada. He saw the need for modernization projects but did nothing because he didn't believe in implied powers, despite clear precedents being set. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DakotaHale Posted February 21, 2023 Share Posted February 21, 2023 Why do you like Reagan more than Coolidge? Also what are your thoughts on estimates of JQ Adams having one of the highest IQs of the presidents? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vcczar Posted February 22, 2023 Author Share Posted February 22, 2023 1 hour ago, DakotaHale said: Why do you like Reagan more than Coolidge? Also what are your thoughts on estimates of JQ Adams having one of the highest IQs of the presidents? Coolidge was not malleable. Reagan was. He worked with Democrats. He was more conservative rhetorically than in action. He knew who controlled Congress. It would have been unpopular for him to oppose that Congress in the way that's popular in the 21st century. I think JQ Adams has clear evidence of intellect. While he wasn't sociable enough and too honest to be a "politician," he seemed to read and understand policy and policy options better than most. A better clue is his range of intellect. He was the best poet of the presidents. The most widely read. Spoke the most languages fluently and learned them quickly. Had a great grasp of philosophy and history. While he was frustrated with making mistakes in chess, he got better at it, although I don't know how great he ultimately become. His foresight is outstanding. Intellectually, he imagined ideas that didn't culminate until the New Deal. Farsighted in abolition. Farsighted in bankruptcy laws. Farsighted in predicting that the Missouri Compromise would lead to Civil War, although in 1820, he expected it to happen before he or Monroe were dead. He could not be manipulated. He saw through people. His greatest flaw politically was not predicting the emergence of new parties and the necessity to act on this, and he had a propensity to say and do what was right, rather than what was politically popular. He and Carter (another high IQ president) share in this latter part. High IQ people as president often lack the connection required of working with the social-political aspect of DC, but as we saw with Trump and Andrew Johnson, so do less intelligent presidents. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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