Interesting groupings; I agree with most of them, but I would raise Truman, FDR and Arthur (Civil Service as it was intended to be) to the Good levels, and despite the fact that I despise him on a personal basis, I would put Clinton at “fair” (he was more of the centrist Dem on the economy, which he had to be with a Rep House, and he didn’t involve us in disastrous wars). I wouldn’t rank Harding higher than “fair” and I would probably have a new category for Lyndon Johnson, “actively evil”.
FDR was the epitome of what the Founding Fathers wanted to avoid in a President. Way too long to list here why he was utterly destructive, but you know the basics already (expansionist government, welfare state, re-enslaving Blacks to the Democrat party/big government, Socialist economics, conspiring to get us into WW2, allowing Soviet infiltration of the government and institutions). I rank him as or at dead last.
Truman was scarcely better and also did little to combat Soviet infiltration of our nation. His shining point was ending WW2 in the Pacific Theatre, but it is diminished by failure to rid Asia of Mao, which with China under Chiang, there likely would never have been Vietnam, 2 Koreas, et al.
I saw little with Arthur to rank him much more than subpar. While it’s not fair to paint him with the end result of the out-of-control civil service system that created the modern bureaucratic armies (leftist, of course) that infest our government, he still signed off on it (even if he didn’t know where it would necessarily lead to). If he did know, then he would deserve a ranking of “destructive.”
I also can’t bump up Clinton on economics for one good reason: it was not due to his agenda. He had government expansion and spending on par with Zero’s for perpetuity. Absent a Republican Congress and Newt, who forced his hand, there would never have been any economic success in the ‘90s whatsoever. Too many other corruption issues (nevermind his failure to get bin Laden before 9/11).
Harding was actually a VERY good President (the sole flaw being putting his trust in some corrupt officials, such as Interior Sec. Albert Fall). At the end of the Wilson regime, the nation entered a recession that could’ve easily turned far worse under bad leadership. Harding came in with huge (never-seen-since) GOP majorities and working in hand with Treasury Sec. Andrew Mellon, cut taxes, spending/government and resolved the Wilson Recession in almost record time and set the country on track to the 1920s boomtimes. The media and academia ignore Harding because he proved that a “Conservative” and austere approach to tax-cutting and gov’t spending, et al, works like a charm.
Indeed, Harding and Trump may be the two greatest economic Presidents in the history of the nation. Reagan took a bit longer, but he didn’t get the cuts in government and overall spending because of a Democrat House that was in the way. For all that has been said about Coolidge as “great” by some Conservatives, he was merely continuing the policies of Harding-Mellon that were already in place and working. Coolidge actually erred by putting a terrible left-winger on SCOTUS, his Attorney General Harlan Stone (his sole appointment), who was so well-regarded by FDR that he was elevated to Chief Justice despite being a “Republican” (about as much as Earl Warren). A big negative mark against him.
LBJ... well, without FDR/Truman to pave the way for him and Ike’s disastrous tenure that gave the Dems unholy majorities nationwide, he’d have never made it to the White House with JFK.