Posted on 02/19/2018 6:50:50 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Political polarization may be blotting out Americans' understanding of their own history, a new poll suggests. More Americans identified former Presidents Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama as the best president in U.S. history rather than Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.
When asked who was the best president in U.S. history, 16 percent of Americans selected Reagan and another 16 percent selected Obama, according to a recent YouGov survey. Lincoln took third place with 15 percent, and Washington followed with 10 percent.
The grand totals miss the larger story, however. Among Republicans, 36 percent chose Reagan, while only two percent of Democrats agreed. Obama enjoyed a similar disparity — 33 percent of Democrats said he was the best president, while only two percent of Republicans agreed.
Lincoln received even support from both parties, at 15 percent. Tragically, only 14 percent of Republicans chose Washington, and only six percent of Democrats did likewise.
While a strong case could be made for Reagan, Lincoln and Washington should beat him and Obama easily on the merits. Ronald Reagan led the final drive to defeat the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and Obama did represent a symbolic victory as the first black president (even though he followed the same destructive Progressivism of some of America's worst presidents).
Even so, Abraham Lincoln held the Union together, defeating the Confederacy and fighting in order to save the Constitution, which included no secession clause. Lincoln's stance against slavery mattered less to him than preserving the Union, but he eventually led the effort to pass the 13th Amendment, eradicating the scourge of slavery once and for all.
Lincoln's Gettysburg Address has gone down in the hearts and minds of Americans for generations, but his second inaugural address is arguably the best speech he ever gave. This speech gave a religious interpretation of the Civil War unmatched in its humility and interpretation of American history.
"Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes," Lincoln declared.
He rooted the need for the war in Matthew 18:7:
Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!' If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him?
Obama was the closest thing to pure evil, ever to sit in the oval office. George Washington served, of course, before there was an oval office; and in his completely honorable discharge of the Presidential duties, truly defined what we should have been able to expect from every President.
Dewey’s fall campaign was terrible. Thinking you have it in the bag and not bothering to really campaign was criminally stupid.
Washington is first
Everyone else is a distant second depending on your heritage and geography
I’m chuckling
Lincoln and Polk back to back
I live in the middle of Polk country
I’m from an era where Lincoln was still unpopular in my region even though I realize relatively speaking it woulda been worse had Stevens or Sumner been president
Hell yes
Why?
Kennedy also got the government directly involved with the MOB trying to take out Castro and is the President who turned public servants into public unions... I would not rate Kennedy high at all...
He gets way too much credit because of the PR campaign around him and the fact he was killed while in office.
Not a bad president, but not a great one.
Say what you want about Harding, but he never went near the Swamp.
He gave his buddies the ability to populate the swamp.
Rethinking my list, I probably rated Harding too low. He should be around #4
Because...?
Because he cleaned up Wilson’s mess and cured a depression. He also sent the parlor pinks and “progressives” packing. It would be nearly a decade before they were back.
I think we are way too uncritically in love with Reagan!
I certainly like and admire the man. I do put him in the top 10!
1. Washington
2. Lincoln
3. FDR (Only reason this high was the horror of the particular national enemy, our national existence & Western Civilization was at stake! Otherwise not in the top 10!)
4. Polk
5. Reagan
6. Eisenhower
7. Coolidge
8. McKinley
9. John Adams
10. Cleveland
....
43. Buchanan
44. Carter
45. Obama
OK, may i ask what makes Polk such a great president that he is ranked in the top 5? He was President for only one term. is it because under his presidency, the USA annexed Texas and Oregon and won the Mexican war?
Yes! And he did it in 4 years!
Kennedy did not order the assassination of Diem. There is no evidence the U.S. sought his death. His political support was collapsing in Vietnam and his position became untenable. His enemies within Vietnam killed him.
Put down the Chomsky and Zinn books.
I would not be able to list them ALL, and certainly not in rank order. However, I do know the important ones, the ones who made important decisions, and the ones responsible for turning the page of history. I rank Washington first, by far. I have to say Jefferson would be my second due to his opinions on government limitation. I would rank Eisenhower, Reagan, McKinley, and Roosevelt (Teddy) highly. Many Republican friends of mine are surprised that I rank Kennedy higher than many Republican presidents. This is due to his strong stand against Communism and the Soviets. I am aware he was a sleaze, but many other presidents have been also. Most of the remainder, save a few, were pretty much inconsequential or just had nothing much happen during their tenure. Roosevelt (Franklin) was consequential, but for the wrong reasons as he exploded government power and got Americans hooked on the welfare state. Lincoln I have not made up my mind on but he was definitely consequential. I would rank Obama, Bush 1, Bush 2, Carter, Nixon, Ford, Johnson, Wilson, Hoover, and Grant all on the lower end of the spectrum. Unfortunately most of them have been mediocre or downright bad. Obama’s hatred for the nation and destructive policies rank him dead last to me. Trump is too new as of yet. Very few were truly “great” presidents.
There is no shadow of a doubt that the coup against Diem led by Big Minh was backed by the Kennedy administration. The possibility of Diem’s death was understood and so some effort was made to make him abandon his role and South Vietnam. Diem refused to abdicate.
The real collapse was the vacuum created by the anti-Diem coup and the instability of South Vietnam for the next two years. Yes, their were protests against the Catholic Diem but he enjoyed more support than his successors. The Kennedy brothers wanted somebody that would play ball the Kennedy way and thus financed the coup against Diem by the squish of all squishes Big Minh.
Utter nonsense.
The South Vietnamese planned and executed the coup. The U.S. was informed and the Kennedy administration, knowing his position was untenable, informed the coup planners that the U.S. would not intervene. Leaders have been overthrown many times without being killed. Neither Kennedy nor the U.S. ordered Diem killed. The South Vietnamese are responsible for his death, not Kennedy.
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