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I’ve tended to give our first gay President (Buchanan) a pass, if only because there was no one, short of an absolute authoritarian in the vein of Andrew Jackson, who could’ve prevented what was to happen. Once Lincoln’s election happened, Buchanan moved as swiftly as possible to get rid of the Southern sympathizers from government (despite having been accused of being one via his late lover, ex-Senator and (very briefly) VP William King, a North Carolinian-turned-Alabaman).

A curious bit about Buchanan, he was the last of the former Congressional Federalists to win the Presidency (it was really only he and the Adamses). Rather than align with the Whigs, he went to the Jacksonians (one reason being that Pennsylvania’s Whigs were somewhat weak, and on only two occasions (one time each) did they manage to elect a Governor and Senator). The 4 other Whig Presidents, none had been Federalist officeholders (William Henry Harrison started as a Jeffersonian, then an JQ Adamsite; John Tyler had only jumped from the Jacksonians 4 years before he became VP, one reason he was never trusted by the Whigs; Zachary Taylor was military, so he didn’t hold office and Millard Fillmore started out as an anti-Mason, which was its own party).

So, again, one might argue how “weak” our only three Federalist Presidents were (I don’t count Washington as a Federalist, he was basically above the parties, and I regard him as an Independent, as he chose people of both parties to serve under him, although nominally he could be considered a Federalist).

Somewhere around here, I had a post where I ranked them from A to F. There’s no Democrat President since Cleveland I’ve ranked above an “F” for obvious reasons. Cleveland was the last non-moonbat or non-corrupt Dem President. The next 2 Dem Presidents lied us into two world wars. Had Truman left office in 1949, I might’ve given him a D+ rating (A for ending WW2, F for terrible domestic policies). He should’ve done something about Red China and the infestation of Soviet operatives and sympathizers within the government and he chose to do nothing. That has had ramifications to this day. Had Mao been killed and the Kim family of NorK been similarly put down under a Chiang regime, Korea would be a united and powerful first world country today and there would’ve been a swift deposing of any Communist uprisings in SE Asia. Simply put, letting MacArthur do his thing would’ve stopped countless atrocities and left the Soviets isolated. They might’ve been overthrown or collapsed 30 years earlier.

When you look at all that, Truman may end up being one of the biggest disasters at a time when we needed someone to wage completely different and aggressive policies during a post-war power vacuum. A powerful President in 1948 being elected, such as Gen. Patton, would’ve neutralized these threats and purged the Soviet influence in America. We’d have been a vastly different country today, probably decades ahead of where we are now. With no Soviet-leftist infiltration of government, universities/education, media and pop culture, we’d not have had the morass of social problems they have singularly created for the purposes of destroying us.

We’ve really been on the wrong course in this country since at least 1930, if not since 1912, with a brief period of being on the right course again in the 1920s and early ‘80s.

Like I’ve said before: I’d say the last (only?) RAT POTUS that was decent was James Polk...and that’s going back ~175 years.

It goes to show just how utterly bad, detestable, putrid, etc. the RATS are and how long they’ve been that way.

“...short of an absolute authoritarian in the vein of Andrew Jackson...”

Now you’re talking my language.

“A powerful President in 1948 being elected, such as Gen. Patton...”

Who was assassinated.

You’re awfully fatalistic about the Civil War and the aftermath where we allowed Colonel Sanders types to keep treating Blacks like slaves for an additional century, which had lead to problems we still deal with.

The way I see it, the way stuff went down, terrible war, followed by decades of 2nd class citizenship for Blacks, was pretty crappy and could have turned out differently if leadership back then was up to it.

Everyone knew a civil war was a looming possibly, so I don’t give Buchanan or the useless drunk Franklin Piece a pass for doing so little to forestall it. I wish the South had tried in under Jackson, I wish.

I think we call all agree Polk and Cleveland were ok (not to say they were preferable to their opponents). Jackson is fascinating figure I have mixed feeling about. Van Buren wasn’t too bad I don’t think.

The rest of them? Garbage, Tyler (counts as a dem as far as I’m concerned), Pierce, Buchanan, and Andrew Johnson may be Saints compared to the likes of Obama but they were crap.

Back to the subject of the worst, Obama may be the most contemptible swine, the others at least had a drop of America in their blood, but did he really damage the country the most? It depends on your criteria, I think a strong case can be made for America’s Lenin, FDR., JBJ or the hapless douche Carter. Carter is really helped by being the least contemptible personally and not having had a Supreme Court pick. After the Clinton years a lot of people were calling him the worst, in hindsight as bad as was he doesn’t measure up to the “greats”.

You know how I feel about Truman, the love he’s gotten from some on the right cheeses me off, the man was born to sell hats and should have stuck to that. Would have been a good time for a real leader, that’s for sure.