Sigh, I Ranked the Presidents, Again

C-SPAN did a whole new list ranking the presidents and everyone is freaking out that Obama is #12. He's amazing! Wow! Obama is the best president ever! Keep in mind, guys, this list is the Make America Great Again of lists, with an insane bias for the middle of the 20th Century. Eisenhower is #5, higher than Jefferson. Sorry, no. Reagan is top 10? Nixon is higher than Garfield, who died having not be-smirched the office he swore to uphold nor ruined the presidency even to this day?

On the other hand, it's always good to update lists. I'm pretty compulsive. Updating lists keeps me from flipping out at old people who drive 40 in the fast lane (you have four other lanes, you fucking asshole). During the election, I talked to a lot of people about the symbolism of a president, and it gave me a new appreciation for the less concrete aspects of the job. On the flip side,  I have been thinking a lot about Jackson in the age of Trump. Maybe it's maturity that made me finally realize changing the entire political landscape and ushering in a new era in American government doesn't matter much when you've committed genocide.

I still hold to the spirit of the original list, that the actions of a president must be viewed through neutral political eyes. We don't have enough perspective to know the consequences of Reaganomics or Obamacare.

So I laid out my list and compared it to the C-SPAN list to see how different they were. Below is my old list, in comparison to the C-SPAN list. The numbers reflect my position in relation to theirs (Jefferson +3 means I rated him 3 slots higher. Zero means same, and there are some random zeroes in here)

The Old List

FUCKING SWEET 1. Abraham Lincoln 0 2. George Washington 0 3. Franklin Roosevelt 0 4. Thomas Jefferson +3 5. Theodore Roosevelt -1 6. Andrew Jackson +12 7. James K. Polk +7 8. William McKinley +8 9. Dwight Eisenhower -4 10. Woodrow Wilson +1 11. Harry Truman -5 12. James Monroe +1 PRETTY GOOD 13. Lyndon Johnson -3 14. Ronald Reagan -5 15. Calvin Coolidge +12 16. Barack Obama -4 17. John F. Kennedy -9 18. Grover Cleveland +5 19. George H. W. Bush +1 20. Rutherford Hayes +12 21. Bill Clinton -6 22. Ulysses S. Grant 0

KINDA EH 23. James Madison -6 24. William Taft 0 25. Benjamin Harrison +5 26. Chester Arthur +9 27. John Quincy Adams -6 28. John Tyler +9 29. James Garfield 0 30. Martin Van Buren +4 31. John Adams -12 32. William Henry Harrison +6 PRETTY BAD 33. Gerald Rudolph Ford -8 34. Zachary Taylor -3 35. Jimmy Carter -9 36. Herbert Hoover 0 37. Warren Harding +3 38. Millard Fillmore -1 MISERABLE FUCK UP 39. George W. Bush -6 40. Richard Nixon -12 41. Franklin Pierce 0 42. Andrew Johnson  0 43. James Buchanan 0

Taking into consideration my new perspective on life and the opinions of a survey of experts, I re-ranked the list. My thresholds for each tier changed too. This time, the numbers reflect the change from the old list.

The New List (2017)

FUCKING SWEET 1. Lincoln  0 2. Washington 0 3. FD. Roosevelt 0 4. T. Roosevelt +1 5. Jefferson -1 PRETTY GOOD 6. Truman +5 7. McKinley +1 8. LB. Johnson +5 9. Eisenhower 0 10. Jackson -4 11. Wilson -1 12. Polk -5 13. Monroe -1 14. Reagan 0 15. Obama +1 16. Kennedy +1 17. HW. Bush +2 18. Cleveland 0 19. Coolidge  -4 20. Clinton +1 21. Grant +1 KINDA EH 22. Hayes -2 23. Madison 0 24. Taft 0 25. Q. Adams +2

26. Garfield  +3 27. Arthur -1 28. B. Harrison -3 29. Adams +2 PRETTY BAD 30. Carter +5 31. Taylor +3 32. Ford +1 33. Van Buren -3 34. WH. Harrison -2 ------------------------------- 35. Hoover +1 36. Fillmore +2 37. Tyler -9 38. Harding -1 MISERABLE FUCK UP WHOSE ACTIONS AS PRESIDENT (A) CHEAPENED THE OFFICE, (B) KILLED THE PUBLIC'S FAITH IN THEIR PUBLIC SERVANTS, (C) WIDENED THE GAP BETWEEN THE GOVERNMENT AND THE PEOPLE, (D) AND/OR WENT BEYOND SUPPORTING SLAVERY TO THE POINT OF OPENLY ADVANCING THE CAUSE OF SUBJUGATING BLACK AMERICANS 39. Nixon (A-C) +1 40. W. Bush (A-C, D?) -1 41. Pierce (A, C, D) 0 42. Buchanan (A-D) +1 43. A. Johnson (A-D) -1

NOTE: The line below William Henry Harrison is there to draw attention to everyone below it as being a worse president than a guy who gave one speech, got sick, and died a month later.

Also, I waffled about Johnson and Buchanan for a while and ultimately decided a guy who was ineffective and terrible isn't quite as bad as the guy who was quite effectively terrible.