Top 10 Most Popular US Presidents in History
September 3, 2010 · Posted in News and Society · Comment
- Abraham Lincoln. Having come to power at a time when the United States was breaking apart, Lincoln have easily been at the bottom of this list as “the President who allowed America to become the dis-United States”. Instead, he used his flowing rhetoric, a nose for politics like a bloodhound, and the good old American principle of standing for what is right to transition the country from a slaveholding state to one that granted freedom to all its former slaves.
- George Washington. Not far behind Lincoln would have to come George Washington, the founding father of the country, and without whom there would most likely be no United States. It was Washington who transformed a bunch of raggedy fellas with rifles into what could properly be called the Continental Army, and him again that oversaw the writing of the Constitution at the Philadelphia Convention in 1787. And who did the nation turn to for its first President? Ol’ George, who unlike other popular leaders of the day, wanted nothing to do with power or fame. His precedent as President set the tone for America’s foreign policy for the next 100 years, ensuring the country’s survival would not be threatened by wars in faraway countries.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt. The only President to have served three terms before or since, FDR was commander-in-chief during the most significant periods of the 20th century: the Great Depression and World War II. Although his New Deal programs were significant for their optimism and aggressive approach to the Depression of the 1930′s, it was his transformation of the U.S. economy into an unstoppable war machine that secured him a place in history.
- Theodore Roosevelt. The original American cowboy, Teddy Roosevelt was a man’s man. How else could you make “Speak softly and carry a big stick,” your foreign policy and get away with it? He was also an avid outdoorsman and conservationist, creating many of the nation’s parks, going on safari to Africa, and traveling up uncharted rivers in South America.
- Harry S. Truman. The kind of politician you don’t see much of anymore, Harry Truman had a sign on his desk, “The buck stops here,” alluding to the political pasttime of passing blame on to someone else. His place in history was secured by his terrible decision to use nuclear weapons in the war against Japan, but he also played a key role in the country’s shift from military to peacetime economy and the beginning of the Cold War.
- John F. Kennedy. Whether it was the K.G.B., the Mafia, or even the U.S. Government itself behind Kennedy’s assassination, conspiracy theories are probably what JFK has become best know for. But he was also the youngest President ever voted into office, and he successfully rallied the country into winning the Space Race to the Moon.
- Thomas Jefferson. The main man behind the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was instrumental in setting the standard for states’ rights, securing about 1/3 of the land presently known as the United States in the Lousiana Purchase, and commissioning the Lewis and Clark expedition.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower. “I like Ike,” the slogan went, and as the first U.S. general to successfully move from military victory to political, Eisenhower was wildly popular as President.
- Woodrow Wilson. He ended a century’s worth of isolationism by bringing the U.S. into World War I and helped create the League of Nations (a sort of predecessor of the U.N.). Wilson’s foreign policy paved the way for America’s position as “defender of democracy” for decades to come.
- Ronald Reagan. As President when the Berlin Wall came down, Ronald Reagan oversaw the ramping up of the Cold War that inevitably resulted in the self-destruction of the U.S.S.R. His economic policy, known as “Reaganomics,” helped make him an extremely popular President primarily by reducing taxes.
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