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For these reasons, Jimmy Carter is my third-favorite president of the 20th century, behind my favorite, Calvin Coolidge, and my second-favorite, Dwight Eisenhow
by linguae 2y ago
For these reasons, Jimmy Carter is my third-favorite president of the 20th century, behind my favorite, Calvin Coolidge, and my second-favorite, Dwight Eisenhower. I am a very big fan of Paul Volcker and I’m glad Jimmy Carter nominated him as chair of the Fed. I wish Reagan kept Volcker as chair during Reagan’s second term.
- justin66 2y agoOr nominated anyone other than Greenspan.
- bdndndndbve 2y agoFDR doesn't make the cut?
- WalterBright 2y agoFDR stripped 110,000 Americans of their property and herded them into concentration camps.
- emchammer 2y agoOne of these persons came to speak to my class when I was in elementary school. She was an elderly woman by then. She told us about her daily life in one of these concentration camps. I don't remember much. She definitely told us about the wooden buildings, and only being allowed to bring in what possessions they could carry in a suitcase. I think she also said that they recited the Pledge of Allegiance.
- lelandfe 2y agoMy parents took my siblings and I as children to Manzanar, which has been kept close to its original state. The brutality sits with me. Swarms of mosquitos bit at our family, clouds of dust made it hard to keep eyes open. It was blazing hot, over 100º, so the dust hurt. Rows of squat, decrepit hovels stretched out across the desolate sand towards the mountains. You could see the desert through floors. Barbed wire fences, mounted guns on guard towers. 10,000 American citizens imprisoned in conditions worse than a zoo.
- eastbound 2y agoI’m not in USA and I don’t know about this story. Do you have a name for it so I can search?
- qart 2y agoI'm not American either. I think he means Executive Order 9066 signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_America...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- astura 2y agoIt's commonly known as "Japanese Internment" or "Japanese-American Internment." But, honestly, you can just Google the full text of the comment and the correct results display (at least for me in incognito mode). Actor George Takei was among the victims, and he's written about his experiences https://www.npr.org/2024/04/20/1245844347/george-takei-my-lost-freedom-picture-book https://www.npr.org/2024/04/20/1245844347/george-takei-my-lo...
- redwall_hp 2y agoThis includes real estate that is worth many billions now. The west coast was heavily farmed by Asian Americans, who lost their property to people who are still profiting from the theft to this day. The family behind Kokuho Rose, a popular California sushi rice strain, was affected by this. While they didn't lose the land in the end, it was still stripped of anything of value and left to decay by their neighbors while they were in the camp. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koda_Farms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koda_Farms A Japanese American has also been credited with kicking off the California wine industry, and similarly had his land stolen during that era. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20221113-kanaye-nagasawa-the-samurai-who-forever-changed-california https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20221113-kanaye-nagasawa-...
- jdewerd 2y agoOh, he only busted the Great Depression, won WWII, built half of the infrastructure that we keep kicking the expiration date on, and negotiated 80% of the beneficial fine print in your employment contract. Don't you think he could have done a bit more? My list would be: 1. FDR, 2. Carter, 3. Teddy. Carter because he sacrificed his career to fix inflation (Republican attempts to rewrite history notwithstanding), and Teddy because he wasn't merely an excellent man with excellent politics, but also because whenever present-day Republicans try to claim the man without claiming his politics I can turn it into a teachable moment, and putting him on a list with the other two is the perfect bait.
- brailsafe 2y ago> won WWII or so Hollywood would have us believe
- kridsdale1 2y agoSure, the parts Stalin didn’t win.
- sanderjd 2y agoFDR, Stalin, and Churchill all won that war. History is super messy!
- zeroonetwothree 2y agoFDR did Japanese internment, tried court packing, and was arguably the first of the modern style of power-hungry president. He constantly threatened members of Congress that didn’t roll over and go along with his agenda. To that end he was very influential but not entirely in a good way. He hardly ended the depression, economic conditions were poor until WW2 (eg look at the 1937 downturn, well into his tenure).
- fakedang 2y agoExactly. FDR is the reason that the President today has an unbalanced amount of power compared to Congress. That being said, back then, I would argue that the situation would have been very different had a lesser person than FDR been elected president, given the kind of political climate it was around the world.
- glial 2y ago> FDR is the reason Well, and also every administration and Congress after him for not changing it back.
- potato3732842 2y agoI think imprisoning US citizens based on race and laying the groundwork for the current healthcare system disqualifies one from the podium.
- rayiner 2y agoWhen historians study the U.S. a thousand years in the future his presidency will be the demarcation line between the Anglo-American Republic and the semi-democracy we live in now.
- tptacek 2y agoJesus Christ, dude.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- JadeNB 2y ago> For these reasons, Jimmy Carter is my third-favorite president of the 20th century, behind my favorite, Calvin Coolidge, and my second-favorite, Dwight Eisenhower. Aside from Amity Shlaes, who seems to have worked backwards from her desired conclusion, I've never heard an argument put forward for Coolidge as among the great presidents. What do you particularly admire?
- master_crab 2y agoNot to put Coolidge on a pedestal but I’m not sure I understand the vitriol historians have towards the man. Most of the hate is pointed at claiming he “set the stage for the Depression” but that’s a pretty bold assertion. The Depression was a global affair, larger than one president’s actions, and most of his policies were fairly conventional for his day. He had left office over 6 months before the depression began (and over 2 years before the banking crises that caused most of the misery really kicked in). Since pretty much every leader (including FDR and Hitler) had to figure out how to solve the crises in office using unconventional policies (the then new-fangled Keynesian economic policy), it’s a bit unfair to blame the guy when he wasn’t even in power.
- JadeNB 2y agoI don't know enough about Coolidge to have my opinion be worth much here, and of course it's always fair to argue whether any win or loss during or after a president's term should be attributed to them, their predecessors, or (in the last case) their successors, but there's a lot of ground between "not really responsible for the Depression" and "the greatest president!" I would have been less surprised by the first claim, but it seemed like linguae was making the second.
- Naijoko 2y agoHow did Lyndon B Johnson not make your list? Beside the Vietname war he seems like the best President for innerpolitics.
- insane_dreamer 2y ago> Beside the Vietname war that's a pretty big "besides"
- lioeters 2y agoWell, besides Vietnam, Cambodia, Nicaragua, Philippines, Zaire, Guatemala, Indonesia, South Africa, Afghanistan..
- potato3732842 2y agoI'm no fan of Johnson but he gets way too much blame for Vietnam and Kennedy doesn't get near enough.
- insane_dreamer 2y agoWhat's special about Coolidge?
- fakedang 2y agoWhat makes Coolidge so favorable? He doesn't seem to have been an exceptional character but one who simply rode the economic tailwinds.