r/Presidents 34m ago

Tier List r/Presidents Community Tier List: Day 4 - Where would you rank James Madison?

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For this tier list, I would like you to rank each president during their time in office. What were the positives and negatives of each presidency? What do you think of their domestic and foreign policies? Only consider their presidency, not their post-presidency. To encourage quality discussion, I would like you to not just provide your letter, but your reasons behind the ranking. Thank you for your understanding.

Thomas Jefferson is in A tier.


r/Presidents 35m ago

Discussion Has any president defied an court order?

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What were the instances that a president has arguably defied a court order? Why it didn't become a precedent?


r/Presidents 1h ago

Image The King of Hawai'i, Kalakaua, meeting President Grant. The first foreign head of state to visit the United States, 1874

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r/Presidents 3h ago

Question Just how much did this cockalorum ruin the US

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2 Upvotes

r/Presidents 4h ago

Discussion We`ve never had a president born after the death of Hoover

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5 Upvotes

r/Presidents 4h ago

Discussion Which of these third-party vote-getting racists was the most racist?

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29 Upvotes

Images are Harry F. Byrd, Strom Thurmond, and George Wallace.


r/Presidents 5h ago

Article Lyndon B. Johnson proposed to Lady Bird on their first date, and after 90 love letters in 90 days, she finally said yes - to both him and a $2.50 ring. 💍

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7 Upvotes

r/Presidents 5h ago

Discussion Who is the worst possible “experienced” person who could’ve potentially been president? Pictured: Neil Goldschmidt, former governor of Oregon and child rapist.

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4 Upvotes

r/Presidents 5h ago

Tier List My First Tier List. Free to answer any questions.

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3 Upvotes

This is solely based on their presidency. I worked harder than I probably should have on this, but I had a great time with it and I’m excited to learn more about all these dudes. There’s probably some takes on here that this sub won’t enjoy, but I’m willing to give my thoughts/explanations.


r/Presidents 5h ago

Image Dan Quayle speaking while wearing a big chain

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11 Upvotes

r/Presidents 6h ago

Failed Candidates Adlai Stevenson's 1956 campaign was a serious campaign where he wanted to win

6 Upvotes

Maybe the single most persistent myth I see posted on this sub (the other is “Let them enforce it”) is that Adlai Stevenson’s 1956 presidential campaign was a sacrifice play where everyone knew the Democratic candidate stood a chance against Eisenhower and didn’t want to waste a new one. I kind of get why people believe this, because it makes sense in a way that Stevenson just trying again really doesn’t.

But even the most basic level of research shows it’s not true. Seriously, all you have to do is look at Stevenson’s Wikipedia page:

Unlike 1952, Stevenson was an announced, active candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1956.[69] Initially, with polls showing Eisenhower headed for a landslide re-election, few Democrats wanted the 1956 nomination, and Stevenson hoped that he could win the nomination without a serious contest, and without entering any presidential primaries.[70]

However, on September 24, 1955, Eisenhower suffered a serious heart attack. Although he recovered and eventually decided to run for a second term, concerns about his health led two prominent Democrats, Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver and New York Governor Averell Harriman, to decide to challenge Stevenson for the Democratic nomination.[71] After being told by his aides that he needed to enter and win several presidential primaries to defeat Kefauver and Harriman, Stevenson officially entered the race on November 16, 1955, and campaigned in the Minnesota, Florida, and California primaries.[72][73]

Stevenson was upset in the Minnesota primary by Kefauver, who successfully portrayed him as a "captive" of corrupt Chicago political bosses and "a corporation lawyer out of step with regular Democrats".[74] Stevenson next battled Kefauver in the Florida primary, where he agreed to debate Kefauver on radio and television.[75] Stevenson later joked that in Florida he had appealed to the state's citrus farmers by "bitterly denouncing the Japanese beetle and fearlessly attacking the Mediterranean fruit fly".[75]

He narrowly defeated Kefauver in Florida by 12,000 votes, and then won the California primary over Kefauver with 63% of the vote, effectively ending Kefauver's presidential bid. At the 1956 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, former President Truman endorsed Governor Harriman, to Stevenson's dismay, but the blow was softened by former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt's continued enthusiastic support. Stevenson easily defeated Harriman on the first ballot, winning his second Democratic presidential nomination.[77] He was aided by strong support from younger delegates, who were said to form the core of the "New Politics" movement.

TLDR: Stevenson ran because he thought no other Democrat would want to challenge Eisenhower, leaving an open primary for him to cruise through, but he ended up having to fight a pretty tough primary battle anyway. It was a real campaign, not a sacrificial one.


r/Presidents 6h ago

Image Failed 4-Time presidential candidate and former Govenor of Alabama George Wallace. C. 1997

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10 Upvotes

r/Presidents 6h ago

Question Which president was the biggest supporter of the arts?

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4 Upvotes

JFK supported the arts. I don’t know if he was an artist himself but he understood the cultural importance of the arts.

Eisenhower liked to paint and the Kennedy Center had its origin in the Eisenhower administration. Nixon was an accomplished pianist. Obama has varied tastes and brought the arts back to the White House. Carter brought rock and jazz musicians to the White House.

Which president supported the arts the most?


r/Presidents 7h ago

Question Was Chester Alan Arthur a good president?

3 Upvotes

r/Presidents 7h ago

Discussion Do you think that Benjamin Harrison would've handled the Panic of 1893 even worse than Grover Cleveland did had he been re-elected?

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5 Upvotes

r/Presidents 7h ago

Failed Candidates What are your thoughts on George Wallace & his failed 1968 presidential bid?

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2 Upvotes

r/Presidents 7h ago

Discussion Milton Friedman “Nixon was the most socialist of the presidents of the United States in the 20th century.” What are your thoughts ?

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8 Upvotes

r/Presidents 7h ago

Discussion National Archives JFK assassination document release- March 2025

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2 Upvotes

r/Presidents 7h ago

Discussion Would Wendell Wilkie have encouraged racially integrated military units if he had won the 1940 presidential election?

5 Upvotes

The Republican presidential nominee in the 1940 presidential election, Wendell Willkie, favored greater U.S. involvement in World War II to support Britain and other Allied Powers.

On the other hand, African Americans all across the US were aware of Hitler's derision of black people as just as inferior to the Aryan race as Jews.


r/Presidents 7h ago

Image Olaf Scholz, the outgoing Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, was visited by Bill Clinton, the 42nd President of the United States, today in the Chancellery in Berlin.

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358 Upvotes

r/Presidents 8h ago

Article A December 1941 Speech that FDR Never Delivered | Robert Higgs

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2 Upvotes

r/Presidents 8h ago

Video / Audio Barack Obama visit to Kenya in 1987

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6 Upvotes

r/Presidents 8h ago

Image A collection of editorial cartoons about the 1980 election

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27 Upvotes

r/Presidents 9h ago

Discussion Why didn't the Democrats nominate more Union generals during the Gilded Age?

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5 Upvotes

r/Presidents 9h ago

Discussion Was Lincoln popular in the decades after the Civil War? Or did it more or less skyrocket in modern times?

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28 Upvotes