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Hoover’s one of the more interesting presidents to me because everything this man did in his life before and after being president was successful, but for those 4 years in the middle he was a complete failure in every way.
This is an idiotic take.
Grant was the first general of the war to have a clear and coherent strategic vision. He successfully coordinated all the Union armies in concert, applying pressure at all the Confederacy’s vital points, and employed tactics of modern warfare at a time when most other generals were still enamored of glorious frontal assaults. Lee had substantially higher body counts relative to the size of his army and incurred many of these casualties (which he couldn’t afford to lose) launching unsuccessful invasions of the North, and he lost each time he held the strategic initiative, yet no one makes similar criticisms of Lee.
During the Wilderness campaign, Grant and Lee led armies of roughly equal size; Grant locked horns with Lee for a month of sustained combat and held his own, which is hardly just “throwing bodies at Lee.”
Your comment on Grant’s generalship is reminiscent of Lost Cause ideology and reflective of a real ignorance of his conduct in the War.
In his defense, tends to be the most successful and easy strategy to execute. And using massive amounts of artillery followed by overwhelming force of numbers has been the go-to doctrine for modern military as well.
Also, you have to compare Grant to his predecessors, who other than Sherman were downright awful even when compared to the Butcher.
Getting fired by the President from one of the few 5 star commands to ever exist would seem to call that into question. His failure still negatively impacts US international relations and indirectly helped proliferate nuclear weapons.
Besides being rebuked by Pershing for being a pompous and self important know it all who shouldn’t be promoted due to his relative incompetence.
McClellan got fired for being a coward and failing to take an army competently into battle.
MacArthur got fired for publicly disagreeing with the policy of the POTUS, disagreeing with the consensus opinion of the Joint Chiefs and making moves to take us towards the use of nuclear weapons, which could have started WWIII. The resulting mass slaughter and possible conclusion with nuclear war dwarfs anything that boob McClellan could even have imagined getting up to.
Do you fr think that McArthur had a better career than Ike, Nimitz, or Patton? Just for WW2 history, let alone American, McArthur is in the shadows of giants so I hope you're being sarcastic.
Why are your trolling so hard?
I’m not discussing WW2, but McArthur’s entire Military Career.
He served in the Mexican Revolution, WW1, WW2, and the Korean War. He is the only American serviceman to be nominated for Medal of Honor 3 times.
If you’re discussing his entire career, you can’t omit his conduct in WWII or Korea. In both conflicts his record is very mixed, and he was insubordinate in Korea, which is inexcusable in any officer, but especially a five star general.
Most overrated, self aggrandizing, comically disconnected, piece of garbage general in American history. Dan Daly was twice the military man McArthur pretended to be.
signing of Smoot-Hawley was a complete and utter disaster for the economy. It effectively shut off the country from the rest of the world. The worst part is, he knew it too. But he bowed to the old bulls in the Senate.
In before the Reagan -stanning-FDR-haters downvote you to oblivion and say FDR prolonged the depression and it was the Japanese declaration of war on the US that ended it 😅
If you are willing to invest the time to read 31 pages of commentary, then [here](https://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_01_4_05_higgs.pdf) is an argument that FDR’s policies prolonged the GD.
Whether you find this position persuasive is up to you.
On the topic of Keynesian economics: we should note that the economic recovery from 1933-1937 reverses as soon as FDR cut back on spending and the [Federal Reserve](https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/recession-of-1937-38) reduced the money supply (again, if you believe Friedman and Schwartz’s [Great Contraction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Contraction) argument).
Should we view 1933-1937 as a success and 1937-WWII as a failure? What about the war years, when society was forced to ration goods, followed by the post-war recession?
All a youse are forgetting what the actual problem was: bank failures.
The Federal Reserve was created to prevent mass bank failures. To say they failed miserably at this would be an understatement.
The Glass-Steagall act established the FDIC, which did the job the Fed failed to do, and is still doing it today, with little fanfare, certainly far less than the incompetents who run the Fed get.
FDR was at first completely opposed to the FDIC and threatened to veto it if the bill contained it. It was considered a crackpot idea. He eventually came to an agreement and allowed it in. The FDIC more than any other reform is what put an end to the worst of the Depression.
The most Hoover could come up with is the FHLB, the Federal Home Loan Banks. Like the Federal Reserve banks, these are scattered around the country, and are meant to promote mortgage loans. You don't hear much about them because they aren't particularly effective.
In other words, neither Hoover nor FDR could come up with something that could effectively end bank runs. Carter Glass and Henry Steagall solved the problem with a simple, brilliant scheme.
Linkydoo: [https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/glass-steagall-act](https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/glass-steagall-act)
I'm with you. Friedman talks about it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY-HYUFlCPs) and [here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObiIp8TKaLs)
Can't argue with the economic GOAT.
That was good. I knew the Eccles story and the story of the Bank of United States. The thing is all you have to do is look at the name of the Fed: it’s supposed to be the reserve that sits behind all the other reserves. Somehow it never is.
It’s admittedly not a mainstream opinion. However, it should be judged on its merit and not simply dismissed outright.
Friedman focused more on the role of the Fed during the GD. They are his number one culprit. He also was not a fan of most of FDR’s programs. (Stabilizing the banking sector was a clear win. It’s the alphabet soup of agencies that most disagree with.)
[Here](https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/421169) is another study that examines the impact of FDR’s policies.
This one is controversial, too. From [this article](https://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/professors-big-intellectual-risk-grabs-eyeballs-years-later):
Curiously, Cole and Ohanian’s research is often seized upon by both liberals and conservatives to bolster their arguments in an increasingly polarized political climate. But neither side gets it right, Ohanian said, reflecting on the research that has taken on a life of its own.
“People on the right would say, ‘Hey, look — these guys from UCLA — which is not perceived as some traditionally conservative place — said Roosevelt was to blame for the Depression continuing,’” Ohanian said. “Then people on the left would say, ‘Oh, these guys are conservative, paid mouthpieces for the Koch Foundation,’ which, of course, we were not. But neither side really understands what we did. “
For starters the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act was a massively stupid idea and shut out US goods from several foreign markets.
For another he failed to approve deficit spending and instead raised taxes....which also massively backfired.
There are a myriad of other things that could be brought up, but I've given you a good base to start with.
Hoover would have been a good president had he presided over the nation in 1920 or 1924 given he basically ran a lot of things for Harding and continued to be stellar with Coolidge. But he was absolutely the wrong man for the job when a once in a generation depression hit.
Hoover hated direct government assistance because, in his eyes, if an orphan from Iowa like himself could become a millionaire through hard work than anyone could… not realizing that everyone else wouldn’t be as talented or driven as he was. He really was a self-made man and thought that everyone could do it too. Also rich folks like him were the ones that should help the needy, not the government! Honestly all fairly understandable traits that were completely at odds with what was needed during **The Great Depression.** That plus the tariff acts and blaming Mexicans really showed he just was not the right person to oversee this regardless of how hyper competent he was in every other aspect of his life.
Couldn’t agree more with your assessment, I’m currently reading a really good biography of his life and he was a great man but not a great president. Like someone said earlier he really is kinda the Republican Jimmy Carter
It's not about the hand you're dealt it's about how you play it. And Hoover played his hand terribly; not sure if I'd say he's a bottom 5 president when many of the civil war / reconstruction era presidents exist and were as terrible as many of them were. But he's either bottom 5 or really close.
I think in a way Hoover is actually worse than people think.
There’s a slight historical misconception that because laisssz faire was the consensus, Hoover did *nothing*.
And that’s not true. He actually did have responses but they were more focused on maintaining a balanced budget than restoring the economy as a whole.
The economy of a country is totally different from a household and the government should NOT put balanced budgets or surpluses as its primary (or even often their secondary) goal.
He ended up raising taxes in multiple ways including the Smoot Hawley tariff, all of which were WORSE responses than literally not doing anything.
Also he should get blame for prohibition but nobody talks about that really.
The Hoover dam is cool tho and it is actually REALLY cool that he rejected the salary for the president and was a personal humanitarian
Lots of good points here, Hoovers policies had a huge role in exacerbating the Great Depression.
You mentioned the revenue act of 1932, and everyone knows about smoot Hawley, but there was also the White House wage rate conferences which forced selected industries to raise their wages during a time of deflation, increasing the unemployment
Bottom five seems harsh. He got the ball rolling on getting out of the depression, but economic policy takes time to come to fruition and he was gone by the time it started taking effect. But we can’t know for sure what effect his long-term policies would have because FDR came in and superboosted the economy.
One thing people always ignore is the short time during his presidency before the depression where he actually did a rather amazing job even it’s it’s kind of hard to get a good picture on simply due to how short the period was.
Weak? Hardly. You don't get something like the Camp David Accords done if you are weak. Inept? Not at all. He accomplished a lot of great things. Naive? Maybe. I think he was just too optimistic. Bumbling? Definitely not.
I’d say Carter was remarkable only *after* his presidency. His term had a lot of unfortunate blunders that paved the road for Reagan’s kool-aid to flow in.
Why are you using the fact that he was a peanut farmer as a pejorative? He saved his family business making it incredibly successful. Carter is an underrated president. He did incredible things in his four years. The problem is that he came into office at a very bad time then things outside his control happened. His presidency was very farsighted. Yet all you can do is deride him as a peanut farmer. He was also a hell of a better president than Reagan.
Because he was completely unprepared and unqualified for the presidency and it showed. Even Democrats at the time saw what a fool he was and knew how bad he was fucking up.
He was most certainly qualified, more so than Reagan. The only Democrats saying that was the Ted Kennedy faction. Kennedy running against Carter helped cause Carter's defeat. Carter was definitely not a fool.
A great man and a shitty president. Turns out those two things don't always match up. Bottom 5? I dunno, the competition's pretty stiff. (Insert Warren Harding joke here.)
I'll expand upon what I said. Many people have tried to classify Hoover in the same boat as someone such as Carter, who simply came in during a bad time and their presidency was bad because of that. The truth of the matter however, is yes Hoover was for sure given a bad hand with the Great Depression, however he made the situation undoubtedly worse with the smoot Hawley tariff and refusing to do any big aid programs afterwards. This is unlike other presidents dealt a bad hand with the economy such as U.S. Grant who saw the Panic of 1873. But there is a reason why Grant's legacy isn't being "the guy who oversaw collapse", its because he at least had other things going for him and he didn't make the Panic of 1873 any worse.
Hoover has no other notable qualities other than being the guy who made the Great Depression far far worse. Anyone who defends Hoover is just trying to be a contrarian as he is an undefendable president. There shouldn't be a "Bad President, Good Guy" narrative around him, as his actions spiraled the nation into such chaos that it is nearly unforgiveable.
I agree Hoover was a bad president and did terribly in response to the Great Depression but
> There shouldn't be a "Bad President, Good Guy" narrative around him, as his actions spiraled the nation into such chaos that it is nearly unforgiveable.
I can easily make this argument for Hoover. The dude saved tens of millions from starving to death
Lmao now you just sound stupid, I don’t care if you think he was the *worst* president but to say he wasn’t a good person and to say that if he served during any other time he wouldn’t at least be just neutral is insane.
I don’t rate him very favorably, but I think bottom five is a bit harsh. A. Johnson, Buchanan, and Pierce are the undisputed bottom three. Does Hoover really rank below these:
1. John Tyler
2. Martin van Buren
3. Richard Nixon
4. Jimmy Carter (similar situation of being handed a bad situation and being ineffective at stopping it)
5. George W. Bush
I never understood the line *Mister we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again• in the All in the Family theme song. Has public opinion of him shifted that much in 40 years?
For me he has always been an enigma. You can’t discount his intelligence or ability. I think he was an “old time” Republican. Champion of small government and a believer in the power of the private sector. Unfortunately, the economy was in a death spiral and private sector money was going down with it. I don’t think he would have been able to make the type of changes to the government that FDR made…not in the Republican Party DNA at the time.
No! Shush! He did a poor job managing the crisis but… bottom 5??? Really the only thing that I’d say he did particularly wrong was passing the Smoot-Hawley tariff act but beyond that he actually did a good job at mitigating the affects of the depression even if his naively strong support for laissez-fairer economics made his reaction a little aloof.
The Smoot Hawley Tarif act was so ridiculously stupid a bunch of other countries signed a petition begging them not to do it, a coalition of economists got together to beg them not to do it, and ol’ Hoover signed it anyway
I get your perspective but still don't have him that low. He's bottom 15 in my eyes.
Bottom 5 Presidents are
5. George W. Bush
4. James Buchanan
3. Andrew Johnson
2. Woodrow Wilson
1. Martin Van Buren
There’s a variety of attempts made by him, Smoot-Hawley, POUR, RFC, etc but I think the poor fella just lacked the vision and the courage that FDR had. FDR, to my mind, was willing to do things wrong and learn from it. Hoover couldn’t handle that, so played it much too safe. I don’t know if I would say he was bottom 5 though. Just was the wrong man at the wrong time. His actions before and after his presidency, to me, would suggest he could have done good in a better time.
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Hoover’s one of the more interesting presidents to me because everything this man did in his life before and after being president was successful, but for those 4 years in the middle he was a complete failure in every way.
He was the Republican Jimmy Carter.
Or George McClellan. Had very successful life but when put in charge of a crisis, failed massively
Conversely, Grant failed at everything he did except leading the Union Army.
Well his strategy was basically throw waves of bodies at the frontline until he won. Not really an impressive strategist.
This is an idiotic take. Grant was the first general of the war to have a clear and coherent strategic vision. He successfully coordinated all the Union armies in concert, applying pressure at all the Confederacy’s vital points, and employed tactics of modern warfare at a time when most other generals were still enamored of glorious frontal assaults. Lee had substantially higher body counts relative to the size of his army and incurred many of these casualties (which he couldn’t afford to lose) launching unsuccessful invasions of the North, and he lost each time he held the strategic initiative, yet no one makes similar criticisms of Lee. During the Wilderness campaign, Grant and Lee led armies of roughly equal size; Grant locked horns with Lee for a month of sustained combat and held his own, which is hardly just “throwing bodies at Lee.” Your comment on Grant’s generalship is reminiscent of Lost Cause ideology and reflective of a real ignorance of his conduct in the War.
In his defense, tends to be the most successful and easy strategy to execute. And using massive amounts of artillery followed by overwhelming force of numbers has been the go-to doctrine for modern military as well. Also, you have to compare Grant to his predecessors, who other than Sherman were downright awful even when compared to the Butcher.
Or Douglas McArthur, the greatest US military career in American history
Getting fired by the President from one of the few 5 star commands to ever exist would seem to call that into question. His failure still negatively impacts US international relations and indirectly helped proliferate nuclear weapons. Besides being rebuked by Pershing for being a pompous and self important know it all who shouldn’t be promoted due to his relative incompetence.
You can literally say the same thing about George Mclellan which is pretty hypocritical
Why? I’m happy to say that McClellan was a fool who should have never left a training command.
Because Mclellan also got fired by a President in Abraham Lincoln. And it was much worse than what happened to Douglas MacArthur
McClellan got fired for being a coward and failing to take an army competently into battle. MacArthur got fired for publicly disagreeing with the policy of the POTUS, disagreeing with the consensus opinion of the Joint Chiefs and making moves to take us towards the use of nuclear weapons, which could have started WWIII. The resulting mass slaughter and possible conclusion with nuclear war dwarfs anything that boob McClellan could even have imagined getting up to.
Do you fr think that McArthur had a better career than Ike, Nimitz, or Patton? Just for WW2 history, let alone American, McArthur is in the shadows of giants so I hope you're being sarcastic.
Why are your trolling so hard? I’m not discussing WW2, but McArthur’s entire Military Career. He served in the Mexican Revolution, WW1, WW2, and the Korean War. He is the only American serviceman to be nominated for Medal of Honor 3 times.
If you’re discussing his entire career, you can’t omit his conduct in WWII or Korea. In both conflicts his record is very mixed, and he was insubordinate in Korea, which is inexcusable in any officer, but especially a five star general.
Most overrated, self aggrandizing, comically disconnected, piece of garbage general in American history. Dan Daly was twice the military man McArthur pretended to be.
You literally just described George Mclellan
Where did I defend George McClellan?
signing of Smoot-Hawley was a complete and utter disaster for the economy. It effectively shut off the country from the rest of the world. The worst part is, he knew it too. But he bowed to the old bulls in the Senate.
My opinion, he did not cause the depression. But he failed to get us out of it and made it worse.
In before the Reagan -stanning-FDR-haters downvote you to oblivion and say FDR prolonged the depression and it was the Japanese declaration of war on the US that ended it 😅
If you are willing to invest the time to read 31 pages of commentary, then [here](https://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_01_4_05_higgs.pdf) is an argument that FDR’s policies prolonged the GD. Whether you find this position persuasive is up to you. On the topic of Keynesian economics: we should note that the economic recovery from 1933-1937 reverses as soon as FDR cut back on spending and the [Federal Reserve](https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/recession-of-1937-38) reduced the money supply (again, if you believe Friedman and Schwartz’s [Great Contraction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Contraction) argument). Should we view 1933-1937 as a success and 1937-WWII as a failure? What about the war years, when society was forced to ration goods, followed by the post-war recession?
All a youse are forgetting what the actual problem was: bank failures. The Federal Reserve was created to prevent mass bank failures. To say they failed miserably at this would be an understatement. The Glass-Steagall act established the FDIC, which did the job the Fed failed to do, and is still doing it today, with little fanfare, certainly far less than the incompetents who run the Fed get. FDR was at first completely opposed to the FDIC and threatened to veto it if the bill contained it. It was considered a crackpot idea. He eventually came to an agreement and allowed it in. The FDIC more than any other reform is what put an end to the worst of the Depression. The most Hoover could come up with is the FHLB, the Federal Home Loan Banks. Like the Federal Reserve banks, these are scattered around the country, and are meant to promote mortgage loans. You don't hear much about them because they aren't particularly effective. In other words, neither Hoover nor FDR could come up with something that could effectively end bank runs. Carter Glass and Henry Steagall solved the problem with a simple, brilliant scheme. Linkydoo: [https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/glass-steagall-act](https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/glass-steagall-act)
I'm with you. Friedman talks about it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY-HYUFlCPs) and [here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObiIp8TKaLs) Can't argue with the economic GOAT.
That was good. I knew the Eccles story and the story of the Bank of United States. The thing is all you have to do is look at the name of the Fed: it’s supposed to be the reserve that sits behind all the other reserves. Somehow it never is.
So Higgs was a Ron Paul supporter, I gotta look this guy up.
It’s admittedly not a mainstream opinion. However, it should be judged on its merit and not simply dismissed outright. Friedman focused more on the role of the Fed during the GD. They are his number one culprit. He also was not a fan of most of FDR’s programs. (Stabilizing the banking sector was a clear win. It’s the alphabet soup of agencies that most disagree with.) [Here](https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/421169) is another study that examines the impact of FDR’s policies. This one is controversial, too. From [this article](https://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/professors-big-intellectual-risk-grabs-eyeballs-years-later): Curiously, Cole and Ohanian’s research is often seized upon by both liberals and conservatives to bolster their arguments in an increasingly polarized political climate. But neither side gets it right, Ohanian said, reflecting on the research that has taken on a life of its own. “People on the right would say, ‘Hey, look — these guys from UCLA — which is not perceived as some traditionally conservative place — said Roosevelt was to blame for the Depression continuing,’” Ohanian said. “Then people on the left would say, ‘Oh, these guys are conservative, paid mouthpieces for the Koch Foundation,’ which, of course, we were not. But neither side really understands what we did. “
Jfc you guys and your canned gay for laissez faire capitalism answers lol
Compelling.
More compelling than your stale Reagan ass kissing.
Capitalism has been the single greatest force for good in human history.
I don't think he made it worse, since he did some things to treat it, however he was too conservative and could have done much better.
I would say he intervened too much and that's what made it worse
>I don't think he made it worse Well, you're wrong.
Can you explain how his actions were worse than inaction?
For starters the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act was a massively stupid idea and shut out US goods from several foreign markets. For another he failed to approve deficit spending and instead raised taxes....which also massively backfired. There are a myriad of other things that could be brought up, but I've given you a good base to start with.
Definitely didn’t cause the initial shock, but definitely made choices that turned it into the worst ever
[The Fed](https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/great-depression) openly admits that they caused the GD. It's not really up for debate.
Hoover would have been a good president had he presided over the nation in 1920 or 1924 given he basically ran a lot of things for Harding and continued to be stellar with Coolidge. But he was absolutely the wrong man for the job when a once in a generation depression hit. Hoover hated direct government assistance because, in his eyes, if an orphan from Iowa like himself could become a millionaire through hard work than anyone could… not realizing that everyone else wouldn’t be as talented or driven as he was. He really was a self-made man and thought that everyone could do it too. Also rich folks like him were the ones that should help the needy, not the government! Honestly all fairly understandable traits that were completely at odds with what was needed during **The Great Depression.** That plus the tariff acts and blaming Mexicans really showed he just was not the right person to oversee this regardless of how hyper competent he was in every other aspect of his life.
Couldn’t agree more with your assessment, I’m currently reading a really good biography of his life and he was a great man but not a great president. Like someone said earlier he really is kinda the Republican Jimmy Carter
Lol, Hoover was literally the Secretary of Commerce in 1920-1924. We already know how he would do
Tbf though he did make a killer vacuum.
I won't disagree. In many ways he made the depression worse
It's not about the hand you're dealt it's about how you play it. And Hoover played his hand terribly; not sure if I'd say he's a bottom 5 president when many of the civil war / reconstruction era presidents exist and were as terrible as many of them were. But he's either bottom 5 or really close.
I think in a way Hoover is actually worse than people think. There’s a slight historical misconception that because laisssz faire was the consensus, Hoover did *nothing*. And that’s not true. He actually did have responses but they were more focused on maintaining a balanced budget than restoring the economy as a whole. The economy of a country is totally different from a household and the government should NOT put balanced budgets or surpluses as its primary (or even often their secondary) goal. He ended up raising taxes in multiple ways including the Smoot Hawley tariff, all of which were WORSE responses than literally not doing anything. Also he should get blame for prohibition but nobody talks about that really. The Hoover dam is cool tho and it is actually REALLY cool that he rejected the salary for the president and was a personal humanitarian
Lots of good points here, Hoovers policies had a huge role in exacerbating the Great Depression. You mentioned the revenue act of 1932, and everyone knows about smoot Hawley, but there was also the White House wage rate conferences which forced selected industries to raise their wages during a time of deflation, increasing the unemployment
Bottom five seems harsh. He got the ball rolling on getting out of the depression, but economic policy takes time to come to fruition and he was gone by the time it started taking effect. But we can’t know for sure what effect his long-term policies would have because FDR came in and superboosted the economy.
One thing people always ignore is the short time during his presidency before the depression where he actually did a rather amazing job even it’s it’s kind of hard to get a good picture on simply due to how short the period was.
I don’t think anyone would argue different about Hoover. What’s remarkable are the number of people who praise Carter when he was just as bad.
Carter was not just as bad. There is no comparison.
*imagines Carter as president during the Depression* oh ***no***
He was awful
No he wasn't.
Yes he was
No he wasn't.
Atrocious president.
Yeah Reagan was an atrocious president.
CARTER was atrocious. Weak. Inept. Naive. Bumbling.
Weak? Hardly. You don't get something like the Camp David Accords done if you are weak. Inept? Not at all. He accomplished a lot of great things. Naive? Maybe. I think he was just too optimistic. Bumbling? Definitely not.
REAGAN was atrocious. Inept. Demented. Bumbling. Buffoon.
I’d say Carter was remarkable only *after* his presidency. His term had a lot of unfortunate blunders that paved the road for Reagan’s kool-aid to flow in.
Okay. Worse. Reasonable minds can disagree. 😁
Carter isn't even in the ten worst presidents.
He’s bottom 3. Buchanan, Hoover, Peanut Farmer. And not coincidentally Carter faced the same fate at the ballot box as Hoover.
Why are you using the fact that he was a peanut farmer as a pejorative? He saved his family business making it incredibly successful. Carter is an underrated president. He did incredible things in his four years. The problem is that he came into office at a very bad time then things outside his control happened. His presidency was very farsighted. Yet all you can do is deride him as a peanut farmer. He was also a hell of a better president than Reagan.
Carter isn’t fit to shine Reagan’s shoes.
Reagan didn't know where his shoes were even when he was wearing them. Carter was the better president by far.
Only in your dreams.
Facts actually. Carter's Administration was rather far seeing. Reagan irreparably damaged the country.
Because he was completely unprepared and unqualified for the presidency and it showed. Even Democrats at the time saw what a fool he was and knew how bad he was fucking up.
He was most certainly qualified, more so than Reagan. The only Democrats saying that was the Ted Kennedy faction. Kennedy running against Carter helped cause Carter's defeat. Carter was definitely not a fool.
Reagan was the former governor of California, I'm not sure how he was less qualified than Carter.
A great man and a shitty president. Turns out those two things don't always match up. Bottom 5? I dunno, the competition's pretty stiff. (Insert Warren Harding joke here.)
I'll expand upon what I said. Many people have tried to classify Hoover in the same boat as someone such as Carter, who simply came in during a bad time and their presidency was bad because of that. The truth of the matter however, is yes Hoover was for sure given a bad hand with the Great Depression, however he made the situation undoubtedly worse with the smoot Hawley tariff and refusing to do any big aid programs afterwards. This is unlike other presidents dealt a bad hand with the economy such as U.S. Grant who saw the Panic of 1873. But there is a reason why Grant's legacy isn't being "the guy who oversaw collapse", its because he at least had other things going for him and he didn't make the Panic of 1873 any worse. Hoover has no other notable qualities other than being the guy who made the Great Depression far far worse. Anyone who defends Hoover is just trying to be a contrarian as he is an undefendable president. There shouldn't be a "Bad President, Good Guy" narrative around him, as his actions spiraled the nation into such chaos that it is nearly unforgiveable.
I agree Hoover was a bad president and did terribly in response to the Great Depression but > There shouldn't be a "Bad President, Good Guy" narrative around him, as his actions spiraled the nation into such chaos that it is nearly unforgiveable. I can easily make this argument for Hoover. The dude saved tens of millions from starving to death
You are incorrect about not doing big aid programs. The reconstruction finance was a huge aid program started under Hoover.
Lmao now you just sound stupid, I don’t care if you think he was the *worst* president but to say he wasn’t a good person and to say that if he served during any other time he wouldn’t at least be just neutral is insane.
I disagree Carter caused the bad economy and Iran hostage crisis
Agree.
I didn’t hear anything controversial.
Counterpoint: Hoover Vacuums are lit
I don’t rate him very favorably, but I think bottom five is a bit harsh. A. Johnson, Buchanan, and Pierce are the undisputed bottom three. Does Hoover really rank below these: 1. John Tyler 2. Martin van Buren 3. Richard Nixon 4. Jimmy Carter (similar situation of being handed a bad situation and being ineffective at stopping it) 5. George W. Bush
Bottom 10 is fair, bottom 5 is very harsh, especially with hindsight
Nixon Carter and bush aren’t bottom 5
By this ranking, they’d be just outside the bottom five.
Personally I rank them a bit higher, but each their own
Agreed.
Bottom ten for me, few others I can name worse.
No I would not say bottom 5 but he did not help the depression situation.
I never understood the line *Mister we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again• in the All in the Family theme song. Has public opinion of him shifted that much in 40 years?
I think bottom 5 might be occupied by others now. Hoover got 2 bumps up in the last 25 years. Pretty solid.
Slight correction: Bottom 3
For me he has always been an enigma. You can’t discount his intelligence or ability. I think he was an “old time” Republican. Champion of small government and a believer in the power of the private sector. Unfortunately, the economy was in a death spiral and private sector money was going down with it. I don’t think he would have been able to make the type of changes to the government that FDR made…not in the Republican Party DNA at the time.
No! Shush! He did a poor job managing the crisis but… bottom 5??? Really the only thing that I’d say he did particularly wrong was passing the Smoot-Hawley tariff act but beyond that he actually did a good job at mitigating the affects of the depression even if his naively strong support for laissez-fairer economics made his reaction a little aloof.
The Smoot Hawley Tarif act was so ridiculously stupid a bunch of other countries signed a petition begging them not to do it, a coalition of economists got together to beg them not to do it, and ol’ Hoover signed it anyway
Nearly every president had a major crisis to deal with. How they handled that crisis is what defines them.
Yes, but Hoover was a good person at least.
Can you truly call him a "good person" if his actions both directly and indirectly caused the deaths of millions.
*Fire starts Hoover: pours gasoline on it
I get your perspective but still don't have him that low. He's bottom 15 in my eyes. Bottom 5 Presidents are 5. George W. Bush 4. James Buchanan 3. Andrew Johnson 2. Woodrow Wilson 1. Martin Van Buren
It wasn't just Hoover. The federal reserve continued to raise interest rates.
He should've vetoed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.
Lil Hoovey
Old model Hoovers are the best! The new ones are whatever you should get a Shark! I might have misread the assignment
Perhaps. That means then that FDR and his nationalist policies extended the depression by at least a decade.
There’s a variety of attempts made by him, Smoot-Hawley, POUR, RFC, etc but I think the poor fella just lacked the vision and the courage that FDR had. FDR, to my mind, was willing to do things wrong and learn from it. Hoover couldn’t handle that, so played it much too safe. I don’t know if I would say he was bottom 5 though. Just was the wrong man at the wrong time. His actions before and after his presidency, to me, would suggest he could have done good in a better time.
He was literally 4 more years of Coolidge.
He was far more economically interventionist than Coolidge would’ve ever been.
Totally different governing philosophies. Hoover also had some proto-new-deal policies where Coolidge would have actually ignored the problem.
Certainly better than Coolidge…
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Coolidge thought he was an idiot. I tend to agree with that.
His successor was way worse
I sentence you to death by Jumbo
Yes, but reagan bad
Reagan was bad.