Who is a president that is considered good by modern America, but would be considered bad by the Founding Fathers?

36 comments

1. They’d be pretty surprised by Barack Obama.

2. Franklin Roosevelt

3. John Kennedy

4. They’d be nonplussed if not shocked by Barack Obama. Either of the Roosevelts might also confuse them.

5. I think Lincoln would be one. His role in slavery is undeniably a good thing but things like suspension of Habeas Corpus would have made the Framers sick.

6. The Founding Fathers bickered a bit on opinions on the ideal model for the US, it’s hard to say anything about their opinions as a collective.

   The 20th/21st Century would be an extremely alien enviroment for them, explaining why the likes of FDR or Eisenhower were good would take a lot of context.

   The most I can say is they’d be baffled at the reverence for JFK given he’s mostly known for dying. But that might be me projecting.

7. John Adams wasn’t considered to be a good president until the later half of the 20th century.

8. I don’t think there is a good answer to this question. The founders would be so overwhelmed by the rapid changes of the 20th century that they wouldn’t have any meaningful opinions on current politics without just resorting to philosophical vagaries. They’d all be shocked at how much power the office of president has accrued. They’d be aghast at our involvement in world affairs. They’d be shocked reading a history of the civil war (but probably not surprised).

9. FDR

10. Obama, while the Founders were somewhat Progressive for their time, they’d probably still be considered very racist by today’s standards and would likely be uncomfortable at the thought of a black president. Other then that they all had different ideas of how to run the government so the answer would depend on which Founding Fathers we’re talking about. Hamiliton likely would have loved FDR, Jefferson would have hated him.

11. I doubt the Founding Fathers would recognize the United States post-Civil War; so hard to say if they would have an opinion on who would be considered bad from good.

12. Almost all of them, really.

13. I think that overall the founders would be unpleasantly surprised with how much power the executive has gained over the last century or more. They wanted the House of Representatives to be the center of influence rather than a single person as president.

14. Literally all of them after 1864

15. Basically any president of tge modern period, as the office has inflated immensely.

16. Obama. He’s black

17. Anyone after Pierce, the signing of the Fugitive Slave Act and its constitutionality by the court goes against the federal system and impedes the will of some states onto others.

    Jefferson, would be rolling in his grave because of the power of some states over the other.

    Adam’s would be flipping out over the expansion of slavery.

    Hamilton would be pissed at the owed rate of industrialization.

    Washington would be railing against the division the two party system had created and the rotten fruits it bore.

    Thomas Paine would be with John Brown. While Ben Franklin bankrolled them.

18. Lyndon Johnson. He really was a terrible human being.

19. Barack Obama

20. FDR and everyone who came after him, most likely. The ballooning debt, constant deficit spending, and “foreign entanglements” (including the UN and NATO) are things that Washington and his cohorts would definitely not have approved of.

21. Probably every president from FDR onward since he saw the largest expansion of the executive branch and the complete disregard for the checks and balances the founding fathers created, and no president since has given up the powers the previous ones took.

22. JFK. For the same reasons a lot of people didn’t like him in the 60s. He was an Irish-Catholic.

23. Patrick Henry would flip shit if he saw the federal government today.

24. Seeing as most of them were slave owners I’m pretty sure they’d lose their minds at Barack Obama.

25. To answer that there would have to be a consensus on a modern president that was good.

26. They would have been livid with FDR.

    They unanimously elected George Washington, but even he dealt with political bickering, so I’m sure you could find “founding fathers” that would hate every president.

27. FDR. While he did a lot of good, his expansion of executive authority would have made them explode.

28. FDR easy. Really Expanded the governments power

29. Obama

30. The founders would detest Biden. They could never believe a Catholic was president.

31. Kennedy, and Biden for that matter. They’d be SHOCKED that the people of America would elect a Catholic to the Presidency. They may have disagreed on slavery, but everyone hated Catholics.

32. I think Jefferson would flip over the control FDR exercised over the banks. He was very against a federal banking system.

33. FDR…they’d be truly appalled by the mass gathering of power by pme person…they’d also have the same problem with Lincoln too…most of them were big fans of abolition so Lincoln would have that going for him (even though he didn’t like the thought of doing so) but they hated centralized power and Lincoln centralized alot of power into the executive branch during the Civil War and then FDR took it to an extreme 70 years later

34. Obama was a good enough president, but 18th century rich people would never allow a mixed man to be leader of the country.

    They put in the 3/5ths rule in the constitution after all.

35. I think any discussion of what the Founding Fathers would want is silly. They knew only what the world was like when they lived. Their idea of what “works” in that environment would be irrelevant. For example, even they wanted the House to be the center of power, that thought wouldn’t work in the computer/internet age when information travels, and decisions have to be made, at the speed of light. Getting the House to decide on how to react to a cyber attack on the Treasury by China wouldn’t work well. They would discuss and ponder, or scheme for how to gain some personal advantage, for weeks. The system has changed as the world has changed to address the changes.

36. Barack Obama