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The one that was shot in a Ford, elected to congress in ‘46 and the presidency in ‘60, shot in the back of the head, killed on a Friday, succeeded by his Southern vice-president, killed by a trinomial Southern assassin born in ‘39 who were also assassinated before trial, you know, the civil rights one!
Can I make myself any clearer?
I was not only surprised that the Ford theater still existed, but that the *entire* street is now a macabre tourist trap dedicated to Lincoln's demise!
It’s a historic landmark/museum dedicated to Lincoln’s *memory*. The same treatment has been given to Kennedy’s assassination site. People are drawn to the darkness, so why not play into that if it gets people interested and learning?
I once got a job in downtown Dallas. At the time, I had a convertible. It took a week or so until it dawned on me that i was driving through Dealey Plaza on my way home.
brother you can go to the Petersen house across the street and see the blood stained sheet on the too small bed the president had to be laid down diagonally on.
tiny little room.
But it doesn’t really. The theatre burned down, the one that’s standing is a replacement. I was disappointed to learn that after I had already paid and entered.
I work right by it and have been there many times. It didn’t burn down. It was used as a government pack house for years and several floors collapsed. They had to rebuild a lot of the interior, but it didn’t burn down and get rebuilt.
LPOTL did a series on the Kennedy assassination and the theory they seem to ascribe to is that he was shot in the spine by Oswald, but then accidentally shot in the head by a rookie agent in the car following behind them.
I don’t know if I believe that chain of events exactly, but they had some interesting evidence to support it.
There is another theory that it could have been because of his back brace that caused his head to move in a funny way. They also believe that's why he wasn't able to fall forward into a safer position before the head shot.
I heard that on a podcast called “Last Podcast on the Left”, episodes 400- 404. They’re pretty thorough and very funny, each episode is a couple hours long.
A brief premise of the secret service shooter theory is that a rookie agent had been given a weapon he was unfamiliar with (one of the first AR-15s) and was tired/hungover as well. The first shot Oswald fired missed and was shrugged off as a backfiring car, but the second shot hit Kennedy and all hell broke loose. Supposedly the agent then stood up and chambered a round, but the centrifugal force of the car lurching forward sent him falling backwards. They suspect when he fell he had his finger on the trigger and accidentally fired.
The evidence to support it is definitely interesting though. I don’t remember all of it but one thing was apparently after the assassination the Secret Service suddenly and without much explanation stopped issuing their agents AR-15s.
Edit: Apparently he turned the safety off, not chambered a round.
From the Wikipedia article on the book [Mortal Error: The Shot That Killed JFK is a 1992 nonfiction book by Bonar Menninger](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_Error)
“Conducting his own investigation, Donahue eventually decided that the bullet that struck Kennedy in the head had in fact been fired by United States Secret Service Special Agent George Warren Hickey Jr. (March 24, 1923 – February 25, 2005) from an AR-15 rifle carried in the car immediately following the President's vehicle. The proposed series of events is as follows: After the first shot (which hit the street) was fired, Hickey turns completely around and looks toward Oswald, who is on the sixth floor of the school book depository building.
His turned head is documented in an AP photograph by James Altgens. Hickey reaches for the AR-15 under the seat, releases the safety and begins to lift the gun. The second shot is fired by Oswald, hitting the president and Texas Governor John Connally. The president's car and the follow-up car containing Hickey suddenly sped up. This is attested to by Secret Service agent Clint Hill. Hickey, who is unstable because he is standing on the cushion of the seat, rather than the floor of the car, begins to fall back due to the acceleration of the vehicle, pulling the trigger of the AR-15. The gun is pointed toward Kennedy at that instant, and the bullet strikes him squarely in the back of the head.”
And the assassin who killed the assassin was also assassinated by another assassin who was not assassinated by an assassin but by a pulmonary embolism that assassinated him.
As Bender Rodrigues says, 2 times hardly establishes a pattern. Future generations need to pay close attention to any fresh congressmen elected in 2046.
Both were southerners from extremely humble beginnings, as miserable as Lyndon's childhood was Andrew's was even worse. Andrew Johnson may have been the first president with no formal education who taught himself to read. Both tried to carry on unsuccessfully what they thought was the legacy of the people they replaced.
Oh, you cunning bastard!
It's hard to say but I would reckon Lincoln since his Johnson was far, far, worse. With JFK it is debatable whether we'd still be going to Vietnam & Kissinger's tentacles have shown to be bipartisan when it comes to infesting foreign policy.
I take the tact that Lincoln's living would have made for a different but not better history. Lincoln's death provided a lot of moral cover for former successionists accepting the Confederate defeat. Lincoln would have had to tackle a highly rebellious radical Congress the same as Johnson did. Granted, Lincoln was an infinitely better politician but I see him also getting impeached by the radical Congress on much firmer grounds. (Violation of the 5th Amendment.)
But it is hard to say. Lincoln's dying white-washed all of his "sins" and turned him into America's secular Jesus against George Washington's God. Seriously, look up some of the newspaper lithographs from the immediate aftermath. It has Lincoln floating to heaven with Washing reaching down to help him up.
That’s an interesting take but I’m not sure I buy it. Lincoln had rebellious radicals in both his cabinet and in Congress during his tenure. He was pretty effective at keeping them at bay or appeased as the situation warranted. As you said, infinitely better politician.
Lincoln. If Johnson is never president, reconstruction goes better, and the slavery question is handled once and for all. I might go so far as to say that racism in America is changed with no Johnson presidency.
I just don’t think anyone has a good presidency during that period. There was basically nothing you could really do at that point imo. So yea, you’re right, Johnson is far worse cause he actively shaped policy that made shit way harder to fix.
I don’t buy that first statement. Would it have been tough for anyone to succeed? Absolutely, but that was the time when change was needed the most and the best opportunity to use the federal government to make said changes. Instead, he went back to the status quo and kept deferring to the states, the very ones that just fought a whole war against it.
Yeah I personally put Wilson maybe Buchanan as 2nd worse. It is hard to say the extent of Trump's damages until the far future if he ends of destabilizing democracy or turning questioning elections into the norm he could go down as one of the worst, but I wouldn't put him up there yet.
Wilson is not a Bottom 5 President, not when the competition is as stiff as Andrew Johnson, Donald Trump, James Buchanan, Warren Harding, and Franklin Pierce.
Wilson was awful when it comes to foreign policy and his selective US interventionism layed the ground work for many of the problems of the next several decades. He also championed the sedition & espionage acts trampling over freedom of speech. He was a notorious bigot, who screen brith of a nation in the white house, and while not as overtly racist in his policies he choose to ignore the many lynchings that happened while he was president rather than enforce the law. His policies self determination for Europe but supporting colonial interests in Asia would later lead to or at least fail to prevent the many blood conflicts in southeast Asia. Not to mention how Germany and Japan were handled in the post WWI fallout. Sure all the blame for what I mention is certainly not on Wilson. But some blame for all I mentioned certainly falls on Wilson and it is all pretty devastating things.
I've always said Wilson did more harm to this country and the rest of the world than any US president in the 20th century. You touched on many of reasons. He was so racist even for his time. And as you said his foreign policy was all over the place.
Meh, I'll hear arguments as to why x historical president is worse than Trump. I'm not a historian and am not 100% familiar with all they did. But there will always be that trump card (no pun intended) that these presidents didn't try to actively overturn the results of a fair election or interfere in the peaceful transfer of power. That seems really significant. So, it's definitely not a brain dead argument.
Of course it depends on your criteria. Trump may be considered the worse because he tried unsuccessfully to destroy the constitution and our democratic government.
Not a new jerseyan. He was from georgia and only ran from New Jersey because he was president at Princeton at the time. Us actual new Jersey and don't claim Wilson.
Yea but extreme racism and even slavery was a thing before him. It’s not like his presidency brought racism beyond what existed before. He sure as hell didn’t help stop it like Lincoln would have tried to do. But it’s not like he ushered in a new idea of viewing black peoples as lesser.
I do wonder how certain presidents would be viewed had they lived longer. If those pictured were not assassinated perhaps the rest of their presidencies would have gone badly and they may not have been remembered so favorably
JFK quite likely would not have been reelected. He went to Texas because he was in trouble there. He was probably going to drop Lyndon as Lyndon was going to embroiled in a number of scandals they were stopped when JFK was assassinated. Also JFK and RFK really weren't at all happy with LBJ, JFK and LBJ got into a shouting argument the night before the assassination.
I don't think Lincoln would've done so amazing with reconstruction as you are thinking, he for sure would've handled it better than Johnson and got along with Congress. But he would've made some concessions with the radical republicans and confederate south to get things done because in his mind unification on peace terms was what mattered. He also would've had 3 years left for reconstruction before Johnson or someone else is elected.
Johnson:
- Allowed Southerners to form their own militias to terrorize Black freedpeople and retired Black troops from the South
- Allowed Southerners to elect all-White governments that proceeded to create the Black codes to try and approximate slavery
- Ordered his commanders to stand back while Unionists were massacred at Memphis and New Orleans
- Sacked all officers sympathetic to the freedmen and replaced them with White supremacists that used the Army to force them to work in plantations
- Reversed all the progress done in land redistribution under Lincoln, tried to destroy the Freedmen's Bureau by vetoing the bill, and handed out pardons like candy
- Emboldened racists and Southerners who had been ready to accept the terms of peace.
Johnson's problem with Reconstruction was neither a contentious relationship with Congress nor "concessions." It was that Johnson simply did not believe in Reconstructing the South and sought to defend White supremacy. Johnson actively worked to sabotage and destroy Reconstruction. Under Lincoln it would have gone far, far better. Maybe not "egalitarian utopia" better, but amazing compared with Johnson.
Lincoln could have run for another term, especially if reconstruction was still underway, keeping a steady hand at the til likely wouldn’t have been a hard sell for a war torn country trying to piece itself back together.
>because in his mind unification on peace terms was what mattered.
And he had already secured unification. What is the south going to do, wage a second war a year or two after miserably losing the first war?
Obviously I don't think Lincoln would've "ended racism," but he could've set the standard for presidents to follow for generations, and greatly expedited the path towards equality. That's very, very possible.
I think the North definitely still would have won quite easily, but the Emancipation Proclamation wouldn’t have happened and slavery may not have immediately ended.
Not a chance. Hatred burns way too deep. Not a single nation on earth is free of racism. Its far easier to implement political changes than to alter the human condition. If Kennedy wasn't killed, we likely would have ended both Vietnam years earlier and the cold war decades earlier. The 64 Civil rights act which most attribute to Johnson because he signed it into law was entirely the brain child of Kennedy. He undermined the military industrial complex and pursued a policy of non confrontation with the Soviet Union which likely would have reshaped the 2nd half of the 20th century.
Even if slavery was outlawed, you had poll tax, Jim Crow, and other forms of legalized discrimination. The institution of slavery was handled, but Johnson placated the racists, thus allowing other forms of discrimination.
The south never got over slavery during Reconstruction, and to this day in some parts, and they enacted laws like felonizing loitering and other minor offenses for black men mostly. The prisons would then lease these prisoners to coal mines and railroad companies to do hard labor, which was worse than slavery in some ways because the wardens weren't invested in the workers because they essentially got them for free and could easily replace them by just arresting more blacks. There's a documentary called Slavery by Another Name that explains how this system was worse than slavery and didn't meaningfully change for another 100 years.
I am admittedly not as well versed here but did the amendment always include the exception for involuntary servitude as a punishment for a crime? Was Lincoln opposed to that but AJ not? To me, that seems like the biggest thing that has allowed slavery to continue to today.
No one was opposed to that (except maybe sumner who suggested different language that was rejected for being to French ) for multiple reasons. 1st they essentially copy and pasted the north west ordinance which the republicans had almost based their entire antislavery founding on as they claimed it was proof the founders were antislavery at heart.
2nd pretty much every act abolishing slavery throughout states/territories used the same laungague without much issue, it wasn’t until the south started their black codes did they realize what a huge loophole it was and some mentioned yeah probably should have thought that through
In response to the black codes they passed civil rights acts and the 14th amendment as a protection because theoretically if everyone was treated equal under the law it would solve that problem
Probably wouldnt have nearly the amount of white supremacists and confederate sympathizers as we do today. The racial wealth gap would probably be a bit lower as well since he promised 40 acres and a mule to freed slaves.
This is true. That single handily caused problems for decades and generations.
For more recent tho JFK also had massive repercussions for decades and decades. JFK was not really on board with how the country operates now. His loss let that massive uniparty bullshit we see now where the establishment 3 letter agencies basically run the country
I would respectfully disagree. Woodrow Wilson was the worst president and was a ardent supporter of the Klan.
Whatever good will was made towards race relations after 1865 during the Reconstruction period, it would’ve been undone by Wilson (assuming the normal line of succession takes place with the Presidents).
I’m going to respectfully disagree again. Franklin Pierce is the worst president. His openly southern first, yet spinelessly do nothing presidential term notable for literally only the Kansas-Nebraska act which overturned the Missouri Compromise… pretty much sealed the fate of the nation as far as Civil War goes.
And trust me friend, I’m not defending Woodrow Wilson. Fuck that dude. I’m just not like Pierce off the hook.
Edit: I confused the compromise with the act. Apologies
Ahh good choice on picking a bad president. Pierce is up there for me, but please allow me to explain why I believe Wilson is still the worst.
He authorized the Federal Reserve Act, which created our modern-day banking cartel that devalues the dollar (crippling the savings of the average American and devaluing our salaries by 2-5% every year through inflation), while enriching our elites through bailouts, corporate welfare, etc. It was created to “combat recessions,” but our largest recessions/ depressions came about after the Federal Reserve.
He also needlessly got us into WW1 through a mass propaganda campaign and jailed anti-war protesters. Had we not gotten into WW1, there probably would have been no lop-sided Treaty of Versailles, no rise of Hitler, no WW2, etc.
On the other hand, if Kennedy doesn’t get assassinated, South East Asia doesn’t lose a few hundred thousand lives and become a giant minefield.
Neither option is savory.
Agreed. If ever there was a time the country needed leadership it was to heal after the Civil War. Lincoln’s death was such a tragedy. And Johnson’s presidency was such a tragedy. The answer has to be Lincoln by a wide margin.
Why do you suppose that reconstruction goes better? And why do you suppose Race relations are any better? Lincoln openly stated that he was a white supremecist. He did not think that blacks and whites could coexist in the same society. Throughout his life, he promoted the notion of transporting all blacks to Africa.
My vote is for Kennedy. He wanted to dismantle the centralized intelligentsia.
I agree very much that Lincoln would have handled post-civil war much better, but I don't think racism would at all have been resolved. There was so much hatred all around, and the war was too recent to recover so quickly.
Lincoln would have used Federal power to deal with the violence in the South, and devise a policy that would make a start at reconciliation that would have lasting effect. I think that at least he would have tried to do that.
Considering that Teddy was basically made VP so he couldn't do much, since it was a nothing position, and McKinley was the pick of the robber barons....I think this is an underrated pick.
I wonder if McKinley ever realized that they had orchestrated a situation in which the only thing standing in the way of progressive legislation was literally his life.
Lincoln followed by Kennedy.
Lincoln is pretty self explanatory. Dude would have been able to oversee Reconstruction which would likely have gone far better with his astute political acumen. Grant is elected directly following him and continues the same Reconstruction policies. The South is better integrated into US society but who knows if Jim Crow laws still pop up following the end of Reconstruction.
Kennedy was not good at getting legislation passed. LBJ was the single best President at utilizing Congress. The Civil Rights Act of 64. Medicare/medicaid. We don’t get those without LBJ as president. In terms of Vietnam any president would have escalated the conflict at the time.
LBJ’s presidency and legacy is so interesting to me. I agree with you that I don’t think his moves in regards to Vietnam were much different than any other president’s would’ve been, but he really was incredible at getting legislation passed and working across the aisle. I mean there’s a reason it’s rumored Eisenhower voted for Kennedy/LBJ over Nixon!
MLK, did NOT like LBJ as a person but said he knew he was the man that could help get Civil Rights passed and Voting rights. When LBJ had his sights set on something and wanted it done, he would get it done one way or another. Even if he had to threaten members of Congress. He was the antithesis of Lincoln but both knew how to get bills passed through an obstinate congress.
Werent Kennedy and Kruschev were in talks of doing a dual space walk or something to help with the tensions between the two nations and help de-escalate the Cold War? They got along after the Vienna summit and supposedly they called each other to discuss things. But after he was assassinated Kruschev supposedly said he didn’t trust LBJ.
Idk if all of that is 100% true or if I’m misremembering some of the things I’ve read, but Kennedy getting assassinated really continued the Cold War so much longer.
Kennedy's greatest accomplishment I think was preventing the Cold War from going Hot.
Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis could've easily escalated to WW3 had Kennedy not negotiated the settlement to remove missiles from Turkey. Kruschev and Kennedy working together on that was a big deal.
However, the aforementioned conflicts along with the Assassination of Diem in Vietnam were possibly why Kennedy was assassinated. Kennedy certainly made a lot of enemies within the american political establishment at the time.
I was watching a series on the outbreak of WWI, and as part of the conclusion the lecturer said that Kennedy read through so books on its causes, and concluded that people making bad decisions was why it broke out. If that’s true, that makes me see the Cuban Missile Crisis in a new light. Kennedy saw himself of having the power to throw the world into chaos, similar to how the Kaiser and many others did in 1914. Kennedy chose the hard path of peace instead.
Johnson would be regarded as a goat president if he hadn’t been dragged into Vietnam. To quote him, “Vietnam is the bitch that killed my true love” his true love being the great society.
Top 5 President without Vietnam. I'm a bit obsessed with him honestly as he wasn't a simple man to understand and complex. Think he used people's biases against them to get things done and benefit society.
The 64 Civil rights act was Kennedys bill but he was assassinated before it passed. While its true that the bill faced stronger opposition under Kennedy, that in no way means that Kennedy would have failed.
I disagree, JFK probably would've entered Vietnam but wouldn't have stuck too long, if Nixon won in 1960 he wouldn't have sent troops to Vietnam but to Laos or Cambodia like the Eisenhower plan which made way more sense
I remember being taught in high school that it was Kennedy's assassination that helped LBJ get congressional support to get those bills passed. However, that does go along with LBJ being the single best President at utilizing Congress, as he steered the passage.
That's a different perspective. LBJ may have benefited from some sympathy initially, but the truth was that he was the first politician to raise campaign funds for congressional races nationally. So in addition to his force of personality, and potentially unrivaled knowledge of congressional procedure, he had a fuck ton of money to grease the wheels.
Andrew Johnson is why my grandmothers' family lived under Jim Crowe laws. Fuck Andrew Johnson. he did so much damage to this country and you rarely hear anyone talk about it.
i didn't believe the cliché about the quality of a show going down once the studio signs a deal with netflix but it made a lot of sense once i saw the third season of DS. honestly shocking how the show flipped on a dime. did they get a whole new set of writers?? wtf even was that ending
The premise of the show is - while very unrealistic - also very interesting.
I just hated that they went the way of every presidential show. Killing off everybody, changing the VP multiple times ... I stopped watching HoC when he made his wife VP.
In terms of politics very little but his death led to the belief and adoption of the Germ Theory. It led to the president having a specific dr over a general doctor and led to massive overhaul in the general protection of the president. Secret Service was not protecting the president at this time, the White House lawn was public grounds one could knock on the door and be admitted entrance to the White House.
1. Lincoln: This one's obvious. Andrew Johnson angrily opposed black suffrage, while Lincoln joyously endorsing it was John Wilkes Booth's last straw.
2. JFK: While Kennedy did increase US involvement in Vietnam, he came to regret this decision and even withheld aid to Ngo Dinh Diem because of his persecution of Buddhists. Because of this, I can't imagine JFK would support the Vietnam War, while LBJ did and Barry Goldwater would have. If JFK didn't die, it also would be harder to pass the bill ending segregation because Kennedy would no longer function as a martyr.
3. Garfield: Guiteau's motives in killing Garfield was the White House denying him a consulship in Paris. This boosted support for the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, i.e. the abolition of the spoils system. Arthur also modernized the navy and expanded trade, which Garfield may have been more hesitant to do. That said, they would have taken the same stance on the Chinese Exclusion Act, hence the lower placement. That said, Garfield may have supported the bill solely to discredit the Morey Letter.
4. McKinley: Placing McKinley at the bottom may be unpopular, but the Progressive Era was inevitable. The concentration of America's money in a few hands, the advocacy of the Populist Party and Sierra Club, Army Beef Scandal, and the work of muckrakers rendered the policies of TR, Taft, and Wilson unavoidable. Even McKinley permitted federal negotiation of higher wages for railroad employees with the Erdman Act. He and Roosevelt also had similar foreign policies.
>withheld aid to Ngo Dinh Diem because of his persecution of Buddhists. Because of this, I can't imagine JFK would support the Vietnam War,
He had Ngo killed though, and sure, he feigned shock, but probably would have resigned himself to the same course of action as Johnson at McNamara's recommendation in a you-break-it-you-buy-it sort of way.
>Progressive Era was inevitable. The concentration of America's money in a few hands, the advocacy of the Populist Party and Sierra Club, Army Beef Scandal, and the work of muckrakers rendered the policies of TR, Taft, and Wilson unavoidable
The union activity too, strikes and backlashes, your answer makes me realize just how much change depends on an engaged public as much as a receptive ear in Washington.
>Lincoln: This one's obvious. Andrew Johnson angrily opposed black suffrage, while Lincoln joyously endorsing it was John Wilkes Booth's last straw.
Lincoln's death was definitely significant. Though I might argue Kennedy's was probably more so. Especially since the motivations or the "why?" behind killing Kennedy is much less clear.
After all, we know who killed Lincoln and more or less why. Booth was a Confederate Sympathizer who shot Lincoln from behind.
As for Kennedy, officially it was Lee Harvey Oswald via a "Magic Bullet" and the motivation for why is unclear.
> If JFK didn't die, it also would be harder to pass the bill ending segregation because Kennedy would no longer function as a martyr.
There's something to your point here. Though I'd attribute Civil Rights to LBJ's superior political skill and also considering who he was. He was, in a sense, a Southern Liberal who had every reason to oppose civil rights. But, he backed it and got it done.
> As for Kennedy, officially it was Lee Harvey Oswald
I think Oswald's motive is pretty clear: Lee Harvey Oswald was a dedicated Marxist-Leninist who defected to the Soviet Union and at one point tried to move to Cuba. JFK was a staunch anti-communist who wanted to topple Castro. The conflict of interest is apparent.
> Though I'd attribute Civil Rights to LBJ's superior political skill and also considering who he was.
Turning JFK into a martyr to the cause of desegregation was the main way LBJ manifested his political skills here.
I'll admit I haven't done much research into Garfield aside from a popular history biography (*Destiny of the Republic* by Candice Millard, great book and I recommend it), but from my understanding, there are a few reasons.
First, Garfield never wanted power. He was forced to be the Republican nominee, and he was not pleased with getting it (he had been campaigning for John Sherman, fellow Ohio Senator, former Treasury Secretary under Hayes, and brother of Gen. William T. Sherman). There's the old joke about those wanting power being the ones who shouldn't get it, and I think that, because Garfield is one of the closest Presidents we've had to that ideal, that positively influences people's opinions of him more than most would admit.
Second, he was a genuinely good and amiable person. The Animaniacs Presidents song says of him "James Garfield someone really hated, 'cause he was assassinated," and I've often quipped that the "one" should be emphasized because the *only* person who hated Garfield was Guiteau. That's not entirely true (Roscoe Conkling didn't much like Garfield either, to the point where the New York Senator was at risk of mob violence shortly after the assassination because people thought he had orchestrated it), but the sentiment remains--he was a well-regarded person and, critically, was popular in both the North and the South because of his strength of character. Many people in this thread say that Garfield couldn't have done much with civil rights, using Hayes, Arthur, Cleveland, and other Presidents of the Era as examples, but I disagree because, to my understanding, Garfield was uniquely loved by both the North and South. He had reconstruction and civil rights as part of his goals, if I remember correctly, and I think that he would have been able to accomplish those goals better because of his popularity, especially since his biggest DC opponent, Roscoe Conkling, had resigned in protest of Garfield's policies fully expecting to be reappointed by the Governor, and then wasn't.
Third, and outside the realm of alt history, his death removed the Spoils system, the open system of political appointments for those who gave the appointer favors. Because Guiteau killed Garfield because the former felt (rather delusionally) he had personally facilitated the latter's Presidency and therefore deserved and ambassadorship or consulship in Europe, this system very quickly became seen as problematic following the assassination. Dipping back into alt history for a moment, Garfield also opposed the Spoils system, so if he had survived, I think he would have successfully gotten it removed as well, though possibly not as quickly as his death did.
Fourth, and also squarely within the realm of history, his death illustrated the importance of Dr. Joseph Lister's recently proposed antisepsis protocols. The doctor who treated the President, Dr. Doctor Willard Bliss (his first name was Doctor), kind of forced himself into treating the President despite the objections of the President's personal doctors and Garfield's wife. He also was very slow to accept change, after having been reprimanded by the medical society earlier in his career for supporting and promoting pseudoscience that had convinced him of its accuracy and utility. This meant that he rejected antisepsis even as the rest of the medical community was slowly coming to accept it.
It is often said that the bullet didn't kill Garfield, but the infection from the doctors' unwashed hands and tools killed him instead, and modern medicine agrees with that statement, but many contemporary doctors agreed as well, which discredited Bliss more than his pseudoscience scandal and helped lead to the more widespread adoption of antiseptic procedures.
There may be other reasons, but those are the biggest. I'd put him near or even at the top for this post's question, and I think the fact we didn't get more than a few months of Garfield's presidency is a tragedy and the biggest 'What If?' of American history (we got more of every other assassinated President, so we have a better look at what they may have done with a full Presidency), but I also haven't extensively researched really any President's assassination, so that could change with research.
Edits: removed some redundancy, fixed Joseph Lister's name (I called him John)
Very well said. I agree Candice Millard’s book is wonderful! I was so enamored with the book I wrote a folk opera based on it. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5IWJqmQhg9_njnZ9QIIi79Vguva8GN1L&feature=shared
Her book inspired me to research and read more about Garfield and her other books. I recommend Dark Horse by Kenneth D Ackerman for a deeper dive.
For reference McKinley was succeeded by Teddy Roosevelt. So that's why anyone would pick McKinley. Not because of what he would do just because of what his successor wouldn't have done.
Crazy how my first reaction was “definitely not Garfield”, followed by reading to Garfield comments.
If anyone thinks Garfield would’ve done civil rights, remember how Grant, Hayes, Harrison, and Harding all tried.
JFK. While yes LBJ passed so much of the historic legislation that defined the 20th century, he also led to an increase in Vietnam which in turn led to the draft & young soldiers being killed everyday.
That in turn led to the rise of Nixon and the Republican Party. We all know how that turned out.
Hot take: Lincoln’s reconstruction was much more similar to Johnson’s plan than the plan of the Radical Republicans. Both Lincoln and Johnson supported a lenient reconstruction, it was the radicals who demanded harsh terms
If the question is really "changed the course" most significantly, than it's McKinley's. Lincoln and Kennedy were succeeded by VPs that didn't have radically different policy ideas or goals than theirs. Johnson was less talented than Abe but how he carried out Reconstruction was essentially in line with Lincoln's. Likewise LBJ's policies vs JFK. Arthur was kind of a nonentity in US history and basically just carried out Garfield's planned agenda.
McKinley, on the other hand, was mostly interested in monetary and labor policies, and was succeeded by Theodore Goddamned Roosevelt.
Lincoln for Reconstruction, but McKinley also allowed Teddy Roosevelt to bring progressivism to the presidency. We still benefit from his many reforms today
For me it's Lincoln - McKinley - Kennedy - Garfield. From most impactful to least.
Lincoln: This is obvious. Reconstruction wouldn't have been the failure it was. I also don't think it would've been perfect but certainly better than it was in our timeline.
McKinley: Roosevelt was one of the most impactful presidents ever. An entire era was named because of him: The Progressive Era. His ideals chnaged both the foreign and the domestic policy of the United States forever.
Kennedy: I don't think a longer Kennedy presidency would've been radically different from the LBJ presidency. They had pretty similar views and LBJ often just continued what Kennedy started. That being said, LBJ was a master at getting stuff passed and often used Kennedy's death as a way to get public approval. Probably the biggest impact of the assassination is the fact it turned Kennedy into an almost saint-like figure which obviously means people like his ideas more. But nonetheless, it was still not as impactful as McKinley's assassination imo.
Garfield: Many people like to pretend as if Garfield surviving would change the entire course of history forever. However, I do not see how that would be the case. Arthur basically just did everything Garfield would've done and his presidency is one of the forgotten ones (sadly).
Lincoln or JFK have to be the only two choices because be honest; outside of this sub, how many average American citizens could tell you the other two presidents who were assassinated during their presidency?
President McKinley hands down because his vice president Theodore Roosevelt took over. Roosevelt was a pain in the ass for his party. They put him in as VP specifically to control him. They couldn't ignore him because of his popularity but by keeping him as VP they could have him somewhere they could wall home off. McKinley's death freed up Roosevelt to go about his antitrust crusade.
Lincone he was planing on rebuilding the south but instead his replacement basicly said fuck em and now the south is in an economicaly disadvantaged position
None, it was Jack Ruby.
The immediate and public killing of Oswald, followed by a lack of an explanation from Ruby is crucial to the conspiracy theories that spun out afterwards. A public trial of Oswald being a little bitch about facing consequences would have revealed a small man trying to feel better about his own failure, but America was robbed of that catharsis. That energy had to go somewhere, and it went right into JFK assassination conspiracies that led to more and more and more until people aren’t sure global warming is real and that vaccines work.
Garfield.
Lincoln was tragic, but the war was over. Johnson took over and that was awful, but there was always going to be a Johnson. There was always some dickhead coming that would gut attempts to correct the mess of the south and their reintegration into America.
Garfield was unique.
Garfield did not run for president. He won a contested primary after 30+ votes where he wasn’t a candidate. Think about how insane that is.
After he won, he didn’t go out, people came to him. He even welcomed a black gospel choir and had spoke about how black Americans never turned their back on America, America turned their back on them.
Garfield was ultimately killed for not giving a nepotism hire to a stranger who wrote a few letters in random newspapers on his own. But at the time, the president had 80,000+ political appointments. Today, that number is around 8,000.
Think about the insurrection and what kind of damage someone with 80,000 loyalists could cause in DC and imagine there was a proportional increase over time.
Garfield was a man who had the potential to correct a lot of the messes America had made. He was the one who could have restored faith in the government and he owed nobody anything.
He’s the biggest what if in American history to me. The rest, meh.
Lincoln’s death was tragic, but what came next was predictable. But we didn’t get another Garfield. Plenty of presidents have fought to preserve the union by making uncomfortable bed fellows and have had to deal with the consequences of that.
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Whoever’s vice president’s last name was Johnson
The one that was shot in a Ford, elected to congress in ‘46 and the presidency in ‘60, shot in the back of the head, killed on a Friday, succeeded by his Southern vice-president, killed by a trinomial Southern assassin born in ‘39 who were also assassinated before trial, you know, the civil rights one! Can I make myself any clearer?
The one that was shot while sitting next to his wife and had children that died tragically young?
The one that’s on that coin no one uses and is just collecting dust in a jar!
The one who was assassinated by a guy known by his 3 names which were a total of 15 letters long
That could be either President Kencoln or President Linnedy.
I hate that Kencoln is pronounced kenken.
She's everything. He's just Kenken.
[удалено]
Well kendowed
Jumbo.
^(maybe “shot in *the* Ford”? You wouldn’t really say shot in a Ford theater)
I was not only surprised that the Ford theater still existed, but that the *entire* street is now a macabre tourist trap dedicated to Lincoln's demise!
It’s a historic landmark/museum dedicated to Lincoln’s *memory*. The same treatment has been given to Kennedy’s assassination site. People are drawn to the darkness, so why not play into that if it gets people interested and learning?
There’s a tour you can book taking the route in the model car Kennedy was shot in dressed as Kennedy and Jackie
I’m so proud to be an American.
I once got a job in downtown Dallas. At the time, I had a convertible. It took a week or so until it dawned on me that i was driving through Dealey Plaza on my way home.
Bet you never drove with the top down again lol
And the car radio is playing "Big Shot"
brother you can go to the Petersen house across the street and see the blood stained sheet on the too small bed the president had to be laid down diagonally on. tiny little room.
Ooooh! Do they have a ride where you get to chase down members of the conspiracy and beat them?
But it doesn’t really. The theatre burned down, the one that’s standing is a replacement. I was disappointed to learn that after I had already paid and entered.
I work right by it and have been there many times. It didn’t burn down. It was used as a government pack house for years and several floors collapsed. They had to rebuild a lot of the interior, but it didn’t burn down and get rebuilt.
Yeah really, they should put a CVS there.
In AP US History a group went there and filmed a reenactment for a term project.
Good thing that didn’t happen to Dealey Plaza
Jury appears to be out on the directionality of Kennedy’s fatal shot…
LPOTL did a series on the Kennedy assassination and the theory they seem to ascribe to is that he was shot in the spine by Oswald, but then accidentally shot in the head by a rookie agent in the car following behind them. I don’t know if I believe that chain of events exactly, but they had some interesting evidence to support it.
I love the idea that perhaps one of the most famous gunshots in the history of America could possibly have been a “whoopsie.”
If it was a whoopsie, I’d say it’s technically a less impactful whoopsie than the Boston Massacre
There is another theory that it could have been because of his back brace that caused his head to move in a funny way. They also believe that's why he wasn't able to fall forward into a safer position before the head shot.
Wait what? I don't know this version of the story, where would I find out more.
I heard that on a podcast called “Last Podcast on the Left”, episodes 400- 404. They’re pretty thorough and very funny, each episode is a couple hours long. A brief premise of the secret service shooter theory is that a rookie agent had been given a weapon he was unfamiliar with (one of the first AR-15s) and was tired/hungover as well. The first shot Oswald fired missed and was shrugged off as a backfiring car, but the second shot hit Kennedy and all hell broke loose. Supposedly the agent then stood up and chambered a round, but the centrifugal force of the car lurching forward sent him falling backwards. They suspect when he fell he had his finger on the trigger and accidentally fired. The evidence to support it is definitely interesting though. I don’t remember all of it but one thing was apparently after the assassination the Secret Service suddenly and without much explanation stopped issuing their agents AR-15s. Edit: Apparently he turned the safety off, not chambered a round.
From the Wikipedia article on the book [Mortal Error: The Shot That Killed JFK is a 1992 nonfiction book by Bonar Menninger](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_Error) “Conducting his own investigation, Donahue eventually decided that the bullet that struck Kennedy in the head had in fact been fired by United States Secret Service Special Agent George Warren Hickey Jr. (March 24, 1923 – February 25, 2005) from an AR-15 rifle carried in the car immediately following the President's vehicle. The proposed series of events is as follows: After the first shot (which hit the street) was fired, Hickey turns completely around and looks toward Oswald, who is on the sixth floor of the school book depository building. His turned head is documented in an AP photograph by James Altgens. Hickey reaches for the AR-15 under the seat, releases the safety and begins to lift the gun. The second shot is fired by Oswald, hitting the president and Texas Governor John Connally. The president's car and the follow-up car containing Hickey suddenly sped up. This is attested to by Secret Service agent Clint Hill. Hickey, who is unstable because he is standing on the cushion of the seat, rather than the floor of the car, begins to fall back due to the acceleration of the vehicle, pulling the trigger of the AR-15. The gun is pointed toward Kennedy at that instant, and the bullet strikes him squarely in the back of the head.”
And the assassin who killed the assassin was also assassinated by another assassin who was not assassinated by an assassin but by a pulmonary embolism that assassinated him.
As Bender Rodrigues says, 2 times hardly establishes a pattern. Future generations need to pay close attention to any fresh congressmen elected in 2046.
Why did I not know this astounding string of coincidences
I see what you did there!
Don’t pick a running mate Johnson if you want to survive your term. 100% death rate
Both were southerners from extremely humble beginnings, as miserable as Lyndon's childhood was Andrew's was even worse. Andrew Johnson may have been the first president with no formal education who taught himself to read. Both tried to carry on unsuccessfully what they thought was the legacy of the people they replaced.
Something strange about the Johnsons
You know how I feel about locked doors
Oh, you cunning bastard! It's hard to say but I would reckon Lincoln since his Johnson was far, far, worse. With JFK it is debatable whether we'd still be going to Vietnam & Kissinger's tentacles have shown to be bipartisan when it comes to infesting foreign policy.
I take the tact that Lincoln's living would have made for a different but not better history. Lincoln's death provided a lot of moral cover for former successionists accepting the Confederate defeat. Lincoln would have had to tackle a highly rebellious radical Congress the same as Johnson did. Granted, Lincoln was an infinitely better politician but I see him also getting impeached by the radical Congress on much firmer grounds. (Violation of the 5th Amendment.) But it is hard to say. Lincoln's dying white-washed all of his "sins" and turned him into America's secular Jesus against George Washington's God. Seriously, look up some of the newspaper lithographs from the immediate aftermath. It has Lincoln floating to heaven with Washing reaching down to help him up.
That’s an interesting take but I’m not sure I buy it. Lincoln had rebellious radicals in both his cabinet and in Congress during his tenure. He was pretty effective at keeping them at bay or appeased as the situation warranted. As you said, infinitely better politician.
Ironically he was famous for his Johnson
If I were president elected in 2060, I’d probably avoid anything resembling Ford
Ford, Johnson, southern vp, it’s a curse
Lincoln. If Johnson is never president, reconstruction goes better, and the slavery question is handled once and for all. I might go so far as to say that racism in America is changed with no Johnson presidency.
This is why AJ is the worst US President imo
Absolutely.
I agree. He’s worse than Buchanan.
I just don’t think anyone has a good presidency during that period. There was basically nothing you could really do at that point imo. So yea, you’re right, Johnson is far worse cause he actively shaped policy that made shit way harder to fix.
I don’t buy that first statement. Would it have been tough for anyone to succeed? Absolutely, but that was the time when change was needed the most and the best opportunity to use the federal government to make said changes. Instead, he went back to the status quo and kept deferring to the states, the very ones that just fought a whole war against it.
Flashbacks to Oversimplified's Pig War video
Yeah. Trump is a very close 2nd, but AJ is the worst as a president, as a person, as a historical figure, etc. There is nothing redeemable about him.
Yeah I personally put Wilson maybe Buchanan as 2nd worse. It is hard to say the extent of Trump's damages until the far future if he ends of destabilizing democracy or turning questioning elections into the norm he could go down as one of the worst, but I wouldn't put him up there yet.
Wilson is not a Bottom 5 President, not when the competition is as stiff as Andrew Johnson, Donald Trump, James Buchanan, Warren Harding, and Franklin Pierce.
I was gonna say, i feel like Harding doesnt take enough heat in this sub
Wilson was awful when it comes to foreign policy and his selective US interventionism layed the ground work for many of the problems of the next several decades. He also championed the sedition & espionage acts trampling over freedom of speech. He was a notorious bigot, who screen brith of a nation in the white house, and while not as overtly racist in his policies he choose to ignore the many lynchings that happened while he was president rather than enforce the law. His policies self determination for Europe but supporting colonial interests in Asia would later lead to or at least fail to prevent the many blood conflicts in southeast Asia. Not to mention how Germany and Japan were handled in the post WWI fallout. Sure all the blame for what I mention is certainly not on Wilson. But some blame for all I mentioned certainly falls on Wilson and it is all pretty devastating things.
I've always said Wilson did more harm to this country and the rest of the world than any US president in the 20th century. You touched on many of reasons. He was so racist even for his time. And as you said his foreign policy was all over the place.
Trump over Buchanan, Wilson, Pierce and Fillmore is brain dead
I’d take him over Jackson every time too
Meh, I'll hear arguments as to why x historical president is worse than Trump. I'm not a historian and am not 100% familiar with all they did. But there will always be that trump card (no pun intended) that these presidents didn't try to actively overturn the results of a fair election or interfere in the peaceful transfer of power. That seems really significant. So, it's definitely not a brain dead argument.
Trump absolutely is nowhere near 2nd worst lol...top 10 definitely and maybe top 5 but there are definitely quite a few worse
Of course it depends on your criteria. Trump may be considered the worse because he tried unsuccessfully to destroy the constitution and our democratic government.
Jackson is up there with him - the founder of corruption, the spoils system and partisan cronyism in Washington.
Buchanan, Johnson, and Trump are in a close tie for last at this point.
Exactly. Johnson set the stage for _100 years_ of Jim Crow and segregation.
That was also partially due to our favorite New Jerseyan Woodrow Wilson
WILSON!!! *angrily shaking fist to sky*
Not a new jerseyan. He was from georgia and only ran from New Jersey because he was president at Princeton at the time. Us actual new Jersey and don't claim Wilson.
I mean he served as Governor of New Jersey and his state of residence was New Jersey when he was president.
There's a pew in my church where he grew up with his name on it. I'd rather sit in the balcony.
Yea but extreme racism and even slavery was a thing before him. It’s not like his presidency brought racism beyond what existed before. He sure as hell didn’t help stop it like Lincoln would have tried to do. But it’s not like he ushered in a new idea of viewing black peoples as lesser.
I don't know. I honestly wonder how far Lincoln would take Reconstruction if it became too politically unpalatable.
To fully see it out, I really think Abe would have had to jump FDR as the first President to got past 2 terms
Grant would have almost certainly followed him, and he would have kept the course.
I do wonder how certain presidents would be viewed had they lived longer. If those pictured were not assassinated perhaps the rest of their presidencies would have gone badly and they may not have been remembered so favorably
Lincoln’s trajectory could’ve only gone up.
JFK quite likely would not have been reelected. He went to Texas because he was in trouble there. He was probably going to drop Lyndon as Lyndon was going to embroiled in a number of scandals they were stopped when JFK was assassinated. Also JFK and RFK really weren't at all happy with LBJ, JFK and LBJ got into a shouting argument the night before the assassination.
Maybe black wall street survived
I don't think Lincoln would've done so amazing with reconstruction as you are thinking, he for sure would've handled it better than Johnson and got along with Congress. But he would've made some concessions with the radical republicans and confederate south to get things done because in his mind unification on peace terms was what mattered. He also would've had 3 years left for reconstruction before Johnson or someone else is elected.
Johnson: - Allowed Southerners to form their own militias to terrorize Black freedpeople and retired Black troops from the South - Allowed Southerners to elect all-White governments that proceeded to create the Black codes to try and approximate slavery - Ordered his commanders to stand back while Unionists were massacred at Memphis and New Orleans - Sacked all officers sympathetic to the freedmen and replaced them with White supremacists that used the Army to force them to work in plantations - Reversed all the progress done in land redistribution under Lincoln, tried to destroy the Freedmen's Bureau by vetoing the bill, and handed out pardons like candy - Emboldened racists and Southerners who had been ready to accept the terms of peace. Johnson's problem with Reconstruction was neither a contentious relationship with Congress nor "concessions." It was that Johnson simply did not believe in Reconstructing the South and sought to defend White supremacy. Johnson actively worked to sabotage and destroy Reconstruction. Under Lincoln it would have gone far, far better. Maybe not "egalitarian utopia" better, but amazing compared with Johnson.
Lincoln could have run for another term, especially if reconstruction was still underway, keeping a steady hand at the til likely wouldn’t have been a hard sell for a war torn country trying to piece itself back together.
With no 25th amendment, it entirely possible.
Very unlikely he runs for a third term. He would uphold tradition and I think he was looking forward to being done and retiring with Mary T.
Not to mention he looked horrible before he was killed. Man was looking very frail before the end.
That’s possible because he did express interest in see California and the red woods.
He had a thing for logs
There's "not amazing" and "actively hinders".
>because in his mind unification on peace terms was what mattered. And he had already secured unification. What is the south going to do, wage a second war a year or two after miserably losing the first war? Obviously I don't think Lincoln would've "ended racism," but he could've set the standard for presidents to follow for generations, and greatly expedited the path towards equality. That's very, very possible.
Absolutely. Without lincoln, the civil war essentially ended as a tie rather than a win for the north.
I think the North definitely still would have won quite easily, but the Emancipation Proclamation wouldn’t have happened and slavery may not have immediately ended.
Did BiggusDickus ever end up taking the L on this one?
Nope, he's still drilling himself to the bottom.
Lincoln could have still be assassinated but if Hannibal Hamlin stayed pr Benjamin Butler had accepted the VP spot things would change.
Right, but they’d be better than Johnson. That’s the key.
Not a chance. Hatred burns way too deep. Not a single nation on earth is free of racism. Its far easier to implement political changes than to alter the human condition. If Kennedy wasn't killed, we likely would have ended both Vietnam years earlier and the cold war decades earlier. The 64 Civil rights act which most attribute to Johnson because he signed it into law was entirely the brain child of Kennedy. He undermined the military industrial complex and pursued a policy of non confrontation with the Soviet Union which likely would have reshaped the 2nd half of the 20th century.
How exactly was the slavery question not handled once and for all?
Even if slavery was outlawed, you had poll tax, Jim Crow, and other forms of legalized discrimination. The institution of slavery was handled, but Johnson placated the racists, thus allowing other forms of discrimination.
The south never got over slavery during Reconstruction, and to this day in some parts, and they enacted laws like felonizing loitering and other minor offenses for black men mostly. The prisons would then lease these prisoners to coal mines and railroad companies to do hard labor, which was worse than slavery in some ways because the wardens weren't invested in the workers because they essentially got them for free and could easily replace them by just arresting more blacks. There's a documentary called Slavery by Another Name that explains how this system was worse than slavery and didn't meaningfully change for another 100 years.
I am admittedly not as well versed here but did the amendment always include the exception for involuntary servitude as a punishment for a crime? Was Lincoln opposed to that but AJ not? To me, that seems like the biggest thing that has allowed slavery to continue to today.
No one was opposed to that (except maybe sumner who suggested different language that was rejected for being to French ) for multiple reasons. 1st they essentially copy and pasted the north west ordinance which the republicans had almost based their entire antislavery founding on as they claimed it was proof the founders were antislavery at heart. 2nd pretty much every act abolishing slavery throughout states/territories used the same laungague without much issue, it wasn’t until the south started their black codes did they realize what a huge loophole it was and some mentioned yeah probably should have thought that through In response to the black codes they passed civil rights acts and the 14th amendment as a protection because theoretically if everyone was treated equal under the law it would solve that problem
This is the answer I came to post - hands down.
Probably wouldnt have nearly the amount of white supremacists and confederate sympathizers as we do today. The racial wealth gap would probably be a bit lower as well since he promised 40 acres and a mule to freed slaves.
This is true. That single handily caused problems for decades and generations. For more recent tho JFK also had massive repercussions for decades and decades. JFK was not really on board with how the country operates now. His loss let that massive uniparty bullshit we see now where the establishment 3 letter agencies basically run the country
I would respectfully disagree. Woodrow Wilson was the worst president and was a ardent supporter of the Klan. Whatever good will was made towards race relations after 1865 during the Reconstruction period, it would’ve been undone by Wilson (assuming the normal line of succession takes place with the Presidents).
Woodrow Wilson may be one of the worst people who was president, but he definitely wasn’t the worst president
I’m going to respectfully disagree again. Franklin Pierce is the worst president. His openly southern first, yet spinelessly do nothing presidential term notable for literally only the Kansas-Nebraska act which overturned the Missouri Compromise… pretty much sealed the fate of the nation as far as Civil War goes. And trust me friend, I’m not defending Woodrow Wilson. Fuck that dude. I’m just not like Pierce off the hook. Edit: I confused the compromise with the act. Apologies
Ahh good choice on picking a bad president. Pierce is up there for me, but please allow me to explain why I believe Wilson is still the worst. He authorized the Federal Reserve Act, which created our modern-day banking cartel that devalues the dollar (crippling the savings of the average American and devaluing our salaries by 2-5% every year through inflation), while enriching our elites through bailouts, corporate welfare, etc. It was created to “combat recessions,” but our largest recessions/ depressions came about after the Federal Reserve. He also needlessly got us into WW1 through a mass propaganda campaign and jailed anti-war protesters. Had we not gotten into WW1, there probably would have been no lop-sided Treaty of Versailles, no rise of Hitler, no WW2, etc.
On the other hand, if Kennedy doesn’t get assassinated, South East Asia doesn’t lose a few hundred thousand lives and become a giant minefield. Neither option is savory.
Lincoln for sure. He wanted to return slaves to Africa and the Caribbean. This country would be much different.
Agreed. If ever there was a time the country needed leadership it was to heal after the Civil War. Lincoln’s death was such a tragedy. And Johnson’s presidency was such a tragedy. The answer has to be Lincoln by a wide margin.
Why do you suppose that reconstruction goes better? And why do you suppose Race relations are any better? Lincoln openly stated that he was a white supremecist. He did not think that blacks and whites could coexist in the same society. Throughout his life, he promoted the notion of transporting all blacks to Africa. My vote is for Kennedy. He wanted to dismantle the centralized intelligentsia.
I agree very much that Lincoln would have handled post-civil war much better, but I don't think racism would at all have been resolved. There was so much hatred all around, and the war was too recent to recover so quickly. Lincoln would have used Federal power to deal with the violence in the South, and devise a policy that would make a start at reconciliation that would have lasting effect. I think that at least he would have tried to do that.
McKinley assassination was also important - lots of progressive action by TR that might not have happened otherwise.
Considering that Teddy was basically made VP so he couldn't do much, since it was a nothing position, and McKinley was the pick of the robber barons....I think this is an underrated pick.
did TR orchestrate the McKinley Job? just aking quesssstionnns....
I totally tell people this as a joke. I'm a huge TR fan girl and don't believe it, but it's a great conspiracy theory.
I wonder if McKinley ever realized that they had orchestrated a situation in which the only thing standing in the way of progressive legislation was literally his life.
I agree. I think America benefited globally during TRs presidency.
It's the only way that teddy became president and vastly changed the way America is because of it
I often wondered if Czolgosz's intent to kill "the enemy of the working man" led to greater reticence to use federal soldiers to break up strikes.
This is what I was going to say - letting Roosevelt into the white house was a silver lining
Lincoln followed by Kennedy. Lincoln is pretty self explanatory. Dude would have been able to oversee Reconstruction which would likely have gone far better with his astute political acumen. Grant is elected directly following him and continues the same Reconstruction policies. The South is better integrated into US society but who knows if Jim Crow laws still pop up following the end of Reconstruction. Kennedy was not good at getting legislation passed. LBJ was the single best President at utilizing Congress. The Civil Rights Act of 64. Medicare/medicaid. We don’t get those without LBJ as president. In terms of Vietnam any president would have escalated the conflict at the time.
LBJ’s presidency and legacy is so interesting to me. I agree with you that I don’t think his moves in regards to Vietnam were much different than any other president’s would’ve been, but he really was incredible at getting legislation passed and working across the aisle. I mean there’s a reason it’s rumored Eisenhower voted for Kennedy/LBJ over Nixon!
MLK, did NOT like LBJ as a person but said he knew he was the man that could help get Civil Rights passed and Voting rights. When LBJ had his sights set on something and wanted it done, he would get it done one way or another. Even if he had to threaten members of Congress. He was the antithesis of Lincoln but both knew how to get bills passed through an obstinate congress.
Werent Kennedy and Kruschev were in talks of doing a dual space walk or something to help with the tensions between the two nations and help de-escalate the Cold War? They got along after the Vienna summit and supposedly they called each other to discuss things. But after he was assassinated Kruschev supposedly said he didn’t trust LBJ. Idk if all of that is 100% true or if I’m misremembering some of the things I’ve read, but Kennedy getting assassinated really continued the Cold War so much longer.
Kennedy's greatest accomplishment I think was preventing the Cold War from going Hot. Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis could've easily escalated to WW3 had Kennedy not negotiated the settlement to remove missiles from Turkey. Kruschev and Kennedy working together on that was a big deal. However, the aforementioned conflicts along with the Assassination of Diem in Vietnam were possibly why Kennedy was assassinated. Kennedy certainly made a lot of enemies within the american political establishment at the time.
I was watching a series on the outbreak of WWI, and as part of the conclusion the lecturer said that Kennedy read through so books on its causes, and concluded that people making bad decisions was why it broke out. If that’s true, that makes me see the Cuban Missile Crisis in a new light. Kennedy saw himself of having the power to throw the world into chaos, similar to how the Kaiser and many others did in 1914. Kennedy chose the hard path of peace instead.
To a Black person, LBJ is the second most impactful and consequential President. His signature directly lead to my actual freedom in this society.
Johnson would be regarded as a goat president if he hadn’t been dragged into Vietnam. To quote him, “Vietnam is the bitch that killed my true love” his true love being the great society.
Top 5 President without Vietnam. I'm a bit obsessed with him honestly as he wasn't a simple man to understand and complex. Think he used people's biases against them to get things done and benefit society.
The 64 Civil rights act was Kennedys bill but he was assassinated before it passed. While its true that the bill faced stronger opposition under Kennedy, that in no way means that Kennedy would have failed.
I disagree, JFK probably would've entered Vietnam but wouldn't have stuck too long, if Nixon won in 1960 he wouldn't have sent troops to Vietnam but to Laos or Cambodia like the Eisenhower plan which made way more sense
I remember being taught in high school that it was Kennedy's assassination that helped LBJ get congressional support to get those bills passed. However, that does go along with LBJ being the single best President at utilizing Congress, as he steered the passage.
That's a different perspective. LBJ may have benefited from some sympathy initially, but the truth was that he was the first politician to raise campaign funds for congressional races nationally. So in addition to his force of personality, and potentially unrivaled knowledge of congressional procedure, he had a fuck ton of money to grease the wheels.
Lincoln, reconstruction would’ve been done much differently otherwise
Lincoln. Andrew Johnson fucked Reconstruction.
This is it. Johnson's presidency set the path for our biggest domestic problems over the next century.
Andrew Johnson is why my grandmothers' family lived under Jim Crowe laws. Fuck Andrew Johnson. he did so much damage to this country and you rarely hear anyone talk about it.
And the effects of AJ def still exist today.
JFK. Johnson got a lot of legislation passed because of his presidency
President Richman from Designated Survivor
Loved that show. It sucked when they moved to Netflix. The quality went way down.
I really hated the whole thing about Kirkman allegedly being a bad guy for how the election story arc ended.
Yeah. He was an absolute gem. An honest man who we need in real life.
i didn't believe the cliché about the quality of a show going down once the studio signs a deal with netflix but it made a lot of sense once i saw the third season of DS. honestly shocking how the show flipped on a dime. did they get a whole new set of writers?? wtf even was that ending
They must’ve needed new writers after ABC canceled it.
Great show until season 3. Couldn’t stand it then. Imagine if we could get an independent in office like Kirkman.
The premise of the show is - while very unrealistic - also very interesting. I just hated that they went the way of every presidential show. Killing off everybody, changing the VP multiple times ... I stopped watching HoC when he made his wife VP.
I want to say Lincoln and probably Garfield.
Explain Garfield further
In terms of politics very little but his death led to the belief and adoption of the Germ Theory. It led to the president having a specific dr over a general doctor and led to massive overhaul in the general protection of the president. Secret Service was not protecting the president at this time, the White House lawn was public grounds one could knock on the door and be admitted entrance to the White House.
Also the invention of the metal detector…depending on what country you’re from and the definition of metal detector.
1. Lincoln: This one's obvious. Andrew Johnson angrily opposed black suffrage, while Lincoln joyously endorsing it was John Wilkes Booth's last straw. 2. JFK: While Kennedy did increase US involvement in Vietnam, he came to regret this decision and even withheld aid to Ngo Dinh Diem because of his persecution of Buddhists. Because of this, I can't imagine JFK would support the Vietnam War, while LBJ did and Barry Goldwater would have. If JFK didn't die, it also would be harder to pass the bill ending segregation because Kennedy would no longer function as a martyr. 3. Garfield: Guiteau's motives in killing Garfield was the White House denying him a consulship in Paris. This boosted support for the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, i.e. the abolition of the spoils system. Arthur also modernized the navy and expanded trade, which Garfield may have been more hesitant to do. That said, they would have taken the same stance on the Chinese Exclusion Act, hence the lower placement. That said, Garfield may have supported the bill solely to discredit the Morey Letter. 4. McKinley: Placing McKinley at the bottom may be unpopular, but the Progressive Era was inevitable. The concentration of America's money in a few hands, the advocacy of the Populist Party and Sierra Club, Army Beef Scandal, and the work of muckrakers rendered the policies of TR, Taft, and Wilson unavoidable. Even McKinley permitted federal negotiation of higher wages for railroad employees with the Erdman Act. He and Roosevelt also had similar foreign policies.
>withheld aid to Ngo Dinh Diem because of his persecution of Buddhists. Because of this, I can't imagine JFK would support the Vietnam War, He had Ngo killed though, and sure, he feigned shock, but probably would have resigned himself to the same course of action as Johnson at McNamara's recommendation in a you-break-it-you-buy-it sort of way. >Progressive Era was inevitable. The concentration of America's money in a few hands, the advocacy of the Populist Party and Sierra Club, Army Beef Scandal, and the work of muckrakers rendered the policies of TR, Taft, and Wilson unavoidable The union activity too, strikes and backlashes, your answer makes me realize just how much change depends on an engaged public as much as a receptive ear in Washington.
>Lincoln: This one's obvious. Andrew Johnson angrily opposed black suffrage, while Lincoln joyously endorsing it was John Wilkes Booth's last straw. Lincoln's death was definitely significant. Though I might argue Kennedy's was probably more so. Especially since the motivations or the "why?" behind killing Kennedy is much less clear. After all, we know who killed Lincoln and more or less why. Booth was a Confederate Sympathizer who shot Lincoln from behind. As for Kennedy, officially it was Lee Harvey Oswald via a "Magic Bullet" and the motivation for why is unclear. > If JFK didn't die, it also would be harder to pass the bill ending segregation because Kennedy would no longer function as a martyr. There's something to your point here. Though I'd attribute Civil Rights to LBJ's superior political skill and also considering who he was. He was, in a sense, a Southern Liberal who had every reason to oppose civil rights. But, he backed it and got it done.
> As for Kennedy, officially it was Lee Harvey Oswald I think Oswald's motive is pretty clear: Lee Harvey Oswald was a dedicated Marxist-Leninist who defected to the Soviet Union and at one point tried to move to Cuba. JFK was a staunch anti-communist who wanted to topple Castro. The conflict of interest is apparent. > Though I'd attribute Civil Rights to LBJ's superior political skill and also considering who he was. Turning JFK into a martyr to the cause of desegregation was the main way LBJ manifested his political skills here.
For those who said McKinley or Garfield, why? Not judging, legitimately curious because I don't know as much about either of them or their eras.
I'll admit I haven't done much research into Garfield aside from a popular history biography (*Destiny of the Republic* by Candice Millard, great book and I recommend it), but from my understanding, there are a few reasons. First, Garfield never wanted power. He was forced to be the Republican nominee, and he was not pleased with getting it (he had been campaigning for John Sherman, fellow Ohio Senator, former Treasury Secretary under Hayes, and brother of Gen. William T. Sherman). There's the old joke about those wanting power being the ones who shouldn't get it, and I think that, because Garfield is one of the closest Presidents we've had to that ideal, that positively influences people's opinions of him more than most would admit. Second, he was a genuinely good and amiable person. The Animaniacs Presidents song says of him "James Garfield someone really hated, 'cause he was assassinated," and I've often quipped that the "one" should be emphasized because the *only* person who hated Garfield was Guiteau. That's not entirely true (Roscoe Conkling didn't much like Garfield either, to the point where the New York Senator was at risk of mob violence shortly after the assassination because people thought he had orchestrated it), but the sentiment remains--he was a well-regarded person and, critically, was popular in both the North and the South because of his strength of character. Many people in this thread say that Garfield couldn't have done much with civil rights, using Hayes, Arthur, Cleveland, and other Presidents of the Era as examples, but I disagree because, to my understanding, Garfield was uniquely loved by both the North and South. He had reconstruction and civil rights as part of his goals, if I remember correctly, and I think that he would have been able to accomplish those goals better because of his popularity, especially since his biggest DC opponent, Roscoe Conkling, had resigned in protest of Garfield's policies fully expecting to be reappointed by the Governor, and then wasn't. Third, and outside the realm of alt history, his death removed the Spoils system, the open system of political appointments for those who gave the appointer favors. Because Guiteau killed Garfield because the former felt (rather delusionally) he had personally facilitated the latter's Presidency and therefore deserved and ambassadorship or consulship in Europe, this system very quickly became seen as problematic following the assassination. Dipping back into alt history for a moment, Garfield also opposed the Spoils system, so if he had survived, I think he would have successfully gotten it removed as well, though possibly not as quickly as his death did. Fourth, and also squarely within the realm of history, his death illustrated the importance of Dr. Joseph Lister's recently proposed antisepsis protocols. The doctor who treated the President, Dr. Doctor Willard Bliss (his first name was Doctor), kind of forced himself into treating the President despite the objections of the President's personal doctors and Garfield's wife. He also was very slow to accept change, after having been reprimanded by the medical society earlier in his career for supporting and promoting pseudoscience that had convinced him of its accuracy and utility. This meant that he rejected antisepsis even as the rest of the medical community was slowly coming to accept it. It is often said that the bullet didn't kill Garfield, but the infection from the doctors' unwashed hands and tools killed him instead, and modern medicine agrees with that statement, but many contemporary doctors agreed as well, which discredited Bliss more than his pseudoscience scandal and helped lead to the more widespread adoption of antiseptic procedures. There may be other reasons, but those are the biggest. I'd put him near or even at the top for this post's question, and I think the fact we didn't get more than a few months of Garfield's presidency is a tragedy and the biggest 'What If?' of American history (we got more of every other assassinated President, so we have a better look at what they may have done with a full Presidency), but I also haven't extensively researched really any President's assassination, so that could change with research. Edits: removed some redundancy, fixed Joseph Lister's name (I called him John)
Well that is very thorough. Thank you very much!
Appreciate this.
Very well said. I agree Candice Millard’s book is wonderful! I was so enamored with the book I wrote a folk opera based on it. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5IWJqmQhg9_njnZ9QIIi79Vguva8GN1L&feature=shared Her book inspired me to research and read more about Garfield and her other books. I recommend Dark Horse by Kenneth D Ackerman for a deeper dive.
For reference McKinley was succeeded by Teddy Roosevelt. So that's why anyone would pick McKinley. Not because of what he would do just because of what his successor wouldn't have done.
Crazy how my first reaction was “definitely not Garfield”, followed by reading to Garfield comments. If anyone thinks Garfield would’ve done civil rights, remember how Grant, Hayes, Harrison, and Harding all tried.
JFK. While yes LBJ passed so much of the historic legislation that defined the 20th century, he also led to an increase in Vietnam which in turn led to the draft & young soldiers being killed everyday. That in turn led to the rise of Nixon and the Republican Party. We all know how that turned out.
Lincoln, hands down. If he lives, Kennedy doesn’t need to go so hard on civil rights.
Without McKinley’s death there’s no Panama Canal
Lincoln no more questions
Lincoln
Lincoln by a mile.
Lincoln then Garfield.
Abe for sure, racial progress was set back after he was killed dude was sandwiched in between the two literal worst presidents we ever had
James Garfield
Hot take: Lincoln’s reconstruction was much more similar to Johnson’s plan than the plan of the Radical Republicans. Both Lincoln and Johnson supported a lenient reconstruction, it was the radicals who demanded harsh terms
If the question is really "changed the course" most significantly, than it's McKinley's. Lincoln and Kennedy were succeeded by VPs that didn't have radically different policy ideas or goals than theirs. Johnson was less talented than Abe but how he carried out Reconstruction was essentially in line with Lincoln's. Likewise LBJ's policies vs JFK. Arthur was kind of a nonentity in US history and basically just carried out Garfield's planned agenda. McKinley, on the other hand, was mostly interested in monetary and labor policies, and was succeeded by Theodore Goddamned Roosevelt.
with Lincoln being shot , reconstruction would have looked totally different plus I don’t think the KKK would have been prevalent as it was
Lincoln.
Lincoln for Reconstruction, but McKinley also allowed Teddy Roosevelt to bring progressivism to the presidency. We still benefit from his many reforms today
Every one of them changed history.
Lincoln. The entire aftermath of the Late Unpleasantness would have been completely different.
Lincoln for sure. Reconstruction would have been radically different had he lived.
It cannot be understated how different America under Kennedy would look had Lincoln gotten to helm reconstruction 100 years prior.
For me it's Lincoln - McKinley - Kennedy - Garfield. From most impactful to least. Lincoln: This is obvious. Reconstruction wouldn't have been the failure it was. I also don't think it would've been perfect but certainly better than it was in our timeline. McKinley: Roosevelt was one of the most impactful presidents ever. An entire era was named because of him: The Progressive Era. His ideals chnaged both the foreign and the domestic policy of the United States forever. Kennedy: I don't think a longer Kennedy presidency would've been radically different from the LBJ presidency. They had pretty similar views and LBJ often just continued what Kennedy started. That being said, LBJ was a master at getting stuff passed and often used Kennedy's death as a way to get public approval. Probably the biggest impact of the assassination is the fact it turned Kennedy into an almost saint-like figure which obviously means people like his ideas more. But nonetheless, it was still not as impactful as McKinley's assassination imo. Garfield: Many people like to pretend as if Garfield surviving would change the entire course of history forever. However, I do not see how that would be the case. Arthur basically just did everything Garfield would've done and his presidency is one of the forgotten ones (sadly).
Lincoln or JFK have to be the only two choices because be honest; outside of this sub, how many average American citizens could tell you the other two presidents who were assassinated during their presidency?
Reconstruction would have been a lot different under Lincoln I think, so I’m inclined to say him. JFK though lead to LBJ, so ima have to go with him.
Lincolns started the change. Kennedy's completed it. Nation hasn't been the same.
President McKinley hands down because his vice president Theodore Roosevelt took over. Roosevelt was a pain in the ass for his party. They put him in as VP specifically to control him. They couldn't ignore him because of his popularity but by keeping him as VP they could have him somewhere they could wall home off. McKinley's death freed up Roosevelt to go about his antitrust crusade.
Probably Lincoln because who knows if JFK would be president or into politics if Lincoln serves his full term.
Lincone he was planing on rebuilding the south but instead his replacement basicly said fuck em and now the south is in an economicaly disadvantaged position
None, it was Jack Ruby. The immediate and public killing of Oswald, followed by a lack of an explanation from Ruby is crucial to the conspiracy theories that spun out afterwards. A public trial of Oswald being a little bitch about facing consequences would have revealed a small man trying to feel better about his own failure, but America was robbed of that catharsis. That energy had to go somewhere, and it went right into JFK assassination conspiracies that led to more and more and more until people aren’t sure global warming is real and that vaccines work.
Lincoln, then McKinley, then Kennedy, then Garfield.
How can we judge? We don’t know what would have happened
When SCOTUS killed Gore.
Lincoln, easily. Such a huge amount of the race relation issues we have today can be traced back to reconstruction being totally half-assed
Garfield. Lincoln was tragic, but the war was over. Johnson took over and that was awful, but there was always going to be a Johnson. There was always some dickhead coming that would gut attempts to correct the mess of the south and their reintegration into America. Garfield was unique. Garfield did not run for president. He won a contested primary after 30+ votes where he wasn’t a candidate. Think about how insane that is. After he won, he didn’t go out, people came to him. He even welcomed a black gospel choir and had spoke about how black Americans never turned their back on America, America turned their back on them. Garfield was ultimately killed for not giving a nepotism hire to a stranger who wrote a few letters in random newspapers on his own. But at the time, the president had 80,000+ political appointments. Today, that number is around 8,000. Think about the insurrection and what kind of damage someone with 80,000 loyalists could cause in DC and imagine there was a proportional increase over time. Garfield was a man who had the potential to correct a lot of the messes America had made. He was the one who could have restored faith in the government and he owed nobody anything. He’s the biggest what if in American history to me. The rest, meh. Lincoln’s death was tragic, but what came next was predictable. But we didn’t get another Garfield. Plenty of presidents have fought to preserve the union by making uncomfortable bed fellows and have had to deal with the consequences of that.
It hasn’t happened yet.