Who is the all time best President of the United States of America?

Best president of USA till now

President Trump. During such situations like Taliban/Afghanistan Crisis we're missing Donald trump. Things can be batter if he would be US president in present. But things are not in our favour, I don't like current President Joe Biden. 

When I began writing this answer, the question was asking for my Top Ten Presidents. Once I was about three quarters of the way through, Quora merged the question I was answering with another question about the single best president, making my answer somewhat farcical.

While I think I understand Quora’s reasoning for making such merges despite the questions not really being the same, I am going to hold the course and finish the answer that I began. I hope you will allow me that.

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Who were the Top 10 US presidents of all time?

Several questions are immediately raised. Do we mean most blameless or most important? Because several of our most consequential presidents came with serious flaws and/or major and sometimes horrific mistakes. Also, are we judging these presidents by their character or by their accomplishments? Because again, there have been some chief executives who I regard as pretty awful human beings who managed to accomplish amazing and important things.

There is also the problem of timing. The mere act of being a sitting president at the outbreak of a major crisis dramatically increases the consequence of one’s term of office, and it hardly seems fair to judge the consequence of those who presided over peace and tranquility with the same ruler that is applied to those who battled at the brink.

Therefore, I feel that I should likely make at least two lists for two different metrics. I am not going to put much thought into these, because I could seriously equivocate forever, so take these lists as my gut-instinct.

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Most Important Presidents*

1. Abraham Lincoln
2. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
3. George Washington
4. Lyndon B. Johnson
5. Dwight D. Eisenhower
6. Theodore Roosevelt
7. Harry S. Truman
8. Thomas Jefferson
9. John F. Kennedy
10. Woodrow Wilson

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*To be clear, I am judging the above only by their accomplishments as president. Were I to count all the lifetime achievements of men who would serve as president then Jefferson would be much higher and Madison, who narrowly missed my top ten list, would have easily made the top five. I also weighed importance by positive contribution primarily, as I don’t think that those who caused serious and lasting damage to the nation deserve to be recognized for the harm that they caused, even if that harm would go on to play a definitive role in defining the nation.

Even as I look over the list I just typed, I am already unsure of my choices, and find myself compelled to go back and refine the list. I am not, however, allowing myself to do so. If you disagree with my rankings or choices, understand that only a few seconds after writing them, I do to an extent as well. The best that I can do is provide a single sentence (and I will try to hold myself to one sentence) explanation of each of my choices.

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Ultra-Brief Explanation of the List Above

1. Not only did he preside over the lowest point in our nation’s history and bring us back into one union, but Abraham Lincoln radically redefined the American Federal Government more even than the founders who established it, and everything that American political power is today is viewed through the lens of his presidency.
2. The longest serving president we have had brought us out of the Great Depression, led us to victory in WWII, and oversaw the foundation of a new model of government dedicated to the wellbeing of the electorate and the benefit of the people in a way that had not previously been conceived.
3. Washington literally defined the presidency from the outset in that the job—and the powers afforded thereto—were created with him specifically in mind to such an extent that without him it is uncertain whether or not the newly-formed United States of America would even have instituted the presidency at all, and his decision to stand down after two terms of service—which laid the precedent for a century-and-a-half of presidential practice—may have been the single most consequential decision ever made by any American president in history.
4. While he seems like a generally distasteful human being, there is no doubt that Lyndon Johnson oversaw a glut of legislation that would fundamentally define the nation that we know now, as much of the lauded progress of the late 20th Century that we now study with such gusto happened under his watch.
5. While not from the same party as FDR, Eisenhower moved the concept of an active government which acted for the benefit of the people from a partisan to a national ideal, and the public works projects his administration oversaw—of which the interstate highway system stands as a shining example—are still integral to our nation today.
6. Teddy Roosevelt brought progressivism to the forefront of national leadership, and from our National Parks to our baseline concept of the rules that govern a productive capitalist society (anti-trust, workers rights, etc.) we have TR to thank for a lot of the modern world we now enjoy.
7. While I personally disagree quite strongly with the decision to employ nuclear weapons against largely civilian (or for that matter any) targets, there is no doubt that Truman oversaw the nation’s final rise to global military supremacy, beginning—for better or worse—what would come to be known as the Pax Americana.
8. The Louisiana Purchase, the single most definitive executive action of Jefferson’s Presidency, fundamentally shifted the United States as a nation from a coastal confederacy to an expansionist continental power, and blazed the path that would eventually lead us to the Pacific.
9. While many of the accomplishments most associated with him were achieved by others after his death, Kennedy established the narrative that would guide the nation into its greatest period of global ascendancy and whatever else he may have done, he deserves some recognition for that.
10. While there is a lot that I find remarkably distasteful about Wilson, and although many of his visions flickered into miasmas, I would say that Wilson’s rather prescient vision of a global diplomatic community united by a belief in the prevention of conflict marks one of the most important philosophical turning points in history—intentional pursuit of peace over glory in battle at an international level—even though his League of Nations would ultimately collapse and fail to prevent the single deadliest conflict in human history after the Senate failed to ratify the Treaty of Versailles.

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Okay, so there are my initial gut picks. Like I said, I already find myself cringing at a couple of my own choices, but I am leaving them just the same, in the interest of preserving my initial gut reaction as close to fully intact as possible.

At the same time, however, the above list does not really reflect my personal assessment of each president’s character. Several on my list were—in my view at least—rather despicable human beings in their personal lives, political contributions notwithstanding. I will therefore attempt to do a similar gut-instinct list of the presidents whose personal character best exhibits my personal sense of honor and dignity.

It should be understood that I will judge each man against his contemporaries to minimize the influence of the waves of moral improvement that act as a function of time throughout any progressive society. The concepts of racial and gender equality, for instance, which stand today as foundational pillars of any morally enlightened worldview, are comparatively recent in terms of broad acceptance. The institution of chattel slavery in particular—heinous poison that it is—manages to taint the character of pretty close to everyone who coexisted with it. During its loathsome tenure, the concept of any kind of fundamental equality between the White and Black races was almost nonexistent, even among those who fought to end the practice, views which would be morally anathema in the 21st century. As such, I would say that almost every single president in history has held at least a few utterly abhorrent views. In order to make this list more congruent, the character of each president will be judged by the metrics of their various eras. Also, because of the general dearth of truly flawless characters among the nations chief executives, I will truncate this list to five.

It should also be noted that this list is severely limited by the narrow bounds of my own knowledge. I have no idea whatsoever about the kind of individuals that the majority of my nation’s presidents happened to be. This list therefore has a great deal more to do with whose biographies I have read than with any semblance of evenly-weighed objective analysis.

So now that I’ve put you off it altogether, here we go.

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Most Honorable Presidents

1. Barack Obama. While I feel certain to receive a degree of pushback here from his detractors (living as we do in an age of multiple realities, where narratives warp the fabric of fact fundamentally), I think you would be hard-pressed to find a more honorable character at the head of any country. I found my passion for politics during the Obama presidency. I watched every move that he made with a critical eye. I was not a fan of all of his policies. I even engaged in protests against some of the actions of his administration. At the same time, while I might not have agreed with every aspect of his policy, I found him to be a gentleman of the very highest order. Even when I felt he was going astray, I remained generally confident that he was at the very least doing what he thought best. While it may be too soon to form an accurate picture of how history will remember his presidency from a policy standpoint, I feel almost perfectly confident in how his character will be regarded by posterity.
2. Abraham Lincoln. There are times when I feel this one is too convenient. He emancipated the slaves, which was truly monumental. He also ran on the promise of not emancipating them—for historically understandable reasons—and endorsed segregation while denying racial equality. He also presided over the war that claimed the lives of more Americans than all others combined until the end of Vietnam. He even suspended habeus corpus when it suited him to do so. And yet it is the character of Abraham Lincoln that set his presidency apart. IT was why the South resolved to secede before he even took office. Abraham Lincoln was, at his core, obviously the sort of man with whom injustice could not long peacefully coexist, and his election to the presidency was enough to convince the slaveholders that their age was over. For all his faults, that alone makes him a man of notable character.
3. Jimmy Carter. While many aspects his presidency were—at best—ineffective (a flaw I would personally attribute more to his inauspicious timing than any kind of personal failure), it is difficult to argue that Jimmy Carter wasn’t an exemplary human being. While I am not a Christian, I cannot help but feel heartened when I see a Christian actually living out their values in a real sense, and that is what this particular occasionally-angry atheist sees in this president. Even his opponents tended to mock him for being too humble and nice and not chest-thumpingly hardcore enough. The fact that he has done more to help the world since leaving the presidency than any of his predecessors throughout all of history only stands as evidence. In short, whatever else you may think about his politics or presidency, there is little doubt that Jimmy Carter was and is a good man.
4. Dwight D. Eisenhower. Often cited by Liberals today as the “Last Great Republican President,” Eisenhower’s character was attested both in the fire and fury of combat and in the pastoral tranquility of the fruited plain. Not only did he lead American forces to victory in the single most consequential war of modern history, he returned home to champion domestic development. He was the last of his party to stand up as a serious champion of Civil Rights and hold views to match. Desegregation—from schools to squadrons—happened under his watch and not remotely without political cost to him. He could have “stayed out of it” and few would have blamed him, but he seems to have genuinely believed that the blood spilt by his men in the Second World War must be justified by a better world in consequence.
5. Ulysses S. Grant. While his presidency is often rated on the lower tiers of American history, I believe that the person of General Grant—as attested both by his actions and by his seminal and exquisite autobiography—was among the greater blessings ever bestowed upon these United States. My personal assessment, which is not entirely original and has been repeated by many before me, is that Grant made almost every mistake that could realistically be made, but almost never made the same one twice. A man seemingly immune to the puffed-up egoism that so defined his age, Grant was ill-suited to the presidency, and his predilection for trust led him into poor appointments that would bedevil his legacy. But at the same time, I see Grant as an exemplary man of character. I truly believe that his personal valor—and the trust placed in him by the soldiers under his command in consequence—played a decisive factor in his victory. I often hear people talk about how the presidency isn’t a good fit for honest men, and there may be no better example than Grant’s dissonant term as chief executive.

Note: I am personally surprised by the absence of George Washington from this list, despite being its author. I have just recently finished reading Ron Chernow’s exquisite biography of Washington. I am certainly no believer in the cherry-tree mythology propped up around Washington, and understand him as the complex character that evidence suggests him to have been. When I planned this list in my head, Washington was definitely on it, slaveholding notwithstanding, because I feel that his personal character and the confidence placed therein by his contemporaries did more to define the presidency than any other single factor. At the same time, however, I realized as I wrote the Grant bit that I had already reached five, and I am determined not to delete any of my initial choices to include the president whose biography I have most recently read.

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So those are my lists. Once again, these are personal gut-reactions. If you disagree with my choices or their rankings, I would really love to hear from you about it. That was my entire intent in writing this answer. I always enjoy the chance to engage in serious discourse, especially when it leads me to a new understanding of history.

My one request is that we might keep it friendly. Even if your mind is screaming “HOW THE HELL COULD YOU RATE [insert chosen entry perceived to be objectionable] WHEN HE DID [insert horrendous thing that he doubtless did].” I stand ready to explain my choices in greater detail to those interested in a dialogue, but have virtually no interest in mudslinging.

So if you want to cross-examine any of my choices, consider this an invite, premised on the promise of respectful dialogue.

That said, feel free to tear me apart.

Or—even better—feel free to write your own answer.

Debate responsibly.™