FDR is definitely the best from a leftist perspective and in terms of what's realistic to push for today. Obviously also had problematic moments like the Japanese internment and the limited benefits of New Deal programs for non-Whites. But he was the enemy of the ideologues of the capitalist class (although he also saved the capitalist class) and his Good Neighbor policy was perhaps the nicest the US ever treated other countries.
After that there's a steep drop in quality. Lincoln is probably #2 - he was willing to fight and kill the slaveowners in the end, and then abolish slavery. Then it's guys who have perhaps as many negatives as positives, even if some were decent statesmen if you ignore matters of justice. Jefferson - radical liberal ... rapist slave-owner. Jackson - radical democrat ... genocidal imperialist. Teddy Roosevelt - progressive reformer ... genocidal imperialist. Wilson - progressive reformer ... White supremacist. Washington was a great statesman who provided the stability needed to get the United States off the ground, which is why he's high up in mainstream historians' lists, but he stood for the interests of a tiny aristocracy of major land-owners and merchants; didn't even properly pay the troops who won the Revolutionary War.
Truman, Eisenhower, and LBJ had decent domestic politics - but they were overseeing a slow turn away from the New Deal, a regression. And they were all genocidal anti-communist imperialists. The Civil Rights Act was commendable, but somewhat like Obamacare - less than what was necessary then and weakened since.
FDR is definitely the best from a leftist perspective and in terms of what's realistic to push for today. Obviously also had problematic moments like the Japanese internment and the limited benefits of New Deal programs for non-Whites. But he was the enemy of the ideologues of the capitalist class (although he also saved the capitalist class) and his Good Neighbor policy was perhaps the nicest the US ever treated other countries.
After that there's a steep drop in quality. Lincoln is probably #2 - he was willing to fight and kill the slaveowners in the end, and then abolish slavery. Then it's guys who have perhaps as many negatives as positives, even if some were decent statesmen if you ignore matters of justice. Jefferson - radical liberal ... rapist slave-owner. Jackson - radical democrat ... genocidal imperialist. Teddy Roosevelt - progressive reformer ... genocidal imperialist. Wilson - progressive reformer ... White supremacist. Washington was a great statesman who provided the stability needed to get the United States off the ground, which is why he's high up in mainstream historians' lists, but he stood for the interests of a tiny aristocracy of major land-owners and merchants; didn't even properly pay the troops who won the Revolutionary War.
Truman, Eisenhower, and LBJ had decent domestic politics - but they were overseeing a slow turn away from the New Deal, a regression. And they were all genocidal anti-communist imperialists. The Civil Rights Act was commendable, but somewhat like Obamacare - less than what was necessary then and weakened since.