The final 15 presidents and why you shouldn't name your kid after them

After a rant about James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes, a few friends suggested I start a podcast about why you shouldn't name your kids after certain people. Season 1 would be the presidents. Here are some (often editorialized and varying in importance) bullet points I'd go over for the final 15 presidents. Also, I should've said this in other posts, but I'm sure I'm missing points for all presidents. Also, to be clear, this doesn't mean you shouldn't name your kid like Ronald or Reagan, but naming them Ronald, Reagan, or Ronald Reagan with the INTENT to honor a president is not advisable IMO. I also want to emphasize in this final post that I recognize that presidents also did good things, but the point of my podcast idea is to focus on the bad, so that's what I'm doing. Finally, I'm sure I forgot things for all presidents!

1. Franklin D. Roosevelt
1. Interned Japanese-Americans
2. Definitely cheated on his wife (the first known one was with his wife's social secretary)
1. His own said FDR also had an extensive affair with his own secretary
2. He may have even had an affair with the princess of Norway
3. Supported super racist Woodrow Wilson's campaign
4. Continued Hoover's deportation of those of Mexican descent (most of whom were citizens) (he did eventually end federal support for these deportations, but he didn't do anything to prevent states from doing it)
5. Didn't pass anti-lynching laws because it could "alienate" some politicians
2. Harry S. Truman
1. Authorized the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
2. Drafted a bill that would take striking railroad workers and draft them
3. Zionist
4. Called the sit-in part of a communist plot
5. Called the Selma march "silly"
6. Spoke out against interracial marriage
7. A card-carrying member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans
3. Dwight D. Eisenhower
1. Anti-gay (he "subjected all federal employees to invasive in-depth investigations and interviews of their friends and family in a witch hunt to fire (in large part) lesbian, gay, and bisexual federal employees")
2. He "approved a CIA operation to carry out a campaign of terrorist attacks and sabotage, kill civilians, and cause economic damage" in Cuba
3. Made a pact with Franco
4. He "authorized the CIA to overthrow Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh"
5. McCarthyism
4. John F. Kennedy
1. Most famous for being assassinated and cheating on his wife (a lot)
2. His daddy literally bribed a newspaper to support JFK's first senate run
3. Won a Pulitzer Prize in biography for a book HE DID NOT WRITE (it was ghost written)
4. Def. used nepotism
5. Bay of Pigs Invasion
6. Lukewarm on civil rights issues
7. Tapped MLK Jr.'s phone
5. Lyndon B. Johnson
1. Called his penis "Jumbo" and like a) I shouldn't know that and b) ew
2. As a congressman, he voted "against anti-lynching legislation, anti-poll tax legislation and the Fair Employment Practice Committee"
3. Conspiracy theory time: someone died and LBJ won a special election to be a congressman, someone died and LBJ nearly won a special election to be a senator, and then, well JFK died and LBJ became president
4. Maybe stole his 1948 senate nomination
5. AFL-CIO hated him
6. Known for being a crude dude
7. Misrepresented what was happening in Vietnam
1. Handling of the Vietnam War in general was bad
8. Continued tapping MLK Jr.'s phone
9. Cheated on his wife (a lot)
10. Made sure his kids and pets all had LBJ as initials
6. Richard Nixon
1. Watergate (and thus ever subsequent scandal having to have the suffix -gate)
2. Didn't want to work as a divorce lawyer because he didn't like "frank sexual talk from women"
3. Was part of the House Un-American Activities Committee
4. He "co-sponsored the Mundt–Nixon Bill to implement "a new approach to the complicated problem of internal communist subversion ... It provided for registration of all Communist Party members and required a statement of the source of all printed and broadcast material issued by organizations that were found to be Communist fronts""
5. Nicknamed "Tricky Dick" while running for senate
6. Buds with McCarthy
7. "I'm not taking gifts for political favors, that's crazy. The only gift I received was this cute puppy and it would break my daughters' heart to give him back" (bullshit)
8. Bombed Cambodia despite promising to de-escalate the Vietnam War
9. Antisemitic
7. Gerald Ford
1. Accepted Nixon's VP offer after Watergate had begun to emerge
2. WAS NEVER ELECTED (Nixon appointed him towards the end of his disgrace after his VP resigned because his VP was facing lots of charges himself and then Ford didn't get reelected)
3. Pardoned Nixon
4. Bit into a tamale that still had the corn husk on it (yes, this is minor, but it was photographed)
8. Jimmy Carter
1. Quiet on segregation issues while a Georgia state senator
2. In his run for governor, he was super racist and was like "well the other candidate supports MLK and isn't that fucked up?" (he seems to have backed down from this strategy after elected, but it was still fucked up)
3. Reintroduced the death penalty in Georgia while governor (for completeness, he later said he regretted this)
4. During an interview in April 1976, Carter said, "I have nothing against a community that is... trying to maintain the ethnic purity of their neighborhoods"
5. Verbally insulted congresspeople
6. Supported Khmer Rouge
7. Supported Suharto 
8. Supported the violent suppression of the Gwangju Uprising
9. Honestly, so much foreign policy stuff was bad
10. Iran hostage crisis
11. Elvis's friend
9. Ronald Reagan
1. Reaganomics
2. Criticized Medicare
3. Opposed the Civl Rights Act of 1964
4. Sent state National Guard to UC Berkeley and UC Santa Barbara to occupy it during protests
5. He "used racially coded rhetoric to undermine Food Stamps"
6. Vetoed the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987
7. Appointed Clarence M. Pendleton Jr., known for his opposition to affirmative action and equal pay for men and women, as chair of the United States Commission on Civil Rights
8. He "ignored human rights violations in the countries they backed"
9. Despite having a personal friend (Rock Hudson) die from AIDS he was reluctant to address the crisis either in words or action
10. Vetoed "the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act"
11. Bombed Libya
12. His "administration officials had secretly arranged weapon sales to Iran during the Iran–Iraq War. The officials had used the proceeds to fund the Contra rebels in their fight against the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua"
10. George H. W. Bush
1. Spoke out against the Civil Rights Act of 1964
2. Capital punishment guy
3. Did not address the AIDS crisis adequately
4. Nominated Clarence Thomas to Supreme Court despite the sexual harassment charges
5. Vomited into Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa's lap
11. Bill Clinton
1. Quite possibly in the Epstein files
2. Probably did a lot of cocaine as governor (def pardoned his brother for cocaine possession and smuggling)
3. He "was accused of serious sexual misconduct in Arkansas, including allegations of using the Arkansas State Police to gain access to women"
4. Cheated on his wife A LOT
5. Expanded the death penalty
6. DOMA
7. The Lewinsky scandal is much worse when you consider the age and power dynamics at play
8. Pardoned a lot of people very sketchily
9. Campaign finance controversies
10. Did not intervene in the genocide in Rwanda
11. He "ordered cruise missile strikes on terrorist targets in Afghanistan and Sudan, targeting the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan"
12. "Accidentally" bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade
13. Nicknamed "Slick Willie"
14. "Several women have publicly accused Clinton of sexual misconduct, including rape, harassment, and sexual assault"
12. George W. Bush
1. Nepo baby
2. Bad painter
3. He "lowered the age at which juveniles can be sent to adult court for serious crimes to 14"
4. 2008 financial crisis
5. He "vetoed State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) legislation"
6. Started ICE
7. Mishandled Hurricane Katrina
8. Iraq War
9. Authorized torture
10. Tried to maintain a cowboy image despite being from Connecticut
11. Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse
12. NSA warrantless surveillance
13. Established GITMO
14. Nicknamed "Shrub"
13. Barack Obama
1. He "continued and expanded surveillance programs set up by George W. Bush"
2. He "ordered a drone strike in Yemen which targeted and killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an American imam suspected of being a leading Al-Qaeda organizer"
3. Criticized "wokeness"
4. He "escalated the use of drone strikes against suspected militants and terrorists associated with al-Qaeda and the Taliban"
5. Called the "Deporter in Chief" because of how many people he deported
6. Failed to close GITMO
14. Donald Trump
1. Evil
2. Probably in the Epstein files
3. Super creepy about his daughter Ivanka
4. Cofounded Trump University which defrauded students
5. "Posing as a Trump Organization official named "John Barron", Trump called journalist Jonathan Greenberg in 1984, trying to get a higher ranking on the Forbes 400 list of wealthy Americans"
6. Birther movement
7. Campaigned as a successful businessman, but he actually seems only to have succeeded cause his daddy loaned him a fuckton of money
8. Def racist and sexist
9. Been accused SO MANY TIMES of sexual harrassment and assault
10. Somehow promised Mexico would pay for a border wall?
11. So much bad stuff for the environment
12. "In 2016, he said he supported the use of interrogation torture methods "a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding""
13. Referred to racists as "very fine people"
14. Buddies with Putin
15. Cannot retain staff
16. Appointed accused rapist Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court
17. Roe v. Wade overturned on his watch
18. Welcomed and encouraged Russian interference in the 2016 election
19. "He blocked funding for the U.S. Postal Service, saying he wanted to prevent any increase in voting by mail"
20. Encouraged the January 6th riots ("more than 140 police officers were injured, and five people died during or after the attack")
1. Pardoned the rioters
21. Literally had classified documents in between his presidencies
22. He was convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records
23. Literally "accepted a $400 million luxury jet from Qatar to serve as Air Force One"
24. Ordered an end to DEI
25. He "largely dismantled several federal agencies including USAID and the Department of Education, unilaterally fired several thousand staff, and reduced administrative functions to statutory minimums"
26. Weaponized the justice department to target political enemies
27. He "canceled and paused federal grants and made large cuts to scientific research"
28. Anit-LGBTQ (especially anti-transgender)
29. He "cut funding for Medicaid and SNAP"
30. His deportation efforts are inhumane
31. STILL thinks the Central Park 5 are guilty
32. He "promoted false claims of white genocide in South Africa"
33. "Research suggests Trump's rhetoric is associated with an increased incidence of hate crimes"
34. Cheated on all of his wives
35. Left the WHO
36. And we're still going...
15. Joe Biden
1. Voted for the 1994 crime bill
2. Voted to ban gay people from the military
3. He "has made several false or exaggerated claims about his early life: that he had earned three degrees in college, that he attended law school on a full scholarship, that he had graduated in the top half of his class"
4. Accused of inappropriate physical contact and sexual assault
5. "Deportations from October 2023 to September 2024 reached the highest level since 2014"
6. Did a lot of pardons including "felons such as Michael Conahan, a judge involved in the kids for cash kickback scandal, and Rita Crundwell, a comptroller responsible for the single largest municipal fraud in U.S. history" as well as his son
7. Did not handle Palestine well
8. Like Trump, had classified documents just at his house

(Prompt by me but also Kimisha Cassidy and Emily Kleeman)

"Her Majesty, the President" by lucidialohman. Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic.