The votes are in and, according to the Discovery Channel, these are the top ten Americans of all time:
1) Ronald Reagan
2) Abraham Lincoln
3) Martin Luther King
4) George Washington
5) Benjamin Franklin
6) George W. Bush
7) Bill Clinton
Elvis Presley
9) Oprah Winfrey
10) Franklin D. Roosevelt
The only problem I have with the top 5 is Ronald Reagan winning the title of “Greatest American.” This is nuts. If Reagan hadn’t lived, I imagine things would have turned out differently with the fall of Communism and domestic policies would be skewed decidedly more to the left, but the fact is the United States would probably still be here and prospering nicely.
The same cannot be said about George Washington. I daresay that without Washington, there quite simply would be no United States – or at least a United States that we’d recognize as such. Therefore, I’d drop Reagan out of the top ten altogether (as I did here in this post) and put Washington in the top spot. Other than that, I have no quarrel with the top 5. Franklin may be a stretch but I’m comfortable with putting someone who’s impact on American life is still being felt today.
What is truly shocking and troubling is the fact that Thomas Jefferson isn’t in the top 5 or the top 10. Jefferson rolls in at #12. Here’s another individual that one can say if he didn’t live, America would be a very different place (if it existed at all). His impact on the formation of our Republic cannot be overstated. It can truly be said that he was not only the author of the Declaration of Independence, but that he is largely responsible for the Constitution, even though he was in Paris during the Summer of 1787. The reason? His disciples George Mason and James Madison more than any others were responsible for both the thinking behind the document and the writing of it. And he was the leader of the oldest political party in history; the Democratic Party. His ideas dominated American politics for the Republic’s first 50 years and his influence is felt down to this day.
Not including him was a travesty.
As for numbers 6 through 10 I’ll only say this: What. A. Crock.
George Bush? Bill Clinton (“Greatest” what? Serial adulterer?) Elvis? Oprah?
What this goes to show is that we Americans are not very interested in our past. There are cultural and traditional reasons for this. It’s part of our schizophrenic relationship with our ancestors. The fact that these ancestors wrote slavery into the Constitution (giving slaves a “value” of 3/5 of a human being) and practiced the deliberate and systematic genocide of Native Americans as well as performing heroic feats of settlement and exploration cannot be reconciled by most Americans.
In addition to this, we’ve embraced a political tradition that ignores the past in favor of looking toward the future. Politicians evoke images, events, and people from the past not to educate us but rather to connect to the future in a way that’s not done in any other democratic society. Reagan was a master of this. Clinton could also turn the trick on occasion. President Bush tries it and falls flat because his allegories inevitably seem to mix in religion. While the President’s piety is a strength both personally and politically, his major speeches that seek to invoke the past do so in order to illustrate a faith in God. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, it’s just as political theater, it doesn’t go over well.
This ignorance of history is nothing new. It’s been remarked on by observers of America from it’s founding. Here’s Alexis de Tocquville:
“Not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but also clouds their view of their descendants and isolates them from their contemporaries. Each man is for ever thrown back on himself alone, and there is danger that he may be shut up in the solitude of his own heart.”
The oft quoted Santayanna whose “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it” is used by both liberals and conservatives as a political talisman from which American’s are supposed to draw a lesson. The problem is American’s are not only ignorant of the past, they are unconcerned with it.
Is this good or bad? Well, it’s worked so far. As long as Americans never forget really big things like the Bill of Rights or Adolph Hitler, I doubt whether it will affect us one way or another.
UPDATE
I see where John Hawkins and I are thinking along the same lines (mostly). Here’s John’s top 10:
1) George Washington
2) Abe Lincoln
3) Thomas Jefferson
4) Ben Franklin
5) James Madison
6) Ronald Reagan
7) Andrew Jackson
Tom Paine
9) Teddy Roosevelt
10) Alexander Hamilton
I like Tom Paine, but I don’t think he’s anywhere near top 10 material. And Hamilton was a scheming son of a gun who allowed personal ambition to almost ruin the young Republic.
Teddy Roosevelt is an interesting choice and good arguments can be made in his favor. He pretty much invented the modern presidency. And his personna dominated American politics for a long time. Madison is an excellent choice seeing that he was largely responsible for sheperding the Constitution through the convention in 1787. And John has Jefferson right up front where he should be.
All in all, good choices, good rankings.
2:08 pm
Rick,
I respectfully disagree. As you point out, we don’t teach history anymore. I would say that there are no greatest Americans but that America is greatest as an ideal in Liberty. Were any of our great leaders doing anything other than what they should have done? Carter didn’t then nor now understand what is America; Reagan was essential to restoring America back toward our fundamental ideals.
4:25 pm
Ronald Reagan Wins: Greatest American
It’s nice to be pleasantly surprised for a change. The Discovery Channel has chosen Ronald Reagan as its “Greatest American.” I blogged earlier about my skepticism about a list that included Michael Moore and Madonna. But the final list is…
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Hamilton was the father of our banking system; that’s probably worth a mention. But, hey, if you want to go back to root causes, without Bill Buckley there would be no Ronald Reagan—at least not the Ronnie we all knew and respected.
I agree Tom Paine doesn’t belong on the list. I’m also not sure about Teddy. He was an economic fool and had some very strange progressive beliefs. Still, he did create the National Park system and for anyone who has visited Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, the Sequoias or the Grand Canyon, I suppose that’s worth a mention.
Of course, if the French were compiling the same list, the top pick would be Jerry Lewis.
7:51 pm
1) I was just glas to see that nobody capitulated to certain “professional protesters” like Jesse Jackson and gave MLK a free ride here. (Nothing against him, but read on,..)
2) I agree that George Washington is our greatest. He set the standards by which we still live today: – a civil government that controls our military – the concept of term limits to prevent a dictatorship – many of the bsic freedoms we take for granted these days
8:43 pm
My roommates and I were going bezerk over the Discovery Channel list…
For what it’s worth, I agree – Tom Paine off the list. I’d probably drop Ben Franklin too. Personally, I like Madison ahead of Jefferson…T.J. may have been the theoretician, but Madison was the operational engineer. He did all the heavy lifting while Jefferson was in France then followed it up with the Federalist.
Washington gets a lot of credit and rightly so, but I always think about the decision to preserve the Union by force, even in the face of tremendous and unparalled loss of life – and I rank Lincoln #1.
Not necessarily of the same caliber, but the decision to unleash the world’s most powerful weapon and destroy more human life in a single instance to avoid what could have been years of war and bloodshed must have weighed pretty heavily on the mind of a Missouri hat salesman.
For my money, no doubt, the single hardest decision a President ever had to make. It may not have been a lifetime of greatness, but certainly a moment.
5:57 am
After I got over the dancing and “Nyah-nyahs” about a MODERN REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT getting #1 (I helped him and Bush stay up on that list, I confess), I settled down, read your post, and agree with you mostly, expecially re the need for an historical personage/founding father up top.
Sad as it may be for some, it’s just hard to find a serious contender for a top-10 woman. Not because there aren’t great women in our country, but there’s a sampling error problem: most of the biggies are obviously men.
The Discovery Channel beauty contest was for amusement purposes only. Did Hamilton even make it on the TV list of top 25? (In deference to your aforementioned top 20 post, Rick – don’t know enough to argue, though without him where would our economic system be?) Yearights: Oprah? Elvis? And, that devil messing on the blue dress, Clinton? I don’t imagine that they had any true scholars assemble the original top 100 list, do you? Maybe it was all Matt’s idea? He’s not so good on psychiatry (according to Tom Cruise), but ya’d think… Surprised we didn’t see George C. Scott on the list, one or two notches above Patton. LOL
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8:04 pm
Ronald Reagan Dead, The Greatest American
Two years ago Ronald Reagan died. Charmaine and I watched the funeral with other Reaganites in Washington, DC. And watched the big black Cadillac carry RR away. Cross Post from Reasoned Audacity from last year. It’s nice to be pleasantly…
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