Presidents & Heads of State

This page defines how every U.S. president will be ranked—not by greatness, but by whether their power served working people or protected those who exploited them.

On Presidents

The American Proletariat Index (API)

This page defines the framework, tiers, and methodology used to rank every U.S. president from most American Proletariat to least. It is not a popularity contest, a civics textbook, or a vibes-based morality chart. It is a material audit of power—how presidents treated labor, capital, slavery, Indigenous nations, migrants, dissent, and the distribution of economic risk.

This page is the schema. Each president will later live on their own detailed profile page built to this standard.

What “American Proletariat” Means Here

A president ranks higher on the American Proletariat Index if their policies, actions, and power choices measurably improved—or attempted to improve—the material security, agency, and protection of people who work for a living, especially those historically excluded from power.

A president ranks lower if they:

• Protected capital over people
  
  

• Preserved or expanded slavery or racial caste
  
  

• Suppressed labor or popular movements
  
  

• Dispossessed Indigenous nations
  
  

• Used enforcement to discipline the vulnerable rather than restrain elites
  
  

• Moralized poverty while subsidizing wealth
  
  

Intent does not outweigh consequence.
Rhetoric does not outweigh outcomes.
Delayed justice counts as harm.

The Tiers

Presidents are grouped into tiers first, then ranked within tiers.

🟩 Tier I — Proletariat-Forward (Rare)

Presidents whose actions materially expanded protections, bargaining power, or survival for working people despite elite resistance.

Indicators

• Confronted concentrated capital or land power
  
  

• Expanded labor rights, social safety nets, or democratic enforcement
  
  

• Reduced coercion against workers, migrants, or the poor
  
  

• Accepted political cost to do so
  
  

Expect this tier to be small and controversial.

🟨 Tier II — Mixed / Conditional

Presidents who delivered real benefits to workers while simultaneously preserving or expanding harm elsewhere.

Indicators

• Reforms paired with exclusions
  
  

• Relief tied to war, crisis, or elite stabilization
  
  

• Gains for some workers while others were sacrificed (race, region, empire)
  
  

Most presidents will live here.

🟧 Tier III — Elite-Stabilizing

Presidents whose primary function was to protect capital, property, or hierarchy, even if they used populist language.

Indicators

• Suppressed labor or debtor movements
  
  

• Deferred justice to maintain “order”
  
  

• Prioritized markets, credit, or imperial interests
  
  

• Expanded enforcement over redistribution
  
  

🟥 Tier IV — Anti-Proletariat

Presidents whose policies actively harmed working people, entrenched exploitation, or normalized coercion.

Indicators

• Expanded slavery, segregation, or racial terror
  
  

• Indigenous dispossession and genocide
  
  

• Criminalization of poverty or dissent
  
  

• State violence as routine governance
  
  

• Open alignment with capital against labor
  
  

Popularity, charisma, or “greatness” does not mitigate this ranking.

Scoring Dimensions (What We Measure)

Each president will be scored across six weighted domains, producing their placement.

1. Labor & Wages (25%)

• Union rights
  
  

• Wage protections
  
  

• Working conditions
  
  

• Criminalization of strikes or organizing
  
  

2. Slavery, Race, & Caste (25%)

• Direct participation in slavery
  
  

• Enforcement or expansion of racial hierarchy
  
  

• Timing and sincerity of abolition or civil rights
  
  

• Whether emancipation was structural or instrumental
  
  

“He freed the slaves for strategic reasons” is scored accordingly.

3. Indigenous Sovereignty (15%)

• Land seizures
  
  

• Treaty violations
  
  

• Forced removals
  
  

• Cultural eradication
  
  

• Whether policy was extractive or protective
  
  

4. Capital Alignment (15%)

• Who the state backstopped in crisis
  
  

• Banking, debt, and credit policy
  
  

• Bailouts vs relief
  
  

• Whether losses were socialized upward or downward
  
  

5. Democratic Enforcement (10%)

• Voting access
  
  

• Use of law against dissent
  
  

• Surveillance and repression
  
  

• Expansion or contraction of participation
  
  

6. Personal Enrichment & Hypocrisy (10%)

• Wealth accumulation in office
  
  

• Policies that benefited the president personally
  
  

• Moral rhetoric vs lived practice
  
  

What Each President’s Page Will Include

Every president will receive a full, standardized profile, including:

Core Bio

• Full name
  
  

• Dates in office
  
  

• State(s) represented
  
  

• Party (if applicable)
  
  

• Religion (claimed and practiced)
  
  

• Birthplace
  
  

• Death place (if deceased)
  
  

• Age at inauguration
  
  

• Age at death
  
  

Background & Class Position

• Family wealth
  
  

• Occupation before politics
  
  

• Relationship to labor (employer, enslaver, debtor, etc.)
  
  

• Education and elite access
  
  

Financials

• Net worth (adjusted to modern dollars where possible)
  
  

• How wealth was generated
  
  

• Whether policies intersected with personal enrichment
  
  

Proletariat Impact Analysis

• Concrete policies and outcomes
  
  

• Who benefited
  
  

• Who paid the price
  
  

• What was deferred—and why
  
  

Brutal Accounting

• Slavery (no euphemisms)
  
  

• Indigenous policy (no “frontier” language)
  
  

• Labor suppression (no “law and order” laundering)
  
  

• Empire and extraction
  
  

Three Fun Facts (Actually Unknown)

Not trivia—facts that reveal character, contradiction, or power dynamics.

Final API Ranking

• Tier placement
  
  

• Numerical index score
  
  

• One-paragraph justification
  
  

• One-sentence verdict
  
  

Ground Rules (Non-Negotiable)

• No halo effect: being “important” does not mean being good.
  
  

• No hindsight laundering: later outcomes don’t absolve earlier harm.
  
  

• No motive worship: results > intentions.
  
  

• No national mythmaking: presidents are treated as actors, not symbols.
  
  

This archive assumes one thing only:
A democracy should be judged by how it treats the people who do the work.

Everything else is commentary.

One-line summary:
This page defines how every U.S. president will be ranked—not by greatness, but by whether their power served working people or protected those who exploited them.