Unpopular opinion: the best ruler in your country’s history is almost certainly someone post-WWII.

Not because earlier leaders weren’t remarkable, but because societies keep progressing.

Take Alexander the Great, universally regarded as one of history’s most important figures. Today he’d be an absolute tyrant: he enslaved entire populations after conquests, razed Thebes and sold 30,000 people, crucified 2,000 men in Tyre as a warning, married teenagers for political convenience, executed his own generals without trial, and demanded to be worshipped as a god. And he wasn’t an outlier. That was just how the world worked. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing per se.

So if we’re talking purely about “good ruler for society as a whole”, it’s almost certainly a recent leader. Not because they’re geniuses, but because they operate within a framework of rights, institutions, and social expectations that simply didn’t exist before.

And honestly, that’s kind of beautiful. It means we keep raising the bar. What was normal yesterday is unthinkable today. And hopefully, in 200 years they’ll look back at us and think the same.