Survey of 154 scholars places 45th president behind even ‘historically calamitous chief executives’ linked to civil war
Survey of 154 scholars places 45th president behind even ‘historically calamitous chief executives’ linked to civil war
Donald Trump finished 45th and rock bottom of a list ranking US presidents by greatness, trailing even “historically calamitous chief executives” who failed to stop the civil war or botched its aftermath.
Worse for the likely Republican nominee this year, his probable opponent, Joe Biden, debuted at No 14.
“Biden’s most important achievements may be that he rescued the presidency from Trump, resumed a more traditional style of presidential leadership and is gearing up to keep the office out of his predecessor’s hands this fall,” Justin Vaughn and Brandon Rottinghaus, the political scientists behind the survey, wrote in the Los Angeles Times.
Honestly, if you talk to most presidential historians they will tell you that you need about 20 years to pass before you can accurately assess a president. There's too many unknowns that will come to light only years or decades after a term ends, Eisenhower is a great example of this. So these rankings are likely to change over the years.
Although, having seen Trump's predilection for fraud, decit, and self-serving, I'd be shocked if he rebounds as more information comes out.
Eisenhower was always seen as aloof, sort of a figurehead, during his presidency. However, years after, once his papers were made public, a much different view of Eisenhower started to take shape. He was seen more as a hands-on leader. I believe he was in the 15-20th range in the 80s, but by 2000 was up to 9th, and recently up to 5th (8th in current poll).
Here's a preview of a journal article that touches on it a bit.
I dunno, perhaps they should change the ranking to throw in some additional items like foot fungus, head lice, 2nd-hand dog vomit and such... and then Trump would remain in last place!? :-P
I'm a little mixed on this. I do think he should be lower on the rankings due to a lot of his shitty policies.
However, he has also done some significant differences that still affect us today. He did make GPS globally available to the public at no cost. Could you imagine having to pay to use your GPS every time, or not having GPS available to you at all unless you were in the military?
He was tough on the USSR, at least. Obama and Biden not arming Ukraine enough before the conflicts caused Russia to be more successful than it has any right to be
Trump's so much worse than any of those guys. He's literally promising to end democracy in the USA and to imprison his political opponents if he wins the next election. None of those others went that far.
Not to mention him being convicted of massive fraud while in office and fomenting a riot against the capitol to try to prevent the democratic election process from occurring. I mean this stuff is absolutely nuts and unlike anything any other president has done.
I think part of the problem is intent versus what he got done so far.
If you want some ammunition in your statement though, add in the bungling of COVID and his anti-vax leadership he probably killed at least a couple hundred thousand Americans.
It's not just being not Trump. But he beat Trump. That's like stopping a forest fire from taking out the west coast and calling it "not burning trees."
basically that's why he was elected. he wasn't trump. That's his whole platform, that's it. It's not necessarily a bad platform, but it's not really gonna leave much, as far as his legacy is concerned.
he wasn't trump. That's his whole platform, that's it.
Sorry, but this is one of those hyperbolic, uninformed, useless hot takes the Internet LOVES. You can literally look up his platform online, like so many places.
Uh... nobody's perfect, I guess was the prevailing thought? Fwiw, they did address that topic:
Considering drops for Andrew Jackson (ninth in 2015 to 21st now) and Woodrow Wilson (10th to 15th), Rottinghaus and Vaughn noted the impact of campaigns for racial justice.
“Their reputations have consistently suffered in recent years as modern politics lead scholars to assess their early 19th and 20th century presidencies ever more harshly, especially their unacceptable treatment of marginalised people,” the authors wrote.
Jackson owned enslaved people and presided over the genocidal displacement of Native Americans. Wilson oversaw victory in the first world war and helped set up the League of Nations, but was an avowed racist who segregated the federal workforce.
(emphasis added)
So he did drop from 10 to 15 for this reason, but I guess winning WWI still kept him high.
Winning a war that got thousands of Americans killed that we didn’t need to enter is not a good thing in my book. The League of Nations, while admirable, was a failure. Neither of these things out-way the absolute bullshit the man did to civil liberties (imprisoning people for handing out flyers) and segregation. He set the US back decades.
And I haven’t even mentioned his incredible fuck ups with the flu which he was advised against doing. He ignored his medical advisors so that he could wage his bullshit war. This killed many thousands by spreading the worst flu the world has ever seen.
From now on whenever I hear him or someone else reference him as 45, I’m going to remember that what they really mean is that he’s at the bottom of all time presidents in the rankings, solidly at 45th place.
"Scholars? Pffft. What do they know???" Every Trumper in existence. And they mean it.
Meanwhile PragerU will do their own survey with a hand picked group of Magats and right this injustice. The only question is if Reagan or Trump will be at the number one spot.
C'mon, we all know what would happen... Trump would call them up on the phone and throw a hissy fit, threatening to drop out of the race or something ridiculous and then they would award it to him.
Read this as Biden being 14th worst, not the best headline :p Kinda impossible to rank them especially when either one could have another term still...
By being something you didn't know before. Kinda the definition. Yes we knew Trump was absolutely shit but that's not exactly a rigorously tested hypothesis
Trump definitely isn't as bad as some of the other presidents like Pierce or Wilson. Not to say he wasn't bad just there's some recency bias at play here.
I'm not sure... the way politics have changed after he's been elected is nothing short of insanity. The supreme court effects alone are going to reshape America and set us back decades or more, if we're even able to hold the country together that long.
Pro slavery Franklin Pierce signed the Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854 which TLDR said Kansas would hold a vote of if they'll allow slavery or not. Then people started killing each other so their side would have more votes.
Woodrow Wilson famously said “It is like writing history with lightning, and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true." about the movie Birth of a Nation which was KKK propaganda. Leading to more lynching and the revitalization of the KKK. Also he did a whole bunch of other terrible things like violating the 1st Amendment.
Trump said that he would not abide by the election results, meaning that he literally attempted to throw away our entire democratic system of (checks notes) "voting". While it is true that it was the most inept coup attempt that I have ever so much as even heard of, it still falls within that category. Dude straight-up wanted to get rid of the Constitution of the United States. That's... pretty bad.
Also, an argument can be made that many of those "excess deaths" could be laid at his feet as well, especially after the Bob Woodsworth interview revealed that he knowingly lied about SARS-COV2 being airborne. And ofc that wasn't even the most infamous of Trump's various recorded phone calls!:-P Two of which led him to be impeached... twice.
Fwiw the Guardian article about the rankings did specifically mention Wilson:
Wilson oversaw victory in the first world war and helped set up the League of Nations, but was an avowed racist who segregated the federal workforce.
So it seems like they are considering the impact of their decisions made whilst being in charge, while separating that from their personal morality. The impact of Global Climate Change likely influenced the rankings as well.
They also were pretty upfront with their liberal bias as well.
So yeah, e.g. slavery is bad, but these people seem to consider overthrowing the government even worse. Regardless of whether you agree with their biases or not, I don't think a "recency bias" is the main point at hand there.
100% disagree. His distain for the rule of law alone will put our system of government at risk for generations. Did Pierce of Wilson try to overthrow a free and fair election?
Anyways, polls like this just prove people can't be trusted to vote. Worst US president is not equivalent to least popular. Andrew Jackson was probably one of the worst, George HW a strong candidate.