Donald Trump officially ranked by presidential historians as the worst president ever
A political survey conducted by has officially ranked Donald Trump the worst US president of all time, in 44th place (Lincoln was ranked 1st). Amongst the postwar presidents:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/19/opinion/how-does-trump-stack-up-against-the-best-and-worst-presidents.html
6th: Harry Truman
7th: Dwight Eisenhower
8th: Barack Obama (this is too high IMO)
9th: Ronald Reagan
10th: Lyndon Johnson
13th: Bill Clinton
16th: John F Kennedy
17th: George HW Bush
25th: Gerald Ford
26th: Jimmy Carter
30th: George W Bush (too high also)
33th: Richard Nixon
44th: Donald Trump
Nate Silver, who is certainly by no means a Trump supporter and has been roundly criticized for repeatedly being too anti-Trump summed my feelings by writing this:
It speaks poorly to the field of presidential scholarship that political scientists have Trump ranked as the worst president of all time **after only one year on the job**, below presidents who e.g. helped blunder us into the Civil War & Great Depression.
https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/965616457605410816
I want to say that I'm no fan of Trump and have made it repeatedly clear that I consider him to be a very very poor president, but for christ sake, we've had presidents who have led the US into a great depressions (Herbert Hoover, crashing the US economy leaving a 25% unemployment to his successor), James Buchanan (who plunged the US into the civil war, leaving the country being ripped apart and 700,000 dead), Franklin Pierce who expanded slavery, George W Bush who invaded Iraq under false pretenses, killing 5,000 of us own troops, 100,000 civilians, tortured, and gave the worst financial crisis in 80+ years.
Trump is certainly the worst person to ever be president, but worst person =/= worst president. If Trump ever started a nuclear war killing thousands or crashed the US economy, then I would certainly have no problems ranking him potentially as the worst president ever, but let's wait for that to happen first. At the moment I'd rank Trump about 35th ish. (i.e. crap but not the crappiest).
Also Obama 8th LMAO?? Obama did a good job rescuing the economy from dire straits in 2009, has a good LGBT record passed a solid healthcare bill.
But a lot of his other stuff is totally overrated, the Paris climate accords are almost certainly going to fail to meet their targets (95% chance of failure according to scientists), the Iran deal may fall apart at the helm of Trump, he never achieved 3% GDP (only postwar president never to do so), wage growth was abysmal under him. Obamacare was a good step foward but is under attack from the GOP and the uninsured rate is still 12.2% (as per Gallup) meaning 30-35 million Americans (and rising) still have no health insurance. If Obama was so good he wouldn't have had lost 1000 seats to the Republicans while in office and have have a moron like Trump replacing him. I'd rank Obama about 12-15th but no higher IMO.
The one good thing about this survey??
LBJ absolutely kicking JFK's arse (10 vs 16), JFK's one of the most overrated presidents and politicians ever, all the civil rights and anti-poverty programs were passed by his successor LBJ who was an excellent legislature, so at least thats something. LBJ easily America's most underrated president.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/19/opinion/how-does-trump-stack-up-against-the-best-and-worst-presidents.html
6th: Harry Truman
7th: Dwight Eisenhower
8th: Barack Obama (this is too high IMO)
9th: Ronald Reagan
10th: Lyndon Johnson
13th: Bill Clinton
16th: John F Kennedy
17th: George HW Bush
25th: Gerald Ford
26th: Jimmy Carter
30th: George W Bush (too high also)
33th: Richard Nixon
44th: Donald Trump
Nate Silver, who is certainly by no means a Trump supporter and has been roundly criticized for repeatedly being too anti-Trump summed my feelings by writing this:
It speaks poorly to the field of presidential scholarship that political scientists have Trump ranked as the worst president of all time **after only one year on the job**, below presidents who e.g. helped blunder us into the Civil War & Great Depression.
https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/965616457605410816
I want to say that I'm no fan of Trump and have made it repeatedly clear that I consider him to be a very very poor president, but for christ sake, we've had presidents who have led the US into a great depressions (Herbert Hoover, crashing the US economy leaving a 25% unemployment to his successor), James Buchanan (who plunged the US into the civil war, leaving the country being ripped apart and 700,000 dead), Franklin Pierce who expanded slavery, George W Bush who invaded Iraq under false pretenses, killing 5,000 of us own troops, 100,000 civilians, tortured, and gave the worst financial crisis in 80+ years.
Trump is certainly the worst person to ever be president, but worst person =/= worst president. If Trump ever started a nuclear war killing thousands or crashed the US economy, then I would certainly have no problems ranking him potentially as the worst president ever, but let's wait for that to happen first. At the moment I'd rank Trump about 35th ish. (i.e. crap but not the crappiest).
Also Obama 8th LMAO?? Obama did a good job rescuing the economy from dire straits in 2009, has a good LGBT record passed a solid healthcare bill.
But a lot of his other stuff is totally overrated, the Paris climate accords are almost certainly going to fail to meet their targets (95% chance of failure according to scientists), the Iran deal may fall apart at the helm of Trump, he never achieved 3% GDP (only postwar president never to do so), wage growth was abysmal under him. Obamacare was a good step foward but is under attack from the GOP and the uninsured rate is still 12.2% (as per Gallup) meaning 30-35 million Americans (and rising) still have no health insurance. If Obama was so good he wouldn't have had lost 1000 seats to the Republicans while in office and have have a moron like Trump replacing him. I'd rank Obama about 12-15th but no higher IMO.
The one good thing about this survey??
LBJ absolutely kicking JFK's arse (10 vs 16), JFK's one of the most overrated presidents and politicians ever, all the civil rights and anti-poverty programs were passed by his successor LBJ who was an excellent legislature, so at least thats something. LBJ easily America's most underrated president.
(edited 6 years ago)
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Wow what a surprise XD
(edited 6 years ago)
Tl;dr. I don’t like Trump at all but how can they rank a president who has only served 1/4 of their term? Doesn’t seem fair to me.
Plus academics have an implicit bias towards Trump as they tend to be left wing. My guess is this list was just drawn up by people who hate Trump no matter what he does and other left wing academics just furiously nodded along in complete agreement.
In other words it is pure BS.
Plus academics have an implicit bias towards Trump as they tend to be left wing. My guess is this list was just drawn up by people who hate Trump no matter what he does and other left wing academics just furiously nodded along in complete agreement.
In other words it is pure BS.
He's a born-into-privilege petulant and narcissistic businessman more or less pretending to be President, pretending because it's not a role he has any skill for.
Bush junior was bad enough but this guy makes me cringe pretty much every time he opens his mouth.
Bush junior was bad enough but this guy makes me cringe pretty much every time he opens his mouth.
It's not really a surprise but in all fairness we shouldn't draw this conclusion until his term is over... He may (although unlikely) change for the better.
Why is Reagan so highly rated?
Original post by Sharpshooter
...If Trump ever started a nuclear war killing thousands or crashed the US economy, then I would certainly have no problems ranking him potentially as the worst president ever, but let's wait for that to happen first...
If Trump started a nuclear war then, and please don't take this personally, my first thoughts will not be about where you rank him as a president.
good. This whole "dont be so biased against Trump!!" rhetoric is complete nonsense. No smart person is biased against trump. He's an idiot and has done too much to prove that.
The only real arguments in support of Trump revolves around the fact that he inherited a good economy from Obama.
The only real arguments in support of Trump revolves around the fact that he inherited a good economy from Obama.
Original post by Caesar333
And how exactly is Obama overrated? He took a country out of a deep recession that was losing 800,000 jobs every month at its worst into a country thats now achieving modest levels of growth. Only argument against is his horrible foreign policy.
I view Obama favourably, but 8th means he's a great president, I don't think he is, I think he's a good president (there's a difference).
If he was 8th he would have a good foreign policy record to back it up, I mean he's ranked higher than Reagan who at least saw off the Cold war and Soviet Union, Obama has nowhere near a notable foreign policy record than he had.
"Modest growth" exactly so why is that a top 10 achievement?
(edited 6 years ago)
This changes everything!!!!!1!
Since party affiliation is naturally the first thing people think of when it comes to accusations of bias, here's a few additional details based on the voters' party affiliations:
*Voters of both parties chose the same three presidents as their top three( Lincoln, F.D Roosevelt and Washington) two republicans and one belonging to neither party.
*Voters of both parties chose 7 of the same presidents for their top 10 (Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Washington, Jefferson, Truman and Eisenhower) comprised of three republicans and two democrats (with two presidents belonging to neither party). The democrats' three other choices (Obama, L.B Johnson and Wilson) were all democrats, the republican's choices (Reagan, McKinley and Jackson) were two republicans and one democrat.
*Voters of both parties chose 2 of the same presidents for their bottom 3 (W.H Harrison, Buchanan), one democrat and one belonging to neither party. The democrat's third choice (Trump) was republican and the democrat's third choice (Pierce) was a democrat.
*Voters of both parties chose 9 of the same presidents for their bottom ten (Taylor, Tyler, A.Johnson, Fillmore, Pierce, Harding, W.H Harrison, Buchanan and Trump) comprised of two republicans and three democrats (and four presidents belonging to neither party). The democrat's other choice (Hoover) was a republican, the republican's other choice (Garfield) was a republican.
*Voters of both parties seem to show a similar level of favorability to their most recent presidents to complete two full terms. Democrats scored their most recent two-term president (Obama) 37% higher than the republicans did, with scores of 78 and 57 respectively. Republicans scored their most recent two-term president (Bush Jr) 40% higher than the democrats did, scoring 52 and 37 respectively.
While there's obviously going to be some degree of political bias and variance in individual presidents' scores, overall there's a decent level of consistency among voters of both parties. This is generally what you'd expect when the group being polled are seasoned academics, who are expected to putting their own opinions in the pursuit of their work.
*Voters of both parties chose the same three presidents as their top three( Lincoln, F.D Roosevelt and Washington) two republicans and one belonging to neither party.
*Voters of both parties chose 7 of the same presidents for their top 10 (Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Washington, Jefferson, Truman and Eisenhower) comprised of three republicans and two democrats (with two presidents belonging to neither party). The democrats' three other choices (Obama, L.B Johnson and Wilson) were all democrats, the republican's choices (Reagan, McKinley and Jackson) were two republicans and one democrat.
*Voters of both parties chose 2 of the same presidents for their bottom 3 (W.H Harrison, Buchanan), one democrat and one belonging to neither party. The democrat's third choice (Trump) was republican and the democrat's third choice (Pierce) was a democrat.
*Voters of both parties chose 9 of the same presidents for their bottom ten (Taylor, Tyler, A.Johnson, Fillmore, Pierce, Harding, W.H Harrison, Buchanan and Trump) comprised of two republicans and three democrats (and four presidents belonging to neither party). The democrat's other choice (Hoover) was a republican, the republican's other choice (Garfield) was a republican.
*Voters of both parties seem to show a similar level of favorability to their most recent presidents to complete two full terms. Democrats scored their most recent two-term president (Obama) 37% higher than the republicans did, with scores of 78 and 57 respectively. Republicans scored their most recent two-term president (Bush Jr) 40% higher than the democrats did, scoring 52 and 37 respectively.
While there's obviously going to be some degree of political bias and variance in individual presidents' scores, overall there's a decent level of consistency among voters of both parties. This is generally what you'd expect when the group being polled are seasoned academics, who are expected to putting their own opinions in the pursuit of their work.
Original post by Sharpshooter
I view Obama favourably, but 8th means he's a great president, I don't think he is, I think he's a good president (there's a difference).
If he was 8th he would have a good foreign policy record to back it up, I mean he's ranked higher than Reagan who at least saw off the Cold war and Soviet Union, Obama has nowhere near a notable foreign policy record than he had.
"Modest growth" exactly so why is that a top 10 achievement?
If he was 8th he would have a good foreign policy record to back it up, I mean he's ranked higher than Reagan who at least saw off the Cold war and Soviet Union, Obama has nowhere near a notable foreign policy record than he had.
"Modest growth" exactly so why is that a top 10 achievement?
It's not notable because he did not do much in terms of solving major conflicts because there was none. It's rather just a continuation of neocon policies his predecessors did and trying to deal with a proxy war that just created vacuums if extremism.
Modest growth, for a country that just suffered a catastrophic recession, is ideal. It's as good as it gets. The economy is in recovery stages and 1-3% growth is far better than something ridiculous like 5% which is unstable, consumer driven and will only lead to inflation. Slow recovery is crucial, which is investment driven too. That's the economy that Obama handed over to Trump.
Original post by Caesar333
It's not notable because he did not do much in terms of solving major conflicts because there was none. It's rather just a continuation of neocon policies his predecessors did and trying to deal with a proxy war that just created vacuums if extremism.
Modest growth, for a country that just suffered a catastrophic recession, is ideal. It's as good as it gets. The economy is in recovery stages and 1-3% growth is far better than something ridiculous like 5% which is unstable, consumer driven and will only lead to inflation. Slow recovery is crucial, which is investment driven too. That's the economy that Obama handed over to Trump.
Modest growth, for a country that just suffered a catastrophic recession, is ideal. It's as good as it gets. The economy is in recovery stages and 1-3% growth is far better than something ridiculous like 5% which is unstable, consumer driven and will only lead to inflation. Slow recovery is crucial, which is investment driven too. That's the economy that Obama handed over to Trump.
5% is a bit much but they can do better than 2%.
The biggest criticism with regards to the Obama economy is the wage growth is really really poor, both Reagan and Clinton had far better wage growth with their economies hence why the pair of them had far better approval ratings than Obama did and didn't get routed like Obama did in their 2nd mid term elections.
I maintain Obama was somewhat overrated in this poll and think he should drop back about 5 places or so, outside the top 10. We'll see what happens to him in 5-10 years time when its evident the paris agreement isn't going to reduce global warming below 2C (become another worthless deal like Kyoto) and 30-40 million people still have no health insurance. He was a good-ish president but he wasn't a change agent he was hyped up to be.
(edited 6 years ago)
Original post by Wōden
Bit harsh putting William Henry Harrison so low on the list, he didn't even get a chance to do anything. He only served for one month and then died.
The man was bigle not good for dying.
Original post by Caesar333
And how exactly is Obama overrated? He took a country out of a deep recession that was losing 800,000 jobs every month at its worst into a country thats now achieving modest levels of growth. Only argument against is his horrible foreign policy.
I would posit that to give him all the credit there is overly generous. It was a global effort to reverse the trend and whilst Obama did well he was by no means unilateral.
Trump should not be included on the list to be perfectly honest, at least until he has finished his presidency. I don’t think it’s fair for Nixon to be that low, aside from Watergate, he was quite popular and achieved more than just Vietnam withdrawal. Ford should be around the point of Nixon on there, wasn’t too effective in his two years, and isn’t really memorable in many ways. I agree Obama should be quite a few places lower, admittedly he spent his first term recovering from the 2008 crash, but he achieved very little in the long term. Wilson is too high I think, he was an idealist but not much else, and Coolidge is too low I think. I’d personally say that Truman and Eisenhower should be swapped around and Clinton should be much lower on the list.
Can’t argue much against the top 5 though
Can’t argue much against the top 5 though
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