this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2024
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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.

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[–] bostonbananarama@lemmy.world 154 points 10 months ago (4 children)

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.

[–] Brokkr@lemmy.world 83 points 10 months ago (2 children)

In 20 years, we could be up to 48 presidents or more, so you're right, trump's rating could get even lower. Hopefully no one beats him.

[–] perviouslyiner@lemmy.world 42 points 10 months ago (1 children)

In 20 years, the number of presidents might not have increased.

[–] jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de 20 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Even if the US falls into a dictatorship it's not very likely that Trump makes it to 97.

[–] perviouslyiner@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

good point, surprised he made it through the stresses of being president once.

[–] BassTurd@lemmy.world 24 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It's not stressful when you don't do anything and don't care about anything and others around you.

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago

Exactly he spent four years being applauded and complaining about the food.

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[–] EvacuateSoul@lemmy.world 18 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Can you elaborate on Eisenhower, please?

[–] bostonbananarama@lemmy.world 28 points 10 months ago

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.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1901942

[–] urquell@lemm.ee 14 points 10 months ago (2 children)
[–] BassTurd@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago

Not yet anyway. Let's hope we don't reach a time when there's a debate whether someone deserves the spot instead of Trump.

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[–] brlemworld@lemmy.world 69 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I would have put Reagan way further down the list.

[–] Ashyr@sh.itjust.works 42 points 10 months ago

The problem is how many objectively bad presidents we've had. I agree, however, Reagan should be lower.

[–] sygnius@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

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?

[–] SeaJ@lemm.ee 56 points 10 months ago (8 children)

People who should be lower: Jackson, Wilson, and Reagan. Fuck those guys.

[–] GladiusB@lemmy.world 32 points 10 months ago (22 children)

Reagan can be next to last. He's done more damage to modern America than all others but Trump

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[–] zik@lemmy.world 26 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] Buffaloaf@lemmy.world 23 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Jackson committed genocide against native Americans, so I think that's worse.

[–] FraidyBear@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago (6 children)

I could go on and on about all of Jackson's atrocities from stealing babies to skinning Native people alive to make bridle reins. But I think it's enough to say that Jackson was Hitlers wet dream. He quoted him often and even ripped off Jackson's speech called the Final Solution to the Indian Problem. Yea, Jackson goes last even over Trump.

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[–] aidan@lemmy.world 39 points 10 months ago

A great president is one who expanded the institution of the president,

Yea, I don't know if this definition of greatness is very good

[–] the_post_of_tom_joad@sh.itjust.works 33 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (6 children)

Hahaha at Vaughn and Rottinghaus low-key throwing shade at Biden. Let's look at their quote closely:

Biden’s most important achievements may be that he rescued the presidency from Trump,

translation: his greatest achievement has been not being Trump

resumed a more traditional style of presidential leadership,

than Trump (of course)

and is gearing up to keep the office out of his predecessor’s hands this fall,”

Predicted greatest legacy in the hopefully remaining four years: Be re-elected. Lol

Man i dunno if it was on purpose to basically reduce his legacy to "better than nothing" but they certainly stopped well short of praise, didn't they?

[–] Omegamanthethird@lemmy.world 22 points 10 months ago

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."

[–] PopcornTin@lemmy.world 18 points 10 months ago (1 children)

In 2009, the nobel peace prize was given to someone for not being Bush. Same difference here.

[–] I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

And that guy did drone strikes on civilians..

(Yes, I voted for him twice)

[–] problematicPanther@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago

I'd vote for him again too.

[–] ExLisper@linux.community 6 points 10 months ago (8 children)

translation: his greatest achievement has been not being Trump

No, the achievement was actually winning the election. Unlike Hilary for example.

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[–] absquatulate@lemmy.world 31 points 10 months ago (3 children)
[–] Hobbes@startrek.website 27 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] Amir@lemmy.ml 15 points 10 months ago

Every 4-8 years we can shift his number down by 1

[–] YtA4QCam2A9j7EfTgHrH@infosec.pub 27 points 10 months ago (3 children)

How the hell is racist ass, first amendment hating, flu spreading, ww one involving, klan loving Wilson so fucking high?

[–] doctorcrimson@lemmy.today 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

He was neutral for the first 3 years of WWI but then asked congress for permission to intervene against Germany. In 1918 he went to the Paris Peace Conference and helped establish the League of Nations.

Compare that to a polar opposite example: President Grant. Grant was a great person and better for emancipation and reparations than even Lincoln was, but he filled his cabinet with traitors and thieves so was ultimately a very poor president.

Something that people lack awareness of to this very day is that Legislators impacts have nothing to do with their personality but instead how they vote, who they appoint, and which laws they pass.

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[–] OpenStars@startrek.website 6 points 10 months ago (5 children)

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.

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[–] gloss@discuss.tchncs.de 25 points 10 months ago (2 children)

"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.

[–] edgemaster72@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago (5 children)

Nixon when he finds out he's not in the running for #1:

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[–] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 17 points 10 months ago

The real takeaway is that America has had like three presidents that were good across centuries. The rest are pretty dogshit.

[–] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Sorry, the rapist elector fraud is getting a bad score?

[–] AlwaysNowNeverNotMe@kbin.social 17 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Yes the thrice married rapist draft dodger con artist was ranked poorly

[–] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 7 points 10 months ago

Marry at your leisure; do not rape

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