- cross-posted to:
- politicus@kbin.social
- cross-posted to:
- politicus@kbin.social
Fox News reported on some new presidential rankings, which purportedly show Barack Obama as the #6 president in U.S. history and Donald Trump dead last, and MAGA was not happy.
Fox News on Sunday posted an article about the new rankings by the Presidential Greatness Project, which Fox describes as “a group of self-styled experts.” It states that Abraham “Lincoln topped the list of presidents in the 2024 Presidential Greatness Project expert survey for the third time, following his top spot in the rankings in the 2015 and 2018 versions of the survey.”
…
“Rounding out the top five in the rankings were Franklin Delano Roosevelt at number two, George Washington at three, Theodore Roosevelt at four, and Thomas Jefferson at five,” according to the report. “Trump was ranked in last place in the survey, being ranked worse than James Buchanan at 44, Andrew Johnson at 43, Franklin Pierce at 42, and William Henry Harrison at 41.”
The report states that Obama and Joe Biden “ranked an average of 6th and 13th, respectively, among Democrat respondents, and 15th and 30th by Republicans.”
You must log in or register to comment.
Jackson is not in the bottom but Harrison is? People need to read some history books. Dying 35 days into your presidency is worse than a genocide?
The fact that he is still on our currency is insane enough
I’ve always thought that Harrison should be ranked much higher in these lists. If you equate his presidency with “doing absolutely nothing,” then logically he should rank above all of the presidents who actively harmed the country/world. And there are quite a few of 'em.
Let’s get tee shirts “Harrison was #1”
Confuse the shit out of people
George was pretty great.
Pete is my favorite Beatle.
Billy Preston is my favorite Beatle.
Pete was Best.
Honestly Andrew Jackson ought to be way down at the bottom too
Jackson is pretty complicated. He did so much heinous shit, but he also did a lot to keep the south in line in the early 19th century. Middle if the pack is usually a fair place for Jackson.
I think genociding natives outweighs keeping the south in line enough to put him at the bottom
You’d think so, but here we are.
Guess whose portrait they had hung in the oval when Trump took over the job?
https://time.com/4649081/andrew-jackson-donald-trump-portrait/
If Trump gets a second term, things like Jacksons “Indian Removal Act” and other horrible acts will be a minor issue in comparison.
I wonder what Trump plans to do about it, other than whinge. Get reelected by abandoning Fox News and using tRuTh sOcIaL instead?
Kinda funny that William Henry Harrison managed 41st place, considering he was only president for a few weeks in 1841. Considering the rankings were voted on by “self-styled experts”, part of me wonders if they did that on purpose.
Also took me a moment to realize why the list includes 46 presidents (up to Biden) but only has 45 rankings. For anyone else who’s wondering, it’s because of Grover Cleveland’s non-consecutive terms making him both the 22nd and 24th president.
Yeah, but imagine how much higher Trump would have been in the kist if all he did as president was catch pneumonia and die?
If he did that in his first term I might consider voting for him later this year
Harrison wasn’t around long enough to fuck anything up. In this list, that’s helpful.
Here’s the full combined list:
- Lincoln
- FD Roosevelt
- Washington
- T Roosevelt
- Jefferson
- Truman
- Obama
- Eisenhower
- LB Johnson
- Kennedy
- Madison
- Clinton
- J Adams
- Biden
- Wilson
- Reagan
- Grant
- Monroe
- GHW Bush
- JQ Adams
- Jackson
- Carter
- Taft
- McKinley
- Polk
- Cleveland
- Ford
- Van Buren
- Hayes
- Garfield
- Harrison
- GW Bush
- Arthur
- Coolidge
- Nixon
- Hoover
- Tyler
- Taylor
- Fillmore
- Harding
- Harrison
- Pierce
- Johnson
- Buchanan
- Trump
Wtf? Reagan should be a lot lower.
How the fuck is Reagan top 20
Yeah. Most of what is wrong now can be traced to Reagan.
Historians create the list, so sometimes it is about the history these Presidents lived through. Reagan is seen as an element in the fall of the Soviet Union, and thus the recreation of many countries and world order.
Puts him at about average. Reagan represents a brand of conservatism that many disagree with but that doesn’t inherently make him a bad president.
This should really worry Republicans. Apparently this came from surveying people. If Reagan is 16 , and Obama is 7, and Trump is absolutely last, it says a whole fucking lot about the electorate.
Edit: I’m mistaken, it’s political science folks. So probably not as worrying to them.
I’ve met many people in real life who seem to believe Reagon is great due to his “very successful” Reaganomics. I don’t know if they actually knew what Reaganomics really was or the results of it.
America is a sad place.
45. Trump
I’m glad to see Trump acknowledge and celebrate his place at the bottom of the list.
Some of these positions are a bit… subjective? Obama over LBJ?
Obama was the first President from a minority part of a population and signed Obamacare.
Well, the first part certainly is important. But isn’t related to “greatness” in terms of accomplishments during a presidency. Obamacare definitely counts. Also the repeal of DADT.
But during LBJ, black voting rights, Medicare and Medicaid, and making discrimination illegal (especially employer discrimination).
It’s all very subjective as I said earlier. But there would be no Obama without LBJ.
This list is created by historians. So, it is history of the time and President that is considered.
What you say about LBJ is mostly true, though it was JFK that set those programs in motion in Congress. But, what LBJ also did was entrench the US in a very unpopular war. So much so, he refused to run for a final term.
Which is why I mentioned JFK.
The whole thing is subjective, they were rankings done by survey. No one is trying to hide that
To be fair Obama did end the war his predecessor started.
You mean the guy who got the job cuz someone died, and then started the Vietnam War?
He’s got a lot of social reform under his belt. You could argue a lot of that is from JFK. His international politics, not so much
I mean you couldn’t argue that very well. Anyone who thinks LBJ wasn’t largely a driving force behind social reform is insane. I mean personally he pushed a lot of that through. I doubt Kennedy could have.
He pushed it through because he had the career politician connections, which was 100% invaluable to actually get it done. But the vision came from Kennedy and LBJ largely carried out as Kennedy’s legacy rather than Johnson’s own cause.
JFK definitely started the war. LBJ and Nixon just escalated it
Presidental history isn’t my stringest area, but I’d bump up Eisenhauer before Truman.
I feel the jump after #5 is a pretty sizeable one.
I’m trying to justify moving down GHWB and Jackson, but looking at who comes in after them, it’s hard to come up with anything to put them over either of them.
Looking at the list objectively, it’s pretty amazing the combined list of terrible things we can list off that all these people did. The tops 5 included. But I feel those are the only ones I can say what they did was so monumental that the country was better off after their terms and I wonder if we would ever get a leader like any of them again.
Still sad to see the amount of slavery and war crimes in the top 5 though.
why did they only rank top 45? such a specific number.
Because Grover Cleveland fucked it all up by serving non-consecutive terms.
They should have ranked his 1st and 2nd terms individually smdh
Carter #1 in our hearts
He may be the best human being in the office. He micromanaged his staff–he required personal signing off on the White House tennis court usage–and never figured out the sausage making process with Congress. His actual accomplishments were limited.
- Van Buren
That’s a lot higher than I’d put the guy who so “skillfully” handled the panic of 1837.
Who didn’t see that coming-Trump is the worst president.
Remember when Trump asked Russia to help him win the election. Or when Trump thought light brought into the body would cure covid. Or when Trump believed the murderer Putin over our own government. Or…well I could go on, but Trump worked for that last spot on the list. He deserves it.
Remember Hurricane Sharpie‽ That alone should be a good indicator that he’s nothing but trash on his best day.
Well uh definitely no likely Trump voters and likely about half of ‘independents’, so something like 60 ish percent of American voters?
You must either be European or otherwise blissfully ignorant of American society.
Based on the below chart from the people who did the survey even self identified conservatives and Republicans put him in the 40’s. He seemed doomed to bottom tier even if they just used the people who should love him most to do the ranking.
Welp, I was wrong!
I’d hazard a guess that it’s less to do with his conduct as president, rather more of what he actually did in office. I honestly can’t think of anything his administration “achieved” aside from massive tax cuts for the rich. Obama had the ACA, Biden has his massive economic recovery and job creation, Trump has nothing of value.
. I honestly can’t think of anything his administration “achieved” aside from massive tax cuts for the rich.
Does fucking up the covid response and breaking the brains of all Americans count as achievements?
Usually when I try to think of it all I can remember is space force. Still a stupid name, and I can’t believe they couldn’t come up with something better.
Not sure if that’s achieved though, but was prolly a good thing to have a dedicated group to it then funneling through the Air Force
The Space Force was a long time coming. Trump didn’t come up with the idea for an entire new branch of the armed forces and have it created while he was in office.
The first discussion of a U.S. Space Force occurred under President Dwight Eisenhower’s administration in 1958 and it was nearly established in 1982 by President Ronald Reagan as part of the Strategic Defense Initiative. The 2001 Space Commission argued for the creation of a Space Corps around 2007–2011, but due to the September 11 attacks and war on terror any plans were put on hold. In 2017, Representatives Jim Cooper and Mike Rogers’ proposal for a Space Corps passed the House but failed in the Senate. In 2019, the House and Senate resolved their differences to pass the United States Space Force Act. It was signed into law by President Donald Trump, establishing the U.S. Space Force as the first new independent military service since the Army Air Forces were reorganized as the U.S. Air Force in 1947.[9]
If you want to credit it to Eisenhower sure, but still technically it was established under trump so that’s the best I have for remembering what he did in office.
I still have a hard time taking them seriously, with the way it was rolled out. I know it’s probably a good idea, given how critical space technology is, and that it will just keep getting more and more critical, but wow did they make it sound ridiculous at first. It’s hard to get past that first inpression
Agreed. Add to it Steve Carell’s show (although wasn’t great) after definitely didn’t help its credibility.
I wouldn’t say Obama is a top 10 president but he was a good president.
Meanwhile Trump was objectively a terrible president - a venal, mercurial, criminal narcissist who sold out his allies and whose incompetence managed to kill hundreds of thousands of people during a pandemic and capped off his term with an insurrection. Not enough history has passed to judge exactly where he is in relation to some other terrible presidents but I reckon he’ll be in the bottom 3 for sure.
What are 10 presidents that are better than Obama, according to you?
Not the other guy but ill throw out a list of mine.
- Theodore Roosevel
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Harry Truman
- JFK
- LBJ
- Abraham Lincoln
- Thomas Jefferson
- Martin Van Buren
- Jimmy Carter
- George Washington
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
This aint an organized list, just those I considerr better than Obama. Also using Washington is a bit of an asspull on my part but I dont care.
I think it is less a judgment of how good Obama was buy rather an indictment of how bad (or inconsequential) most presidents have been.
That being said, the executive branch was really only as powerful was it is today rather recently. For the majority of the US existence it was just another bureaucratic office of government.
I’d be hard pressed to name 9 presidents that were better…
You might not but there are plenty of lists that do and give their reasons. The likes of Lincoln, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Washington, Wilson, Kennedy, Reagan, Lyndon Johnson are frequently listed ahead of him and for some obvious reasons. Obama might squeak into the top 10 of some compilation lists, maybe higher if people only consider modern presidents.
Lol Wilson? Ummm…
Also, no way Reagan deserves to be ever close.
Argue with the scholars who made the lists, not me
I bet you would be.
Someone just tell Donny that this scoring was like golf. Lowest score wins. Winning!!!
The conservative outlet noted that the figures were based on a survey of **154 respondents **[…]
That’s… Not what we call a statistically valid sample size.
Note, that is not 154 random people on the street. That is 154 US academics specializing in presidential politics, a much smaller total population.
That’s not the way that I read that. If that’s true, then the phrasing was very unclear.
I did not read this article in particular, but the actual report: http://www.brandonrottinghaus.com/uploads/1/0/8/7/108798321/presidential_greatness_white_paper_2024.pdf
Respondents included current and recent members of the Presidents & Executive Politics Section of the American Political Science Association, which is the foremost organization of social science experts in presidential politics, as well as scholars who had recently published peer-reviewed academic research in key related scholarly journals or academic presses. 525 respondents were invited to participate, and 154 usable responses were received, yielding a 29.3% response rate.
Its so tiresome, because none of this shit is going to matter once the next Big Hurricane wipes a few more Gulf Coast cities off the map. The “Best/Worst” Presidents are all yet to be written, not set in stone by some dipshit Frank Luntz poll of 50-something ivy league academics.
People are going to be looking back at the Obama/Trump/Biden Era as absolutely utopian, with the way our economy is pitched. Its the Kamala Harris / Greg Abbott / Beyonce / Tucker Carlson presidencies you’re really going to have feelings about over the next thirty years.
TBH, once the really hard consequences of climate change hit–blue ocean events, mass die-offs of fish across all oceans, dust bowls in regions that are currently bread baskets, etc.–I don’t think that most people are going to be worrying about a president at all.
If humanity is lucky, we’ll all die from a previously unclassified pathogen from melting arctic ice. If humanity is unlucky, it’s going to be death from a century of famines.
I don’t think that most people are going to be worrying about a president at all.
We worried quite a bit about the President during the last 30s-era Dust Bowl.
If humanity is lucky, we’ll all die
Its not the end of the world. Its the end of a particular way of life. As the old world dies, the new world struggles to be born.
No, it’s not the end of the world; the planet will shrug humanity off and continue without us just fine. The world will do just fine, right up until the sun turns into a red giant and the expanding corona envelops this planet and burns it away, in a few billion years.
It will probably be the end of civilization as we understand it though.
More primitive civilizations have endured more desperate conditions.
We are not more primitive civilizations. We have culturally forgotten most of the things that are absolutely necessary for more primitive cultures to survive, and there are not nearly enough people have have any of these cultural memories to pass knowledge on at a meaningful scale. Tribes in sub-Saharan Africa might be able to survive, if climate change doesn’t wipe out their prey animals. Same with certain tribes in Brazil, assuming that temperatures don’t go past 95F for wet-bulb temperatures in the Amazon.
But we’re not them.
We have culturally forgotten most of the things that are absolutely necessary for more primitive cultures to survive
Developing large agriculture surpluses and potable water reserves, while expanding safe arteries of travel and maintaining peaceful coexistence with our surrounding neighbors?
there are not nearly enough people have have any of these cultural memories to pass knowledge on at a meaningful scale
Global literacy is at a historical peak. And methods of archiving/distributing information have never been more diverse or prolific.
Tribes in sub-Saharan Africa might be able to survive, if climate change doesn’t wipe out their prey animals. Same with certain tribes in Brazil
They’ll be some of the first to go, precisely because they don’t have industrial agriculture or advanced pluming and A/C.
These results are interesting, though the article does note that the overall results seem to map along party lines for mote contemporary presdients (with notable exceptions, like Clinton.) In case anyone wonders, the polling pool was:
“…current and recent members of the Presidents & Executive Politics Section of the American Political Science Association … as well as scholars who had recently published peer-reviewed academic research in key related scholarly journals or academic presses.”
So, not a general survey in case anyone wonders.
There’s a lot that don’t really make sense other than a heavier democrat bias. Bush Sr being well above Jr also doesn’t really make sense. There also seems to be a very heavy recency bias, Clinton should probably be the highest rated president from the last 30 years and likely not in the top 10.
Wait, so you’re saying the scholars… the people who actually study things and know what they are talking about… skew towards a favorable view of democratic policies??? That’s weird, must be a conspiracy.
why in the unholy shitting fuck is MAGA considered a person
Because they’re all just clones
The cool thing about a propagandized population is it creates something akin to a hivemind people. All you really have to do is determine whether or not X person has fallen victim to a certain flavor of propaganda, and it’s a decent indicator of whether or not that person believes several other falsehoods and behaves in accordance with actions laid out by the source of the propaganda. MAGA is a solid example of a propagandized people who behave and believe in very predictable ways: They skew alt-right, believe Trump is good for the country, range from racially apathetic to completely racist, champion capitalism and billionaires, are unable to be swayed by new information that runs counter to their established narrative, are aggressively white and Christian, and they generally align with Republican politicians across the board, as long as those politicians are in the same realm of insanity that Trump inhabits. MAGA is a philosophy born and raised by bad faith propaganda.
i would stop using the tagline they picked out and instead just fall them right wing fascists
Truth hurts.
They can freak out all they like. Obama was better.
even Republican participants in the survey viewed him [Trump] as being among the five worst presidents
and yet republicants are still lining-up to lovingly change his diaper and vote for him.
And buy his $18 sneakers
Hilariously, republicans in this survey ranked Biden significantly higher than trump. Makes me think these might actually be well-informed people!
Seems very on-brand for that bunch. They are always angry.
