WWTBAM Bored

A group of 142 historians has ranked Donald Trump #41 out of 44 Presidents in their most recent survey conducted for C-SPAN. They have conducted this survey since 2000 every four or eight years following the conclusion of a President's term. Abe Lincoln continues to rank #1, followed by George Washington, FDR, and Teddy Roosevelt. Of more interest is the ranking of our most recent former President, who somehow managed to rank ahead of Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson, and James Buchanan, who have held the bottom three spots in every single survey. Trump actually tied Franklin Pierce with 312 total points, but I guess he won the tiebreaker, whatever that was. Both Trump and Pierce ranked well ahead of Johnson at 230 and Buchanan at 227. (By contrast, Lincoln has 897 points.)

The results of this survey must come as good news to William Henry Harrison (or would come as good news if he were around to appreciate it), who only served as President for one month before dying and had ranked just above Pierce. Other rankings of note: Eisenhower at #5, Truman at #6. Jefferson at #7, JFK at #8. Reagam at #9. and Obama at #10 (up from 12 in the 2017 survey). LBJ was #11, Clinton was #19, Bush 1 at #21, Carter at #26, Bush 2 at #29, and Nixon at #31.

Presidents are judged in ten different categories, including economic management, international relations, moral authority, and crisis leadership. Trump managed to rank #44 in moral authority, #44 in administrative skills, #43 in international relations (ahead of Buchanan), #41 in crisis leadership, #42 in relations with Congress, and #42 in performance in the context of the times. His highest marks were in economic management (#34) and public persuasion (#32), indicating his ability to bamboozle members of the Republican party and Q-Anon supporters.

https://www.c-span.org/presidentsurvey2 ... ge=overall

I had seen this and I always take this with a grain of salt. One of my history professors said that you cannot really gauge a person's or event's historical impact for at least twenty years after the fact, while I've heard some historians say that 50 or even 100 years may need to go by. Having said all that, I also do find it interesting that the 45th President's highest score was for public persuasion even if that included influencing them (inadvertently or not) to storm the Capitol building. I have a feeling that over the course of time, his ranking will drop when the long-term effects of his administration become clear. Using the bully pulpit to undermine confidence in American democracy itself has to be worst action any President has ever committed.

I also find it interesting that our greatest President was sandwiched inside of our 3 worst. If Lincoln had lost the 1860 election there would be at least 2 (probably more) countries in what is now the US.

A better question would be why do we even have presidential rankings based on what presidential historians say. All they do all day is study history, conduct research, and read books. That's gay! Presidential rankings should only be made up of the personal "feelings" of Qanon inbreds, InfoWhores buttplugs, Wheel of Fortune hosts, and meatball-redolent pillow shills.