A bi-partisan group that ranks presidents has Biden in top 1/3 and Trump dead last. Most interestingly, Trump's average ranks was 41 by republican voters (RINOs, lol), and 45 by democrat and independent voters ... ouch. The top 15 ... presidential_greatness_white_paper_2024.pdf (brandonrottinghaus.com)
Steady hand during Covid crisis, massive investment in renewable and infrastructure that we haven’t seen in decades. Steady hand in dealing with Ukraine and Israel / Palestine.
Valid question, but my criticism is even more fundamental. How can we even compare people like Madison to Coolidge to LBJ to Biden? These administrations just seem incommensurable to me.
I liked Obama but him at #7 is a wild stretch. What did he do post presidency to rise 9 places? Reagan not even in top 15.
Other than Covid, whose policies were largely in place he came in, the others have no historical lens to see through yet. We have zero idea how those last two will be viewed in 20 years or more. Historians almost always take that into account in these ratings, having Biden 14th is insane. I mean, they have him ahead of Wilson for example, who defined the neo liberal view of the world that has dominated western politics to this day? I’m cool with Trump being last though . In all seriousness, I largely chalk it up to recency bias. He’s someone people know so he gets more attention.
Not to defend Trump, but here’s Biden’s steady hand: 787,000 Covid deaths (yes, trolling here), his proxy Ukraine laid to waste and much of the world talking in terms of a new Holocaust in Gaza. Not to mention the border crisis and the state of our cities. I suppose we’ve had 13 presidents who were less bad.
Maybe that’s all my criticism amounts to, but these comparisons just feel even more problematic. Like comparing apples to …1970s anime.
Reagan the conservatives had in the top 5 lol. Non conservatives had him around 16 where he actually ended up. Im more surprised Carter was about average for every political leaning. About 25. Also.. I find it funny the “Party of Lincoln” leaning historians have Lincoln 2 after Washington vs everyone else has Lincoln 1.
What if Nikki had said it?!? My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it
So how do conservatives rate him 5, everybody else 16, and he ends up 16? The problem with these polls is at some level they are ideologically driven. You can make the case Reagan did some good things, but if you are ideologically opposed to them you may not give them weight. As to FDR, you could make the argument that a lot of the government programs really didn’t help as much as touted and the economy stayed in a ditch until WWII which acted as a giant stimulus.
That overall 16 is an easy explanation if there is volatility in ranking. Rankings are by definition opinions. They seem pretty reasonable to me in aggregate. It has a section on hardest to rank presidents and Biden was at the top.
It's on page 5 in the link ... he was actually ranted 5 by republicans, 18 by dems, and 14 by independents, but he is also noted as one of 4 presidents that seem to have a political bias in the voting. Unfortunately, the paper doesn't break down how many of the voters identified as those parties, but it seems like there were probably more dems and indies than pubs ...
Seems like most such polls rank president’s based on accomplishments, a metric I regard with suspicion. But seems like this one is predicated on like ‘em or hate ‘em ?
I rank Trump #1 in one specific category … No President has ever impacted his detractors, psychologically, like he has.
