Guess who the worst president ever is?
Don't overthink it.
Happy Presidents’ Day!
As I do every year, I celebrated the holiday by watching the “Mediocre Presidents” song from “The Simpsons.”
Just brilliant.
But, I have ANOTHER Presidents’ Day gift for you! The Presidential Greatness Project — conduct by two college political science professors and released over the weekend.
The survey, which gathers the opinions of current and recent members of the Presidents & Executive Politics Section of the American Political Science Association, is in its third iteration. They also released survey results in 2015 and 2018.
The results of the newest survey shouldn’t surprise you much — as it is consistent with other studies of presidential performance.
Here’s the top 5:
Abraham Lincoln
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
George Washington
Teddy Roosevelt
Thomas Jefferson
The highest ranking recent president is Barack Obama, who clocks in at 7th. Joe Biden is 14th. Ronald Reagan is 16th. George H.W. Bush is 19th.
But, it’s the other end of the list that drew my attention. Here’s the bottom 5:
William Henry Harrison
Franklin Pierce
Andrew Johnson
James Buchanan
Donald Trump
That’s right, the de facto Republican nominee in 2024 is regarded — in this survey at least — as the single WORST president in history. (When this study was released in 2018, Trump was, again, ranked last.)
As the two authors of the survey wrote in a piece in the Los Angeles Times:
Trump’s impact goes well beyond his own ranking and Biden’s. Every contemporary Democratic president has moved up in the ranks — Barack Obama (No. 7), Bill Clinton (No. 12) and even Jimmy Carter (No. 22).
Yes, these presidents had great accomplishments such as expanding healthcare access and working to end conflict in the Middle East, and they have two Nobel Prizes among them. But given their shortcomings and failures, their rise seems to be less about reassessments of their administrations than it is a bonus for being neither Trump nor a member of his party.
This is broadly consistent with where other surveys of this sort have placed Trump.
In 2022, the Siena College Research Institute, which has been conducting a presidential greatness poll since the early 1980s, ranked Trump as the third worst president ever — ahead of only Buchanan and Johnson.
In a 2021 survey of presidential historians by CSPAN, Trump ranked as 4th worst — ahead of Pierce, Johnson and Buchanan.
Which is pretty much a consensus!
As presidential historian Tim Naftali wrote in a piece in The Atlantic titled “The Worst President in History”:
Trump was a serial violator of his oath—as evidenced by his continual use of his office for personal financial gain—but focusing on three crucial ways in which he betrayed it helps clarify his singular historical status. First, he failed to put the national-security interests of the United States ahead of his own political needs. Second, in the face of a devastating pandemic, he was grossly derelict, unable or unwilling to marshal the requisite resources to save lives while actively encouraging public behavior that spread the disease. And third, held to account by voters for his failures, he refused to concede defeat and instead instigated an insurrection, stirring a mob that stormed the Capitol.
Many chief executives have failed, in one way or another, to live up to the demands of the job, or to competently discharge them. But historians now tend to agree that our worst presidents are those who fall short in the second part of their pledge, in some way endangering the Constitution.
Trump has, um, a contrary take as to where he fits into the presidential rankings.
“It is much easier to act presidential than what we are doing here tonight, believe me,” Trump told a crowd in 2018. “With the exception of the late, great Abraham Lincoln, I can be more presidential than any president that’s ever held this office.”
The following year, Trump offered this assessment via Twitter:
How do you impeach a president who has won perhaps the greatest election of all time, done nothing wrong (no Collusion with Russia, it was the Dems that Colluded), had the most successful first two years of any president, and is the most popular Republican in party history 93%?
And, for what it’s worth, Republicans agree with him!
In a 2023 Pew poll asking Republicans to name the best presidents over the last 40 years, 41% chose Ronald Reagan and 37% opted for Trump.
So, yeah. My guess is that if Trump was asked about being ranked last he would respond that those things are done by a bunch of eggheads and liberals — and they have always been part of the “Deep State” that hates him.
Still, worst ever is not something Trump EVER wants to be. And, trust me, he’s seen the rankings.
As an old American History major, It is plain that to be worse than Buchanan and Pierce is quite an achievement.
Well, Trump says he's the best at everything, and now he's the best at being the worst. Way to go, Donnie! It's amazing to me that 30-40 percent of our country can not only see these facts as they are--that Trump is the worst president ever. Most of them actually believe that he's the best president we've ever had and want him back in the White House. I suppose they also believe that the Carolina Panthers were the best team in the NFL this year.