Politics And Current Events

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

according to a recent survey of presidential scholars, Trump is dead last in terms of how his presidency is ranked: http://www.brandonrottinghaus.com/uploa ... r_2024.pdf

2024 Rank President 2024 Rating
Change
2015-2024
Change
2018-2024

1 Lincoln 93.87
2 FD Roosevelt 90.83 Up 1 Up 1
3 Washington 90.32 Down 1 Down 1
4 T Roosevelt 78.58
5 Jefferson 77.53
6 Truman 75.34 Up 1
7 Obama 73.8 Up 9 Up 1
8 Eisenhower 73.73 Down 1 Down 2
9 LB Johnson 72.86 Up 3 Up 1
10 Kennedy 68.37 Up 4 Up 6
11 Madison 67.16 Up 2 Up 1
12 Clinton 66.42 Down 4 Up 2
13 J Adams 62.66 Up 2
14 Biden 62.66
15 Wilson 61.8 Down 5 Down 4
16 Reagan 61.62 Down 5 Down 7
17 Grant 60.93 Up 9 Up 4
18 Monroe 60.15 Up 2 Down 3
19 GHW Bush 58.54 Down 2 Down 2
20 JQ Adams 55.41 Up 2 Up 4
21 Jackson 54.7 Down 12 Down 3
22 Carter 54.26 Up 4 Up 4
23 Taft 51.67 Down 3 Down 1
24 McKinley 51.23 Down 3 Down 5
25 Polk 49.83 Down 6 Down 5
26 Cleveland 48.31 Down 3 Down 3
27 Ford 46.09 Down 3 Down 2
28 Van Buren 45.46 Down 3 Down 1
29 Hayes 41.15 Up 1 Up 1
30 Garfield 40.98 Up 1 Up 5
31 Harrison 40.64 Down 2 Up 1
32 GW Bush 40.43 Up 3 Down 1
33 Arthur 39.61 Down 1 Down 4
34 Coolidge 39.38 Down 7 Down 6
35 Nixon 36.41 Down 1 Down 2
36 Hoover 34.08 Up 2 Down 2
37 Tyler 32.99 Down 1
38 Taylor 32.97 Down 5 Down 2
39 Fillmore 30.33 Down 2 Down 1
40 Harding 27.76 Up 2 Down 1
41 Harrison 26.01 Down 2 Up 1
42 Pierce 24.6 Down 2 Down 1
43 Johnson 21.56 Down 2 Down 3
44 Buchanan 16.71 Down 1 Down 1
45 Trump 10.92 Down 1

who knows what bias the respondents is and while Obama and Biden being "that high" gives me pause but they are a hell of a lot more informed than I am


edit: dangit nocera beat me

[NTP66]

Obama being that high doesn't give me pause, but Biden does. Pissbaby is right where he belongs.

[Troy Loney]

Wilson is probably the worst president

[tifosi77]

If Biden were 10 years younger he would be regarded as a fairly successful President, especially given the split control of Congress. But in the same way that policy discussions re Trump are preempted by the fact that he is, indeed, an imbecile, you don't get very far in talking about Biden's administration before "HE'S SOOOO OLD" takes over.

[Beveridge]

Wilson is probably the worst president

Harrison - dude only made it 32 days. My favorite presidents don't die.

[CBear3]

There's a spectrum between alt-right neo-nazi lunatic and a centrist republican. Trump certainly isn't an extreme on either of those as far as his admin/politics go, but he's still GOP. A lot of people view the GOP's positions and policies as counter productive. So when you combine a vision of counter productive policy with a blowhard psychopath, I think the opinion of his presidency as being one of the worst in US history to this point is warranted.

Woof, not even close. Lincoln, Wilson, FDR, Johnson, and George W. Bush were all far worse than Trump, just to name a few.

Before the 2020 election fallout he's an average run of the mill president. Did some stupid stuff, did some mundane stuff, in the end didn't effect much. Even despite downplaying Covid, he did close the country down for like two weeks and cancelled travel to infected areas (even if airlines were basically doing the same thing at the same time).

The Muslim ban lines up amazingly well with FDR's detention camps in thought process, except there was no war outbreak to cause it. He could never get infrastructure spending through because he was so focused on himself and ending the probe into the 2016 election. He failed to gather the needed support for repealing the ACA, and never led the party into determining it's replacement. He did solidify support to cut taxes which was a promise kept, except that the middle class tax cuts were set to expire first. He promised Mexico would pay for the wall, but attempted to build it anyway. From a policy standpoint he was just ineffective in general. He did manage to get a rather long list of judges seated in that time, and appointed people to run Federal Agencies to take the country back to his beloved 1950s, but from a long standing impact 3/4 of his presidency was just flacid.

Where the debate begins in his "worst in history" is quite simply his attempts to pressure Congress and state governments into installing him as a dictator, throwing out the democratic process. I understand that Shyster comes from a libertarian, the federal govt barely has a reason to exist, mindset, but I find it hard that you can argue that attempting to install yourself as the Country's Executive against the will of the democratic voters isn't Numero Uno on the bad things a President has done list. He's not just doing it once, he's setting precedent that the Democratic Republic no longer needed to answer to its citizens. In terms of long term damage to the the country, I think that would take the cake. The fact that he was unsuccessful due to a small handful of people with less pliable spines doesn't change the intent to damage the country.

[Troy Loney]

Wilson is probably the worst president

Harrison - dude only made it 32 days. My favorite presidents don't die.

I do prefer Presidents that don't do anything, rather than do harm.

Jackson might be the only President in the same category as Trump, just out to lunch on his own random-ass petty grievances to care about the actual substance of presidenting.

I definitely don't know enough for a definitive list, but in terms good and bad presidents in the constraints of "having done things that Troy Loney cares about". My list is something like:

Good: LBJ, Lincoln, FDR, Nixon
Bad: Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Woodrow, Hoover, Truman, Eisenhower, Carter, Reagan, W, Trump

[tifosi77]

Where does Jefferson Davis rank among the list of best/worst Presidents ever?

[tifosi77]

Nixon "good", eh.

[tifosi77]

Wilson is probably the worst president

Harrison - dude only made it 32 days. My favorite presidents don't die.

I was actually thinking about noting that Kennedy shouldn't be a top 10 cos he barely served 1,000 days.......

[Troy Loney]

Where does Jefferson Davis rank among the list of best/worst Presidents ever?

N/A

[dodint]

Davis got to be president in a few different capitol cities, that's an achievement, right?

[tifosi77]

That's kind of my point. Trump should be closer to Jeff D than to POTUS #44 on that ranking.

[Shyster]

who knows what bias the respondents is and while Obama and Biden being "that high" gives me pause but they are a hell of a lot more informed than I am

Liberal college professors outnumber conservative professors by 5 to 1 or more, depending on the discipline.* Surveys of such folks are going to have an overwhelming leftwards political bias. It's no surprise that such folks would have high opinions of presidents who greatly increased government power, which Lincoln and FDR both did.


* The Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA has conducted periodic faculty surveys going back decades. In the most-recent 2016-2017 survey, for example, 11.6% of faculty self-identified as far left, 48.3% as liberal, 28.1% as middle-of-the-road, 11.7% as conservative, and 0.4% as far right.

https://www.heri.ucla.edu/monographs/HE ... ograph.pdf

[Troy Loney]

RE: Nixon and Kennedy

I think Nixon is a good president to compare against Trump. He had the Trump character foibles but governed. I feel like if Trump weren't zooted out on amphetamines and diet coke, he'd have similar governing instincts to Nixon, and could have bucked established powers in certain areas. Like, I think Trump wanted to do popular things, but he's an idiot and hired morons, so that instinct was never really possible, and just defaulted to the cranks in his sycophant circles.

Kennedy is just a pop-culture icon, these voters all probably nod along to the scene in JFK where Sutherland explains why "they" had to kill Kennedy. Which is just insane of course.

[Shyster]

Where the debate begins in his "worst in history" is quite simply his attempts to pressure Congress and state governments into installing him as a dictator, throwing out the democratic process. I understand that Shyster comes from a libertarian, the federal govt barely has a reason to exist, mindset, but I find it hard that you can argue that attempting to install yourself as the Country's Executive against the will of the democratic voters isn't Numero Uno on the bad things a President has done list. He's not just doing it once, he's setting precedent that the Democratic Republic no longer needed to answer to its citizens. In terms of long term damage to the the country, I think that would take the cake. The fact that he was unsuccessful due to a small handful of people with less pliable spines doesn't change the intent to damage the country.

Did he order the arrest of state legislators because he was worried that they might do something he didn't want? Did he throw newspaper reporters in jail because they were publishing things he didn't like? Did he imprison thousands of citizens with no legal recourse for them to seek their release? Did he station troops in polling places so they could arrest people who wanted to vote for the "wrong" party? Did he order the Postmaster General to refuse to deliver by mail any newspapers or books that were critical of the government? Did he order a political opponent deported and thrown out of the country?

Abraham Lincoln did all of those.

[Troy Loney]

Sounds like the Wilson bio

[AuthorTony]

Nixon's war on drugs was created to criminalize black people. It is almost single-handedly responsible for the US's problem with mass incarceration and has done an excellent job of perpetuating poverty and racism. As Ehrlichan said:

“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and Black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or Black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

Considering the lasting damage that caused, I feel like Nixon needs to rank pretty high on the "worst Presidents of all time" list.

[tifosi77]

Did Lincoln create a Space Force?

/end





Joking aside, I still maintain Space Force is the least stupid thing Trump did as POTUS.

[count2infinity]

There's a spectrum between alt-right neo-nazi lunatic and a centrist republican. Trump certainly isn't an extreme on either of those as far as his admin/politics go, but he's still GOP. A lot of people view the GOP's positions and policies as counter productive. So when you combine a vision of counter productive policy with a blowhard psychopath, I think the opinion of his presidency as being one of the worst in US history to this point is warranted.

Woof, not even close. Lincoln, Wilson, FDR, Johnson, and George W. Bush were all far worse than Trump, just to name a few.

Others have largely covered it, but it's opinion based. I think you and I can agree that my opinions are probably more in-line with general consensus on such subjects while your opinions are... outside the norm to put it mildly.

Even still, the link that Nocera had, I believe that liberals had Trump as #45 and conservatives had Trump as #41. Even among conservatives that study this have Trump as one of the worst.

Again, I think you fully understand and embrace that your opinions are out there, thus you and I not agreeing on this (or anything for that matter) isn't suprising.

[Troy Loney]

Nixon's war on drugs was created to criminalize black people. It is almost single-handedly responsible for the US's problem with mass incarceration and has done an excellent job of perpetuating poverty and racism. As Ehrlichan said:

“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and Black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or Black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

Considering the lasting damage that caused, I feel like Nixon needs to rank pretty high on the "worst Presidents of all time" list.

Touche, his China breakthroughs and EPA don't make up for that.

[Shyster]

Sounds like the Wilson bio

Wilson was utter garbage too, and if you want to argue that he's worse, I wouldn't fight you all that hard. Wilson might also have been the most racist president who didn't personally own slaves.

[CBear3]

Where the debate begins in his "worst in history" is quite simply his attempts to pressure Congress and state governments into installing him as a dictator, throwing out the democratic process. I understand that Shyster comes from a libertarian, the federal govt barely has a reason to exist, mindset, but I find it hard that you can argue that attempting to install yourself as the Country's Executive against the will of the democratic voters isn't Numero Uno on the bad things a President has done list. He's not just doing it once, he's setting precedent that the Democratic Republic no longer needed to answer to its citizens. In terms of long term damage to the the country, I think that would take the cake. The fact that he was unsuccessful due to a small handful of people with less pliable spines doesn't change the intent to damage the country.

Did he order the arrest of state legislators because he was worried that they might do something he didn't want? Did he throw newspaper reporters in jail because they were publishing things he didn't like? Did he imprison thousands of citizens with no legal recourse for them to seek their release? Did he station troops in polling places so they could arrest people who wanted to vote for the "wrong" party? Did he order the Postmaster General to refuse to deliver by mail any newspapers or books that were critical of the government? Did he order a political opponent deported and thrown out of the country?

Abraham Lincoln did all of those.

That's one we're not going to see eye-to-eye on. Primarily because you think the Southern states had a right to walk away without penalty. So from day 1 its an unjust war, so any actions taken that were deemed needed to win the war are in your eyes unnecessary.

I will admit many of the actions surrounding the suspension of habeas corpus were wrong. It's why I don't believe Lincoln is #1. At the same time Vallandigham within a year was involved in a plot to overthrow governments in the northwest. The Birchard letter pretty clearly expresses the reasoning for releasing Mr V in a Confederate held area (note, not out of the country).

[tifosi77]

I'm not much for ends-justifying-means, but there are some not very subtle differences between abuse of power in furtherance/protection of the Union and abuse of power for the sake of maintaining your grip on that power. One perceives a larger good, while the other's ability to perceive 'good' stops at the tip of their nose.

It's still ultimately abuse of power, of course.

[Troy Loney]

Hating Lincoln is some niche right-wing thing right?

I remember Freddy hating Wilson years ago, and i've recently read some stuff about his presidency that was utterly despicable (basically word for word what Shyster posted, but targeted at Wobblies and WWI objectors).

Lincoln was of course combatting an active sedition, Wilson was...not.