Trump's rank among the presidents

[DGuller]

I wonder how much his ranking would have improved if he had behaved with some degree of dignity? I suppose his crass behaviour is inseparable from his foreign policy failures though.

I think it could go either way.  His clownish behavior was a zero-day attack on the political system, and brought him a lot of success because it was so out of the norm that there was no counter for it available.

[Malthus]

I wonder how much his ranking would have improved if he had behaved with some degree of dignity? I suppose his crass behaviour is inseparable from his foreign policy failures though.

His constant lying and boorishness would, if anything, make his current ranking lower, with cooler heads (or more forgetful heads) putting less weight on that in the future.

I think that a Trump just as mendacious and boorish who simply did nothing and allowed his professionals to handle the actual business of government would not rate as lowly - what future historians will find convincing is his failures in diplomacy (as you say), in dealing with the pandemic, and in damaging the democratic process.

[The Minsky Moment]

The men to beat are Pierce and Buchanan (and AJohnson, duh).  Harrison died a month so it is silly to rank him at all much less among the worst.  Harding also died early - his cabinet was corrupt but he wasn't otherwise as awful as some of the others and not as bad as Trump who is probably more personally corrupt.  Coolidge was more honest than Harding but a worse President - I would still probably rank Trump lower.  Nixon was a crook but that doesn't differentiate him from Donald and obviously he was a far more effective President in every other way. I would also add Polk on the theory that any President who actively traded slaves in DC while President should be a solid candidate for last place, but that is not yet a commonly accepted viewpoint.  I imagine DJT would have acted similarly in that era so he gets no rung up there.

Pierce and Buchanan are tough to beat but Trump stlll has 2 months and clearly intends to explore new untapped depths of Presidential awfulness so the final verdict now is too early to call.

[The Minsky Moment]

Two surveys were performed amongst historians during Trump's presidency and he ranked 44th and 42nd, and that was before Covid. Unless there's a massive reevaluation of his presidency in the future he's bound to be a bottom 5 president for a really long time.

Historian over value every pre-civil war presidency. There's, maybe, 10 good presidency in the history of the USA.

The lists from wiki vastly overrate Adams and Madison.  Great men both but awful Presidents.
I forgot about Tyler  he really should be in the mix there as well

[Barrister]

The men to beat are Pierce and Buchanan (and AJohnson, duh).  Harrison died a month so it is silly to rank him at all much less among the worst.  Harding also died early - his cabinet was corrupt but he wasn't otherwise as awful as some of the others and not as bad as Trump who is probably more personally corrupt.  Coolidge was more honest than Harding but a worse President - I would still probably rank Trump lower.  Nixon was a crook but that doesn't differentiate him from Donald and obviously he was a far more effective President in every other way. I would also add Polk on the theory that any President who actively traded slaves in DC while President should be a solid candidate for last place, but that is not yet a commonly accepted viewpoint.  I imagine DJT would have acted similarly in that era so he gets no rung up there.

Pierce and Buchanan are tough to beat but Trump stlll has 2 months and clearly intends to explore new untapped depths of Presidential awfulness so the final verdict now is too early to call.

Woodrow Wilson is right in there too.

[Valmy]

Woodrow Wilson is right in there too.

It is funny back when I was young I was enraged that asshole was so highly rated.

But now the tide has turned so dramatically against him I spend most of my time defending him. It seems nobody can properly rate Woodrow Wilson. Sure he was a terrible racist, an arrogant hypocrite, and had a hard time distinguishing honest opposition from evil intent. But he did get a ton done and lots of what he did wasn't too terrible. He was believed to be one of our greatest Presidents in his lifetime and for decades afterwards for a reason.

He was a loathsome man with terrible ideas though.

[Malthus]

Buchanan is hard to beat. I think Trump may fail to unseat him because, while he's done his best to ruin American institutions, it would appear (knock on wood) that he's failed in that.

[Barrister]

Buchanan is hard to beat. I think Trump may fail to unseat him because, while he's done his best to ruin American institutions, it would appear (knock on wood) that he's failed in that.

The reason I ranked Trump so "highly" was that he was too incompetent and lazy to do much lasting damage.

[Valmy]

Buchanan is hard to beat. I think Trump may fail to unseat him because, while he's done his best to ruin American institutions, it would appear (knock on wood) that he's failed in that.

The reason I ranked Trump so "highly" was that he was too incompetent and lazy to do much lasting damage.

Yeah he could have been so much worse.

A President so bad that incompetence is a redeeming quality.

[Josquius]

Buchanan is hard to beat. I think Trump may fail to unseat him because, while he's done his best to ruin American institutions, it would appear (knock on wood) that he's failed in that.

The reason I ranked Trump so "highly" was that he was too incompetent and lazy to do much lasting damage.

Yeah he could have been so much worse.

A President so bad that incompetence is a redeeming quality.

like Hitler.

[Eddie Teach]

Except Hitler's incompetence was middling, so he did a lot of damage before ultimately failing.

I'd say Trump is definitely near the bottom, though it's too early to make specific comparisons.

[crazy canuck]

Trump has done a lot of damage before, knock on wood, failing.

[mongers]

Easily the worst in living memory and in my opinion the worst I've read about, but since I've only done 20th century US Politics/History there's a fair few I know nothing about.

[Admiral Yi]

I'm like mongers.  Buchanan who?  War of Independence, 1812, Trail of Tears, Civil War, that's it.

[The Brain]

Every president pre-Civil War was leading a slave state, so there's that.