Presidential Scholars rank the greatest Presidents of all time

[rightwinger]

Not surprisingly, Trump came in dead last with a score of 12 out of 100

Experts rank the best U.S. presidents of all time

What is the breakdown of the political parties that the 170 political scientist who made this list are apart of?

Don’t know..

Look at their list and point out where it favors one party over another

 

[U2Edge]

Not surprisingly, Trump came in dead last with a score of 12 out of 100

Experts rank the best U.S. presidents of all time

What is the breakdown of the political parties that the 170 political scientist who made this list are apart of?

Don’t know..

Look at their list and point out where it favors one party over another

George W. Bush at #31 while Barack Obama at #8. That says it all right there.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

FDR LOL

 

[Uncensored2008]

Not surprisingly, Trump came in dead last with a score of 12 out of 100

Experts rank the best U.S. presidents of all time

What a ******* joke.

 

[rightwinger]

Not surprisingly, Trump came in dead last with a score of 12 out of 100

Experts rank the best U.S. presidents of all time

What is the breakdown of the political parties that the 170 political scientist who made this list are apart of?

Don’t know..

Look at their list and point out where it favors one party over another

George W. Bush at #31 while Barack Obama at #8. That says it all right there.

Bush should have been much lower based on his botched invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and destruction of the economy

Obama will be valued by History as eight years of stability between two of our worst modern presidents

 

[Pogo]

Just to pick this point apart some more... I mean it's so pickable....

there were 2 choices in the 2016 election.

Neither had any experience.

"Experience"? At what?

Let's go to this golden chestnut analysis of the POTUS generally ranked at, or very near, the bottom: Suppose you had a choice of Presidential candidates. On one side you had a mature highly-experienced former state legislator, Congressional Representative, United States Senator, foreign minister and Secretary of State, who had also been offered, and turned down, nominations to the Supreme Court (<< this is all the same person). On the other side you had a younger former store clerk who had been elected to the Illinois state legislature but failed in his only attempt to get elected to Congress. Which one do you go with based on "experience"? If you picked the first older guy, congratulations, you just elected James Buchanan over Abraham Lincoln, widely considered the worst and best POTUSes respectively.

>> [James] Buchanan was, easily, the most governmentally experienced presidential candidate in the first 80 years of the republic — and perhaps even through the present day. He was a state legislator in Pennsylvania, a member of the U.S. House, a U.S. senator, minister to Russia, minister to Great Britain and secretary of State. He also is said to have refused Supreme Court nominations from Presidents Tyler and Polk before becoming president in 1857, a few days before his 66th birthday.

Buchanan knew personally every president from James Madison through his predecessor Franklin Pierce, and for decades met anyone of importance who came through Washington. In the often wastrel city, he was known for hosting the best parties and he impressed even Queen Victoria and Czar Nicholas I with his fete-making.


Yet as president, Buchanan chose the wrong path at every fork in the road. Two days before he was inaugurated, he got Congress to pass the Tariff Act of 1857, which subdued manufacturing just as it was modernizing in the North. The day after his inauguration, the Supreme Court issued a ruling he had influenced behind the scenes: Dred Scott v. Sandford. The decision, which declared all descendants of slaves noncitizens and sharply curtailed the federal government's right to regulate slavery, is generally acknowledged as one of the worst rulings ever. Buchanan, however, thought it would solve the slavery problem, not launch the nation toward the Civil War.

The uncertainty about slavery caused people to pull back on plans to settle out West in the new territories, stopping a two-decade economic boom almost immediately. Railroads and other businesses linked to the country's expansion began to fail. Every bank in New York effectively closed, refusing to issue scrip for anything but solid gold or silver.

Buchanan's response? He would do nothing. People deserved what they got if they were in debt or held speculative stock, he said. Eventually the Panic of 1857 would be solved, but it took the buildup to Civil War to do so.

Slave or Free Kansas? Buchanan wouldn't take a side, leading to the murders and battles of Bleeding Kansas. John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry? Buchanan balked at sending troops until Robert E. Lee stepped in to convince him Brown's desire to spark a slave rebellion was indeed a danger to the union. Support Stephen Douglas, the Democrats' proposed nominee to succeed him? No, he would stand neutral, thus allowing the Democratic Party to split three ways, assuring the Republican Abraham Lincoln the election. Six Southern states seceded between election day and Lincoln's inauguration, but Buchanan said the Constitution didn't give him, as president, the power to do anything to keep them in the union.

... Three men always top historians' list as the best presidents: George Washington, Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. None were previously exemplars of political success. None served in the Cabinet, as senator, ambassador or judge. Washington, of course, had no opportunity for such office pre-Revolution — but both Lincoln and FDR lost bids for the Senate and Roosevelt ran for vice president and lost.
​

Like Buchanan, those at the bottom of presidential success lists had long elective careers: Richard Nixon was a congressman, senator and vice president. Franklin Pierce was speaker of the New Hampshire House as well as a U.S. congressman and senator. George H.W. Bush had deep elective and executive branch experience. None, certainly, distinguished himself in the White House. << --- James Buchanan is Proof there's No Ideal Presidential Résumé

 

[Pogo]

I find it especially interesting that Harrison, who up and died 30 days after taking office, is rated higher than Trump.

Then why is Millard Fillmore so far down the count then?

Clearly they have it in for the Whigs.

Fillmore later ran for POTUS with the Know Nothing Party. Doesn't get much lower than that.

Well now at least he had his own party.

A nativist, nationalist party that constantly attacked 'furriners" and Catholics, in effect the ideological forerunner of the Ku Klux Klan.

 

[Pogo]

The link seems to mention only James Buchanan. (?) Wonder where the rest of the list is.

It has him an #43 which, if they use the usual erroneous method of counting Grover Cleveland as two different people, would put him second from last.


EDIT: ah here we go -- just had to eliminate the "2" from the end of the URL and that takes you here, which links to the overall study here, but then you hit a paywall.

See, this is why walls are a bad idea.

I can see enough page to copy this:

>> This statistic ranks all U.S. Presidents from Washington to Trump using "Presidential Greatness" scores from the annual survey of current and recent members of the Presidents & Executive Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. In 2018, President Donald Trump, debuted on the list in last place with a Presidential Greatness score of 12. <<​

I have to question if it's fair to assess an ass who's still in office. We can't see the future so there's no reason Rump can't work to shave that 12 down to a three. Or even a negative number.

Which raises the question of the validity of such rankings by those who were adults while a given president was in office.

How many years should pass before we can realize an accurate, objective accounting of a president’s administration?

Truman is the best example of this.

Truman was extremely unpopular while in office – the February 1952 Gallup poll gave him a mere 22 percent approval rating.

Today Truman is considered among our greatest presidents, ranked number six in this current review.

I didn't see that link for Truman but if true it's waaaaay too high. I think of Truman as one of the four worst POTUSes post-1900, the other three being Wilson, Hoover and Dubya.

Rump doesn't get counted while he's still in office. Absent a REALLY dramatic 180 for the next two years that list easily expands to five.

 

[U2Edge]

Not surprisingly, Trump came in dead last with a score of 12 out of 100

Experts rank the best U.S. presidents of all time

What is the breakdown of the political parties that the 170 political scientist who made this list are apart of?

Don’t know..

Look at their list and point out where it favors one party over another

George W. Bush at #31 while Barack Obama at #8. That says it all right there.

Bush should have been much lower based on his botched invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and destruction of the economy

Obama will be valued by History as eight years of stability between two of our worst modern presidents

The economy did pretty good in most years he was President, unemployment was low in most years. The recession of late 2008 had its roots in things that occurred before Bush was even in office.

The invasion of Afghanistan removed the Taliban from power. The invasion of Iraq moved Saddam from power. Two regimes that needed to be removed were removed swiftly with low casualties. Spending on the military during the Bush years despite the wars, as a percentage of GDP, was lower than the peacetime defense spending of the 1980s.

The current occupation of Afghanistan is the most successful occupation of Afghanistan in history. The strategies and lessons learned during the Bush years were followed by Obama in Afghanistan.

Obama unfortunately prematurely withdrew troops from Iraq in 2011 which meant Obama had to send them back in 2014 to deal with the rise of ISIS. A black mark on Obama's policy there and failure to fully follow Bush's lead, but Obama did get back in line and corrected his mistake.

Most of the tough leadership decisions on Foreign Policy and Defense Policy, the areas most impacted by a U.S. President, were made by the Bush administration. Obama was simply a follower in that regard and not always a good one. The economic recovery under Obama was sluggish and the reason unemployment dropped was mainly due to the decline of the labor force participation rate.

Obama was not bad as a President, but he was not as Good as George W. Bush or Bill Clinton. To have these three recent Presidents so widely apart in rankings shows EXTREME POLITICAL BIAS.

 

[Pogo]

Not surprisingly, Trump came in dead last with a score of 12 out of 100

Experts rank the best U.S. presidents of all time

What is the breakdown of the political parties that the 170 political scientist who made this list are apart of?

The one called "Irrelevant"

Once AGAIN this idea that everybody everywhere somehow "belongs to" a political party is absurd. Most of us do not.
Nor should we.

But if it really means that much to Composition Fallacists, I'd guess that given these are political scholars it's unlikely ANY of them follow a political party like so many sheep.

 

[U2Edge]

The link seems to mention only James Buchanan. (?) Wonder where the rest of the list is.

It has him an #43 which, if they use the usual erroneous method of counting Grover Cleveland as two different people, would put him second from last.


EDIT: ah here we go -- just had to eliminate the "2" from the end of the URL and that takes you here, which links to the overall study here, but then you hit a paywall.

See, this is why walls are a bad idea.

I can see enough page to copy this:

>> This statistic ranks all U.S. Presidents from Washington to Trump using "Presidential Greatness" scores from the annual survey of current and recent members of the Presidents & Executive Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. In 2018, President Donald Trump, debuted on the list in last place with a Presidential Greatness score of 12. <<​

I have to question if it's fair to assess an ass who's still in office. We can't see the future so there's no reason Rump can't work to shave that 12 down to a three. Or even a negative number.

Which raises the question of the validity of such rankings by those who were adults while a given president was in office.

How many years should pass before we can realize an accurate, objective accounting of a president’s administration?

Truman is the best example of this.

Truman was extremely unpopular while in office – the February 1952 Gallup poll gave him a mere 22 percent approval rating.

Today Truman is considered among our greatest presidents, ranked number six in this current review.

I didn't see that link for Truman but if true it's waaaaay too high. I think of Truman as one of the four worst POTUSes post-1900, the other three being Wilson, Hoover and Dubya.

Rump doesn't get counted while he's still in office. Absent a REALLY dramatic 180 for the next two years that list easily expands to five.

Nope Truman was one of the greatest Presidents indeed. We live in a world that was essentially created by Truman.

 

[Pogo]

The link seems to mention only James Buchanan. (?) Wonder where the rest of the list is.

It has him an #43 which, if they use the usual erroneous method of counting Grover Cleveland as two different people, would put him second from last.


EDIT: ah here we go -- just had to eliminate the "2" from the end of the URL and that takes you here, which links to the overall study here, but then you hit a paywall.

See, this is why walls are a bad idea.

I can see enough page to copy this:

>> This statistic ranks all U.S. Presidents from Washington to Trump using "Presidential Greatness" scores from the annual survey of current and recent members of the Presidents & Executive Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. In 2018, President Donald Trump, debuted on the list in last place with a Presidential Greatness score of 12. <<​

I have to question if it's fair to assess an ass who's still in office. We can't see the future so there's no reason Rump can't work to shave that 12 down to a three. Or even a negative number.

Which raises the question of the validity of such rankings by those who were adults while a given president was in office.

How many years should pass before we can realize an accurate, objective accounting of a president’s administration?

Truman is the best example of this.

Truman was extremely unpopular while in office – the February 1952 Gallup poll gave him a mere 22 percent approval rating.

Today Truman is considered among our greatest presidents, ranked number six in this current review.

I didn't see that link for Truman but if true it's waaaaay too high. I think of Truman as one of the four worst POTUSes post-1900, the other three being Wilson, Hoover and Dubya.

Rump doesn't get counted while he's still in office. Absent a REALLY dramatic 180 for the next two years that list easily expands to five.

Nope Truman was one of the greatest Presidents indeed. We live in a world that was essentially created by Truman.

There's much to be said for the second sentence, and not in a good way.

Truman was an uncurious shallow little man full of insecurities who wafted along with bad advice from the likes of Jimmy Byrnes and didn't have the intellect or the curiosity to challenge dynamics he couldn't begin to understand. Truman's incompetence leads directly to the (second) "Red Scare", McCarthyism and the "Cold War". Truman was mainly about proving his father's criticism wrong. A bunch of traits remarkably similar to Dubya.

 

[U2Edge]

Not surprisingly, Trump came in dead last with a score of 12 out of 100

Experts rank the best U.S. presidents of all time

What is the breakdown of the political parties that the 170 political scientist who made this list are apart of?

The one called "Irrelevant"

Once AGAIN this idea that everybody everywhere somehow "belongs to" a political party is absurd. Most of us do not.
Nor should we.

But if it really means that much to Composition Fallacists, I'd guess that given these are political scholars it's unlikely ANY of them follow a political party like so many sheep.

I'm talking about the 170 Political Scientist who made this list, not everyone. I sense strong political bias in the making of the list. I'd like to see what the list would look like if you asked 170 registered Republican Political Scientist, especially when it comes to current Presidents.

 

[Pogo]

Experts at WHAT? I usually don't fall for appeals to authority, myself.

From the Time Mag article:

>> Presidents & Executive Politics Presidential Greatness survey, conducted by University of Houston professor Brandon Rottinghaus and Boise State University professor Justin S. Vaughn, polled current and recent members of the Presidents & Executive Politics Section of the American Political Science Association and asked them to grade each president. <<​

Ah, so they polled the very subjective opinions of people and then ranked them according to popularity.

Have I ever mentioned that I reject appeals to popularity too?

Ummm nnnnnnno I don't think they mentioned "popularity" at all. If they had, Lincoln would have been nowhere near #1.

A further thought to this "popularity" song and dance.... not sure where they rank Woodrow Wilson on this list though he's usually pretty high, but in fact Wilson was so widely despised by the time he left office -- after the Palmer Raids, after sending troops all over creation to meddle in other countries including Russia, after taking the country into WWI after running on having kept us out of it --- that the next batter up, Warren Harding, barely had to campaign at all and won in a landslide when the electorate rejected the incumbent party (shades of 2008). So clearly "popularity" didn't propel Wilson to a high ranking.

And it's ironically worth further noting that Harding, the winner in what was then the biggest electoral landslide ever, usually ranks near the bottom.

Most of that historical image rehabilitation, it should be noted, was accomplished post-presidency by his widow.

 

[Pogo]

Not surprisingly, Trump came in dead last with a score of 12 out of 100

Experts rank the best U.S. presidents of all time

What is the breakdown of the political parties that the 170 political scientist who made this list are apart of?

The one called "Irrelevant"

Once AGAIN this idea that everybody everywhere somehow "belongs to" a political party is absurd. Most of us do not.
Nor should we.

But if it really means that much to Composition Fallacists, I'd guess that given these are political scholars it's unlikely ANY of them follow a political party like so many sheep.

I'm talking about the 170 Political Scientist who made this list, not everyone. I sense strong political bias in the making of the list. I'd like to see what the list would look like if you asked 170 registered Republican Political Scientist, especially when it comes to current Presidents.

Where in the wide wide world of spurts do you get this idea that everybody "belongs to" a political party? What kind of fucked-up Dichotomy planet is that?

As far as "biases" leave us check the list, shall we?

Highest rankings:

1. Abraham Lincoln (Republican*)
2. George Washington (no party)
3. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Democrat)
4. Theodore Roosevelt (Republican*)
5. Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican)

Lowest rankings

44. Donald Rump (Republican)
43. James Buchanan (Democrat*)
42. William Henry Harrison (Whig)
41. Franklin Pierce (Democrat*)
40. Andrew Johnson (Democrat*)

​

what's the "bias" then?

* Special note for the Composition Fallacists: the terms "Democrat" and ""Republican" where starred refer to the old, 19th century versions of those parties from a time when they stood in far different positions than they devolved to. Nineteenth-century Republicans (including TR as a holdout resisting the direction the party was going) were the Liberals and the party of doing big things with government (their legacy from the Whigs) while 19th century Democrats were the small-gummint party of 'states rights' which is exactly why Buchanan (and Pierce before him) took such a passive role as already described. Basically the "do something" party and the "do nothing" party.

All this of course attempts to ass-sume that a political party label somehow "means" something significant. Clearly given the dynamics just outlined --- it doesn't.

 

[Pogo]

if you asked 170 registered Republican Political Scientist

Once AGAIN, why would Political Scientists --- those who intentionally study politics --- want to register with a political party at all?

Also this just in, "170" is a plural number. One political scientist; multiple political scientists

 

[Deno]

Not surprisingly, Trump came in dead last with a score of 12 out of 100

Experts rank the best U.S. presidents of all time

Your post is just more made up Tard Bull Shit...………

The truth is...

President Donald J. Trump is the Greatest President In our Lifetime.....

 

[Pogo]

Not surprisingly, Trump came in dead last with a score of 12 out of 100

Experts rank the best U.S. presidents of all time

Your post is just more made up Tard Bull Shit...………

The truth is...

President Donald J. Trump is the Greatest President In our Lifetime.....

This is true, if "we" are two years old or younger.

 

[Deno]

Not surprisingly, Trump came in dead last with a score of 12 out of 100

Experts rank the best U.S. presidents of all time

Your post is just more made up Tard Bull Shit...………

The truth is...

President Donald J. Trump is the Greatest President In our Lifetime.....

This is true, if "we" are two years old or younger.

I am glad you think Trump is the Greatest regardless of time......

 

[Pogo]

Not surprisingly, Trump came in dead last with a score of 12 out of 100

Experts rank the best U.S. presidents of all time

What is the breakdown of the political parties that the 170 political scientist who made this list are apart of?

The one called "Irrelevant"

Once AGAIN this idea that everybody everywhere somehow "belongs to" a political party is absurd. Most of us do not.
Nor should we."

But if it really means that much to Composition Fallacists, I'd guess that given these are political scholars it's unlikely ANY of them follow a political party like so many sheep.

FYI the specifics:

Gallup, a poll known to lean Republican, tells us that in their last poll more people identify with No Party than any party, by this margin:

"In politics, as of today, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat or an independent?"

Republican --- 25%
Democrat ----- 34%
Neither ------- 39%

You'll notice that they list each poll's results as they do them once a month, sometimes twice a month. You'll also notice a pattern ---- to find the last time "neither" was not the majority you have to scroll down to 2012, right at election day, when "Democrats" briefly outnumbered us, just for that week.

This is what makes the Dichotomists so hilarious when they start crowing "was he/she a Democrat or Republican??" ---- as if there are two mandatory choices.