I just want to point out that I’m over a year ahead of Mother Jones.
Who is the worst president? The lowest ranked presidents are normally Franklin Pierce (helped cause the Civil War) James Buchanan (helped cause the Civil War), William Henry Harrison (refused to wear a coat during his inauguration, died), and Andrew Johnson (screwed up the outcome of the Civil War, impeached).
Or so it used to be!
Professors Brandon Rottinghaus and Justin S. Vaughn reached out, as they did in 2014 , to hundreds of political scientists to check in on this whole historical ranking of presidents thing and though the upper tier is unchanged the population of the lowest rung is a little bit bigger.
Donald Trump comes in dead last in his debut ranking. Among Democratic scholars, he’s far and away last. Among independent scholars, he’s second to last. Even among Republican scholars, he’s bottom five. (Read Kevin Drum on where he should rank.)
To add insult to injury, President Obama is now ranked the 8th best president ever.
via Mother Jones
I don’t mean to brag (yes I do), but I reported on the consensus opinion of historians before they were ever polled, and I got it dead right. Here’s a bit:
It’s official. The American Historical Society announced today that it had taken a poll of its members, and there was surprising unanimity: Donald Trump is the worst president in American History. Well, actually, Donald Trump will be the worst president in American history, once he’s sworn in.
“There was a bit of debate about whether we should declare him the worst before his inauguration”, an Historical Society spokesperson said, “but in the end, we reached consensus that there was really no reason to wait, since he was such a clear winner….er… loser”.
Trump replaces George W. Bush as the Society’s worst president ever. Bush, unlike Trump, was not a unanimous pick for the highly coveted award. A history professor from Bowdoin College held out for Franklin Pierce, stating that while he saw the merits of the argument for Bush, as a matter of institutional pride, he felt it was important to stick up for a Bowdoin alum. That same professor was recently quoted as saying that “next to Trump, Pierce looks like Lincoln”.
The professors pointed to a variety of reasons for their unanimous decision. “We’ve had mentally ill presidents in the past”, one pointed out, “but you can argue that Lincoln’s occasional depression was part of what made him great, and while Andy Jackson was a bit of a megalomaniac, he simply can’t compare to Trump. ”
via Me
Okay, I’m not lying when I say there was nothing to it. We all knew it, didn’t we, as watched the returns that fateful night.
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