Joe Biden Versus Donald Trump
Experts Weigh In On The Best and Worst
As President Biden prepares to step away from the Oval Office, it is a good time to look at a recent survey of presidential historians and scholars, ranking the 45 men who have held the “highest office in the land.”
The report by two university professors provides many interesting and unexpected twists and turns, but there is one particular fact that stands out in today’s polarized political environment. More on that later, but first — the basic facts:
— Biden was ranked the 14th best president in U.S. history.
— Trump came in dead last, as the 45th worst president in U.S. history.
Not only was Trump the worst, but he was also the worst by a wide margin. On a scale of one to 100, he scored a 10.92. The only president even close to that bad is a man who most people would barely know except from their history books. James Buchanan who held the office leading into the Civil War. He came in at #44 with a score of 16.71.
Biden on the other hand scored dramatically higher at 62.66. That was just behind another president most people would barely know. John Adams who, like Biden, had served as vice president before. In his case, Adams succeeded George Washington.
Here is the link to the full report: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24434298-presidential_greatness_white_paper_2024
The survey is part of what is called the Presidential Greatness Project, run by Brandon Rottinghause of the University of Houston and Justin S. Vaughn of Coastal Carolina University. This is the third survey done and the first by this group to include Biden. In the previous survey, taken during Trump’s first two years, he was ranked third from last.
For the record, the survey was sent to more than 500 people and 154 responded. And while such experts claim to be, and are expected to be, non-partisan, 95 identified as Democrat, 15 as Republican and 44 as Independents. The survey also broke out the respondents as Liberal, Conservative, Moderate. So, all that makes the next points even more startling.
You might expect those identifying as Democrat or Liberal to rank Biden higher than Trump. But even the experts who identify as either Republican or Conservative still rank Biden higher than Trump. Republicans ranked Biden at #30 in Presidential rankings but Trump at #41. Those identifying as Conservative ranked Biden at #30 also, but put Trump slightly lower at #43. And what may be a testimony to the experts’ non-partisan stance, Republicans ranked Obama at #15 and Conservatives put him at #13.
In actual percentages, it gets even more interesting. Biden scored higher than Trump with both Republicans (48 to 32) and Conservatives (45 to 27). Obama scored twice as high as Trump by both Republicans (62 to 31) and Conservatives (65 to 27).
(This is the first of two reports on the presidents. A second analysis will be posted here later.)
But in all this, here is the one fact the survey shows about Trump that is probably the greatest reason for him NOT to be elected president. He is the most polarizing president in U.S. history by a wide, wide margin. Every single respondent named him as the worst for doing that. He was more than double the next worst — Andrew Jackson who forced the migration of Indian tribes in what became known as the Trail of Tears.
Now, in fairness, it should be noted that Obama, despite being ranked so high overall, was cited as the third highest president polarizing the nation, but the number who cited him was only a third of the ones who named Trump. Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon were the fourth and fifth contenders for the “title.” But none of them were cited for inciting hate, as Donald Trump has done.
It all begs the question: If Trump is so bad, according to the most informed experts, why do millions of Americans still support him?
Some of it may be those ‘followers’ are people who like his messages of hate…
Some of it may be people who feel discounted by society at large and he plays to them…
Some of it may be the failure of the so-called ‘mainstream media’ to hold him accountable despite his lies and the violence he has incited against them…
Some of it may be the ‘fake news’ media on the extreme right glorifying him and echoing his narcissistic self-congratulatory speeches…
Some of it may be the fake, so-called “Christian Evangelicals” who ignore his repeated violations of The Ten Commandments and the teachings of Jesus while attacking people of other religions…
Regardless, the point is that in November Americans will decide whether to give the worst president in U.S. history a second chance to be even worse.
