The Best and Worst U.S. Presidents
It may come as a surprise to many people but Donald Trump is NOT the worst president in the history of the United States, according to a survey by C-Span of presidential historians. That dubious distinction goes to James Buchanan. But Trump comes close, scoring as the president with the lowest moral authority of any president and the one with the weakest administrative skills of any president. What must be particularly galling to Trump and his supporters is that his predecessor, Barack Obama, made it to the top ten of the best presidents.
You can almost hear Trump supporters crying that it’s a “rigged” survey of ‘liberal, leftist’ university professors. The problem with that argument though is that Republican idol Ronald Reagan comes in at #9, ahead of Obama (#10), and that Dwight Eisenhower came in at #5.
Trump comes in at #41 — Fourth from the bottom. Fourth! Supposedly worse than him are Franklin Pierce (#42), Andrew Johnson (#43) and James Buchanan who comes in last at #44. Oddly, or coincidentally, all three served during the period around the Civil War. I say ‘oddly’ because many political observers believe the extreme political polarization facing America today echoes the split that divided the country during that time.
More than 140 people described as historians, professors and other professional observers of the presidency took part in the survey. C-Span has done this survey four times — each time there was a change in the White House administration. C-Span, for those not familiar with it, was created by the cable television industry in 1979 as a public service to provide ‘gavel-to-gavel’ coverage of the U.S. Congress. It is distinctly non-partisan.
There were ten qualities or attributes that the historians graded the presidents on: Public Persuasion… Crisis Leadership… Economic Management… Moral Authority… International Relationships… Administrative Skills… Relations with Congress… Vision in Setting an Agenda… Pursuing Equal Justice for All… and Performance Within the Context of Their Times. The ‘judges’ scored each person on a scale of 1 to 100 in each category.
On that basis, for example, Abraham Lincoln came in at number one with a score of 897, George Washington at number two with a score of 851. Franklin Roosevelt at number three had a score of 841, Teddy Roosevelt next at 785, and rounding out the top five was Dwight Eisenhower at 734.
Trump’s overall score was 312 and just to continue to gall Trump supporters, it should be noted that Obama scored more than twice as high with a score of 664.
As noted, Trump came in last at #44 when it came to both Moral Authority and Administrative Skills. He came in next to last at #43 in terms of International Relations. Nearly as bad was his ‘Relations with Congress’ (#42) and what may be the most critical judgement — his “Performance within the context of his time” (also at #42). His best score was in ‘Public Persuasion’ where he came in at #32. It is that score that primarily kept him from being named the worst. And, in fairness, it should be noted, he is a good talker.
Oddly (again, at least, to me) is that his next highest score was in ‘Economic Management’ although it was only at #35. I say ‘oddly’ because (IMHO) he ran up the single one-year biggest deficit during a boom economy of any president, giving tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations.
(A disclaimer here: All of the categories being judged were given equal weight. That may be subject to one’s individual interpretation of importance. For example, one might argue that ‘Moral Authority’ is more important than ‘Public Persuasion’ or that ‘Crisis Leadership’ is more important than ‘International Relations.’)
By way of comparison, on the Republican side of the agenda…
— Ronald Reagan came in at #9, as noted earlier, with his top categories being ‘Public Persuasion’ and ‘Vision/ Setting an Agenda,’ both of which the historians put him at #5 overall. His worst category was ‘Administrative Skills’ where he scored #30 out of the 44 presidencies.
— George H.W. Bush came in at #21 overall. His best category was ‘Crisis Leadership’ (#10), and his worst category was ‘Vision/ Setting an Agenda’ (#28).
— His son, George W. Bush came in at #29. George W’s best category was ‘Pursued Equal Justice for All’ where he was the 18th best president in that category. His worst category was ‘International Relations’ (#38).
By way of comparison, on the Democratic side of the agenda…
— Obama came in at #10, as noted earlier. His best category was ‘Pursued Equal Justice for All’ where he came in at #3. His worst category was ‘Relations with Congress’ where he came in at #32.
— Bill Clinton came in at #19 overall with his worst category being ‘Administrative Skills’ where he placed #30. He scored two ‘bests’ — ‘Public Persuasion’ and ‘Vision/ Setting an Agenda’, both of which he placed fifth out of all the presidents.
— Jimmy Carter came in at #26 overall. His best score came in the area of ‘Pursued Equal Justice for All.’ His worst score came in ‘Economic Management’ (#37). He also scored poorly in ‘Public Persuasion’ and ‘Crisis Leadership’ (#35) as well ‘Administrative Skills’ and ‘Relations with Congress’ (#34).
As to the three presidents worse than Trump, Buchanan’s biggest ‘crime’ may be that he preceded what those same historians say is the greatest president of all time — Abraham Lincoln serving from 1857 to 1861. More accurately, the ‘crime’ may be the fact that he tried to pacify the slave-owning states in his one-term tenure from 1857–1861, calling slavery “a matter of but little practical importance.”
Another funny coincidence is that the second worst president, Andrew Johnson, who took office in 1865 after the assassination of Lincoln, was also impeached, just like Trump. And just like Trump, Johnson was ‘saved’ by politicians who put their party over their country.
As to the third one, Franklin Pierce (1853–1852), it was clearly a toss-up between him and Trump as to who was the worst. Pierce scored only two tenths of a point less than Trump — 311.8 to Trump’s 312.
All of those presidents at the bottom of the list were one-term presidents. Buchanan, to his credit, vowed not to see a second term and he didn’t. There were ten one-term presidents. Trump of course has claimed that somehow, miraculously, the election results will be overturned, and he will return to the presidency. Worse, but maybe more realistically, he says he may run again in 2024. Two of those presidents below him — Andrew Johnson and Franklin Pierce — didn’t even get their party’s nomination the second time around. Will the Republican Party that rejected Johnson reject Trump if he decides to run again? Probably not. And that indicates just how far the party of Lincoln has fallen.
