The Former President’s Worst Traits
Of the twenty qualities that make for a good president, former president Donald Trump came in last or second to last in six of those categories. That’s the result of a survey of presidential scholars and political scientists.
That same survey found Trump to be one of the worst presidents in U.S. history, while President Joe Biden is rated one of the 20 best U.S. presidents. Actual ranking:
— Biden: 19
— Trump: 43
The only ones who scored worse than Trump were James Buchanan who was president leading into the Civil War and and Andrew Johnson who became president after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln coming out of the Civil War.
This is the second poll that I have analyzed showing Trump’s dismal presidential standing. In this poll, Trump came in third from the bottom. This poll was done in mid to late 2022, not long after the end of the Trump presidency and a little less than halfway through Biden’s presidency. In the other poll that I analyzed and which was done by The Presidential Greatness Project, he came in dead last. That poll was done in late 2023 to early 2024.
The 2022 poll that is the focus of this article was done by the Sienna College Research Institute in New York. The institute does year-round surveys of experts and the public on a variety of issues and not only political issues.
What makes the Sienna poll most interesting is that it makes an assessment of specific “attributes, abilities and accomplishments” of a good president. Here’s Trump’s record:
— Integrity — Last.
— Intelligence — Last
— Executive Appointments — Last
— Foreign Policy Accomplishments — Last
— Background — Last
— Ability to Compromise — 2nd to Last
The presidential greatness poll had a similar category to the compromise category in the Sienna poll. It ranked the least and worst polarizing president. In that category, Trump was cited by every scholar as THE worst.
(As a side note, U.S. News and World Report did its examination of three polls about the presidency. Two were the ones I cited. The third was done in 2021 and did not include Biden.It came to the same conclusion: Trump is the worst.)
In both polls, four presidents were at the bottom of the list: Donald Trump, Andrew Johnson, James Buchanan and Franklin Pierce. The polls cited two different presidents to the bottom five — William Harding and William Henry Harrison.
But in both polls, the Top Five presidents were the same, although their specific place was different: Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson.
Finally, here’s two observations by the experts in the Sienna survey.
— Just under half (44%) believe the office of president has become too powerful.
— Slightly more than half (51%) think the framers of the constitution would believe that the system of checks and balances is “working not very or not at all well.”
And what you might consider a funny ‘prediction’ in light of recent developments, the scholars in 2022 said that they believed by 2032 “a woman will be elected president.”
To paraphrase an old saying — From Their Lips to God’s Ears.
