By Vic Affolter
Trump’s August 27th ranking of U.S. presidents provides a revealing contrast with the 2024 Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey of 154 presidential historians and political science scholars. Trump’s ranking contains six categories: “The Greatest” (1) — guess who?, “Great” (6), “Near Great”(4), “Average”(12), “Below average”(6), and “Failures”(5). That ranking includes 34 of our 45 presidents. Missing are all of those who followed FDR in1945, with the exception of Clinton, Carter, Obama, and Biden, who are granted special treatment. All of those between Trump’s alleged “Greatest” and “Failures” are there just to occupy space between the categories that matter to him.
No Surprise! Trump anoints himself as our “Greatest President” despite his current 33% approval rating. The six “Great” presidents in his estimation, are Lincoln, Washington, FDR, Jefferson, Wilson(?), and Jackson(?). (The parenthetical question marks are my insertions that reflect substantial disagreement.)
His four “Near Great” presidents include Teddy Roosevelt, along with Cleveland, John Adams, and Polk. His 12 “average” presidents include Clinton, and Andrew Johnson(??), who followed Lincoln. The six “below average” presidents include Buchanan(?) and Pierce(?). My (?)’s following Johnson, Buchanan, and Pierce reflect every poll I’ve seen that ranks them as among the four worst presidents, along with Trump! Trump’s alleged five “Failures” are Carter, Obama, and Biden, along with Grant and Harding.
The Presidential Greatness Project’s rankings differ substantially from Trump’s in most respects, with the exception of their ranking Trump’s “great” presidents Lincoln, FDR, Washington, and Jefferson in their top five, with Lincoln as the greatest. The Project ranks Teddy Roosevelt as #4, significantly higher than Trump’s “Near Great” ranking. The biggest differences are the Projects ranking Trump at the very bottom, and their ranking of his alleged “Failures” Obama at #7, Biden at #14. and Carter at #22, with Grant ranked at #17. Trump’s “average” president Clinton comes in at #12 in the Project’s poll, substantially higher than Trump’s ranking.
The remaining two of Trump’s six “Great” presidents, Wilson and Jackson, are ranked 15th and 21st, respectively in the Project’s poll. Wilson’s abject racism is finally affecting his ranking and Jackson’s “Trail of Tears” treatment of Native Americans has caught up with him, endangering his status on our $20 bill. But this hasn’t affected Trump’s regard for them. Trump’s personal favorite presidents, besides himself, are Jackson and McKinley, with the latter sharing Trump’s affection for tariffs. McKinley is ranked 24th by the Presidential Greatness Project, along with Jackson’s #21.
The Projects’s ranking of those Trump omitted are Truman #6, Eisenhower #8, LBJ #9, JFK #10, Reagan #16, Bush 1 #19, Ford #26, Bush 2 #32, and Nixon #35. Their omission by Trump was probably the result of their terms following his badly modified reliance on a 1948 poll published in Life Magazine.
Trump’s adding his “failures” category enabled him to further denigrate Carter, Obama, and Biden. I suspect that his faithful traveling companion Natalie helped him with his pre-1948 rankings, as his knowledge of our country’s history may be worse than any of our other 46 presidents. Trump’s four years of college culminated with a focus on real estate/finance that resulted in six bankruptcies that enabled him to continue his financial exploits.
Bottom line: The Presidential Greatness Project ranks Lincoln as the greatest of our presidents and Trump as the worst — a complete reversal of how he rated himself.
For more on the Presidential Greatness Project go to https://presidentialgreatnessproject.com/
