Survey of 154 scholars places 45th president behind even ‘historically calamitous chief executives’ linked to civil war
Donald Trump finished 45th and rock bottom of a list ranking US presidents by greatness, trailing even “historically calamitous chief executives” who failed to stop the civil war or botched its aftermath.
Worse for the likely Republican nominee this year, his probable opponent, Joe Biden, debuted at No 14.
“Biden’s most important achievements may be that he rescued the presidency from Trump, resumed a more traditional style of presidential leadership and is gearing up to keep the office out of his predecessor’s hands this fall,” Justin Vaughn and Brandon Rottinghaus, the political scientists behind the survey, wrote in the Los Angeles Times.
Trump definitely isn’t as bad as some of the other presidents like Pierce or Wilson. Not to say he wasn’t bad just there’s some recency bias at play here.
I’m not sure… the way politics have changed after he’s been elected is nothing short of insanity. The supreme court effects alone are going to reshape America and set us back decades or more, if we’re even able to hold the country together that long.
Pro slavery Franklin Pierce signed the Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854 which TLDR said Kansas would hold a vote of if they’ll allow slavery or not. Then people started killing each other so their side would have more votes.
Woodrow Wilson famously said “It is like writing history with lightning, and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true." about the movie Birth of a Nation which was KKK propaganda. Leading to more lynching and the revitalization of the KKK. Also he did a whole bunch of other terrible things like violating the 1st Amendment.
We have yet to see the full legacy of trump’s actions. He’s still the frontrunner for reelection of one of two parties and unfortunately it’s looking like a very close race.
Inflation alone from massive corporate welfare with widespread corruption will cause vast human suffering.
The outcomes of supreme court decisions.
The lives lost to anti-science promotion during and after the covid response.
The attempted uprising and authoritarian attempts at retaining power. I suspect election denialism is going to stick around.
The plan to politicize a great majority of government positions in 2025 is particularly worrying.
At the same time things may swing back to being more liberal and moderate due to how extreme conservative views have gotten, we’re already seeing it with the senate and the house. Trump is still alive but he’s not going to live forever especially at 77 years old. His legacy will long outlast him though.
Yeah trumps harm is so wide in scope it impacts not just the entire nation but other countries as well. It honestly baffles me that people don’t see it as that bad
Trump said that he would not abide by the election results, meaning that he literally attempted to throw away our entire democratic system of (checks notes) “voting”. While it is true that it was the most inept coup attempt that I have ever so much as even heard of, it still falls within that category. Dude straight-up wanted to get rid of the Constitution of the United States. That’s… pretty bad.
Also, an argument can be made that many of those “excess deaths” could be laid at his feet as well, especially after the Bob Woodsworth interview revealed that he knowingly lied about SARS-COV2 being airborne. And ofc that wasn’t even the most infamous of Trump’s various recorded phone calls!:-P Two of which led him to be impeached… twice.
Fwiw the Guardian article about the rankings did specifically mention Wilson:
So it seems like they are considering the impact of their decisions made whilst being in charge, while separating that from their personal morality. The impact of Global Climate Change likely influenced the rankings as well.
They also were pretty upfront with their liberal bias as well.
So yeah, e.g. slavery is bad, but these people seem to consider overthrowing the government even worse. Regardless of whether you agree with their biases or not, I don’t think a “recency bias” is the main point at hand there.
100% disagree. His distain for the rule of law alone will put our system of government at risk for generations. Did Pierce of Wilson try to overthrow a free and fair election?
Wilson literally was jailing anyone who said bad things about his policies with the Sedition Act of 1918.
So the answer is no, he didn’t try to overthrow a free and fair election.