Trump ranked as worst US president in history, with Biden 14th greatest
www.theguardian.com
Survey of 154 scholars places 45th president behind even ‘historically calamitous chief executives’ linked to civil war

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.

  • OpenStars@startrek.websiteEnglish
    0·
    8 months ago

    Uh… nobody’s perfect, I guess was the prevailing thought? Fwiw, they did address that topic:

    Considering drops for Andrew Jackson (ninth in 2015 to 21st now) and Woodrow Wilson (10th to 15th), Rottinghaus and Vaughn noted the impact of campaigns for racial justice.

    “Their reputations have consistently suffered in recent years as modern politics lead scholars to assess their early 19th and 20th century presidencies ever more harshly, especially their unacceptable treatment of marginalised people,” the authors wrote.

    Jackson owned enslaved people and presided over the genocidal displacement of Native Americans. Wilson oversaw victory in the first world war and helped set up the League of Nations, but was an avowed racist who segregated the federal workforce.

    (emphasis added)

    So he did drop from 10 to 15 for this reason, but I guess winning WWI still kept him high.

    • YtA4QCam2A9j7EfTgHrH@infosec.pub
      1·
      8 months ago

      Winning a war that got thousands of Americans killed that we didn’t need to enter is not a good thing in my book. The League of Nations, while admirable, was a failure. Neither of these things out-way the absolute bullshit the man did to civil liberties (imprisoning people for handing out flyers) and segregation. He set the US back decades.

      And I haven’t even mentioned his incredible fuck ups with the flu which he was advised against doing. He ignored his medical advisors so that he could wage his bullshit war. This killed many thousands by spreading the worst flu the world has ever seen.

      • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
        1·
        8 months ago

        I don’t agree that America should not have entered WW1, winning the war decisively with the entry of a new major power not only saved lives in end, it definitely dissolved three absolute monarchies who were steadfastly opposed to democratic reform. Two of them might have collapsed regardless, but that’s not a certainty.

        It absolutely prevented the most devastating outcome at the least: a victory for Germany. A stalemate was possible, even likely without American entry, and that’s something you need a whole book to explore the consequences of, but a victory would have killed European democracy for certain.

        It turns out that when you look deeper into Wilhelm’s plans, goals, and beliefs that, shockingly enough, the Second Reich wasn’t all that much different from the Third.

        How could it be, only twenty years later?

        But, who knows? Maybe without Wilson we don’t get the Great Depression either, but in the end America was still a democracy. Wilson wasn’t why the average American was a revolting racist with delusional economic beliefs in a self regulating market, he was a symptom of it.