this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2024
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Fox News reported on some new presidential rankings, which purportedly show Barack Obama as the #6 president in U.S. history and Donald Trump dead last, and MAGA was not happy.

Fox News on Sunday posted an article about the new rankings by the Presidential Greatness Project, which Fox describes as "a group of self-styled experts." It states that Abraham "Lincoln topped the list of presidents in the 2024 Presidential Greatness Project expert survey for the third time, following his top spot in the rankings in the 2015 and 2018 versions of the survey."

...

"Rounding out the top five in the rankings were Franklin Delano Roosevelt at number two, George Washington at three, Theodore Roosevelt at four, and Thomas Jefferson at five," according to the report. "Trump was ranked in last place in the survey, being ranked worse than James Buchanan at 44, Andrew Johnson at 43, Franklin Pierce at 42, and William Henry Harrison at 41."

The report states that Obama and Joe Biden "ranked an average of 6th and 13th, respectively, among Democrat respondents, and 15th and 30th by Republicans."

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[–] MicroWave 79 points 9 months ago (9 children)

Here's the full combined list:

  1. Lincoln
  2. FD Roosevelt
  3. Washington
  4. T Roosevelt
  5. Jefferson
  6. Truman
  7. Obama
  8. Eisenhower
  9. LB Johnson
  10. Kennedy
  11. Madison
  12. Clinton
  13. J Adams
  14. Biden
  15. Wilson
  16. Reagan
  17. Grant
  18. Monroe
  19. GHW Bush
  20. JQ Adams
  21. Jackson
  22. Carter
  23. Taft
  24. McKinley
  25. Polk
  26. Cleveland
  27. Ford
  28. Van Buren
  29. Hayes
  30. Garfield
  31. Harrison
  32. GW Bush
  33. Arthur
  34. Coolidge
  35. Nixon
  36. Hoover
  37. Tyler
  38. Taylor
  39. Fillmore
  40. Harding
  41. Harrison
  42. Pierce
  43. Johnson
  44. Buchanan
  45. Trump

Source: http://www.brandonrottinghaus.com/uploads/1/0/8/7/108798321/presidential_greatness_white_paper_2024.pdf

[–] [email protected] 57 points 9 months ago (6 children)
[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago

America is a sad place.

[–] Rapidcreek 14 points 9 months ago

Historians create the list, so sometimes it is about the history these Presidents lived through. Reagan is seen as an element in the fall of the Soviet Union, and thus the recreation of many countries and world order.

[–] NewNewAccount 5 points 9 months ago

Puts him at about average. Reagan represents a brand of conservatism that many disagree with but that doesn’t inherently make him a bad president.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I've met many people in real life who seem to believe Reagon is great due to his "very successful" Reaganomics. I don't know if they actually knew what Reaganomics really was or the results of it.

[–] assassin_aragorn 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

This should really worry Republicans. Apparently this came from surveying people. If Reagan is 16 , and Obama is 7, and Trump is absolutely last, it says a whole fucking lot about the electorate.

Edit: I'm mistaken, it's political science folks. So probably not as worrying to them.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yeah. Most of what is wrong now can be traced to Reagan.

[–] FlyingSquid 1 points 9 months ago

That is why I would rate him even lower than Trump.

[–] partial_accumen 13 points 9 months ago

45. Trump

I'm glad to see Trump acknowledge and celebrate his place at the bottom of the list.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Some of these positions are a bit… subjective? Obama over LBJ?

[–] [email protected] 41 points 9 months ago

The whole thing is subjective, they were rankings done by survey. No one is trying to hide that

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (2 children)

You mean the guy who got the job cuz someone died, and then started the Vietnam War?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

JFK definitely started the war. LBJ and Nixon just escalated it

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

He’s got a lot of social reform under his belt. You could argue a lot of that is from JFK. His international politics, not so much

[–] njm1314 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I mean you couldn't argue that very well. Anyone who thinks LBJ wasn't largely a driving force behind social reform is insane. I mean personally he pushed a lot of that through. I doubt Kennedy could have.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

He pushed it through because he had the career politician connections, which was admittedly 100% invaluable to actually get it done. But the vision came from Kennedy and LBJ largely carried out as Kennedy's legacy rather than Johnson's own cause.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

In other words, he has large error bars that average out to OK.

[–] afraid_of_zombies 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

To be fair Obama did end the war his predecessor started.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

To also be fair, the US and NATO pulled out fast and let the Taliban take over a place we never should have been in the first place, making it even worse for the people there.

We all know Daddy Bush fucked this up, but the US left a huge mess they didn’t clean up.

[–] Rapidcreek -2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Obama was the first President from a minority part of a population and signed Obamacare.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Well, the first part certainly is important. But isn’t related to “greatness” in terms of accomplishments during a presidency. Obamacare definitely counts. Also the repeal of DADT.

But during LBJ, black voting rights, Medicare and Medicaid, and making discrimination illegal (especially employer discrimination).

It’s all very subjective as I said earlier. But there would be no Obama without LBJ.

[–] Rapidcreek -2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This list is created by historians. So, it is history of the time and President that is considered.

What you say about LBJ is mostly true, though it was JFK that set those programs in motion in Congress. But, what LBJ also did was entrench the US in a very unpopular war. So much so, he refused to run for a final term.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Which is why I mentioned JFK.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

He may be the best human being in the office. He micromanaged his staff--he required personal signing off on the White House tennis court usage--and never figured out the sausage making process with Congress. His actual accomplishments were limited.

[–] anon6789 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Presidental history isn't my strongest area, but I'd bump up Eisenhauer before Truman.

I feel the jump after #5 is a pretty sizeable one.

I'm trying to justify moving down GHWB and Jackson, but looking at who comes in after them, it's hard to come up with anything to put them over either of them.

Looking at the list objectively, it's pretty amazing the combined list of terrible things we can list off that all these people did. The tops 5 included. But I feel those are the only ones I can say what they did was so monumental that the country was better off after their terms and I wonder if we would ever get a leader like any of them again.

Still sad to see the amount of slavery and war crimes in the top 5 though.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Wtf? Reagan should be a lot lower.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago
  1. Van Buren

That’s a lot higher than I’d put the guy who so “skillfully” handled the panic of 1837.

[–] just_another_person 1 points 9 months ago

Okay, so is this list wrong, or is the article wrong?

[–] [email protected] -5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

why did they only rank top 45? such a specific number.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Because Grover Cleveland fucked it all up by serving non-consecutive terms.

[–] bizzle 3 points 9 months ago

They should have ranked his 1st and 2nd terms individually smdh

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

dinglebutt would have been lower, but there were only that many eligible names this go-around.