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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[–] [email protected] 157 points 9 months ago (6 children)

Trump is the most damaging traitor in American history.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago (32 children)

Trump sucks but Benedict Arnold sucked so much his name became synonymous with traitor.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 9 months ago

Give it time.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago

The Revolution managed to succeed anyway. We're still not sure our democracy (flawed as it is) can survive Trump.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago

Benedict Arnold got in a position to be traitor by being a war hero. Even as a traitor , he followed his conscience.

Trump got in his position by being a real estate grifter, playing shell games with New York City real estate, hiding income to take multiple properties through bankruptcy while having a positive income, not paying contractors and employees, etc. Out of vanity he paid to host his own “reality” show then somehow stumbled into connecting with half the population through outrage and misdirection who nevertheless elected him president. Somehow this narcissistic incompetent bombastic sleazy salesman commanded enough popular support for the Republican Party to worship at his feet, be afraid to contradict his words. Somehow this treasonous buffoon spouts sexist garbage worse than what got Clinton impeached but that’s ok, supports our Cold War enemy and current yet people are ok with it, reduces government services while enriching himself and his family, incites an attempt to circumvent the election but people still want to choose him, actually says he will act as a dictator yet there’s still support, damaged the ability of our government to function but that’s cool, started trade wars out of spite or impulse yet no one objects, then there’s the matter of hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths by contradicting his own public health advisors on how to handle an epidemic

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[–] [email protected] 117 points 9 months ago (5 children)

Who didn't see that coming-Trump is the worst president.

Remember when Trump asked Russia to help him win the election. Or when Trump thought light brought into the body would cure covid. Or when Trump believed the murderer Putin over our own government. Or...well I could go on, but Trump worked for that last spot on the list. He deserves it.

[–] [email protected] 54 points 9 months ago (7 children)

I'd hazard a guess that it's less to do with his conduct as president, rather more of what he actually did in office. I honestly can't think of anything his administration "achieved" aside from massive tax cuts for the rich. Obama had the ACA, Biden has his massive economic recovery and job creation, Trump has nothing of value.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago

. I honestly can't think of anything his administration "achieved" aside from massive tax cuts for the rich.

Does fucking up the covid response and breaking the brains of all Americans count as achievements?

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[–] [email protected] 87 points 9 months ago

And so early on a Monday morning to post this too...

[–] [email protected] 83 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Raw Story is garbage. Not because it's partizan, but because it's lazy.

"MAGA freaks out..." is 3 people responding to a fox news tweet identified by their twitter handle, another who's not even identified that way, and some other rando who doesn't agree. That's it, that's the story.

IDK what kind of sweatshop the reporters working for that outlet are laboring under, but there is nothing in this "article" that couldn't be hammered out in 10 min on a smartphone.

Just because it's lefty garbage, doesn't mean it's not garbage.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (7 children)

Step 1: Put out outrageous conspiracy theories or policies on twitter
Step 2: Wait for crazies to comment and create a high engagement shitstorm
Step 3: Now you can reference those outrageous things on mainstream media
...
Step 4: Profit
Step 5: Armageddon

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[–] [email protected] 79 points 9 months ago (22 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)

How the fuck is Reagan top 20

[–] can 27 points 9 months ago

America is a sad place.

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[–] [email protected] 60 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (19 children)

For me, Trump is ultimately the last president who could possibly have enacted and globally promoted actual climate science based reforms that at least might have stood a chance at preparing America and the world a way forward through what is going to be an extremely challenging next few decades.

Instead he was an incompetent idiot criminal mobster bully who crystalized nascent fascism, religious extremism and anti intellectualism into an unstoppable political force, and in the process broke basically the brains of all of America in one way or another, utterly destroyed our reputation to the rest of the world, and has left an utterly catastrophic political situation in his aftermath, that basically only FDR could possibly hope to do any better than mitigate.

Say what you will about exact placement of other Presidents but Trump very obviously deserves the bottom spot.

The fact that having this 'opinion' outloud in a bar in basically most of America would get me assaulted is further proof that this collosal evil doofus is essentially the best argument against American Exceptionalism I can think of, but I am again literally likely to be assaulted for having it.

Anyway, tl:dr, we're doomed now, thanks Trump.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Worst is a pretty high bar to clear though. Like, Jackson literally committed the Trail of Tears, genociding all the Indians against the express orders of the SCOTUS, who he told to pound sand because he controlled the army and there wasn't jack or shit they could do to stop him.

Like, Trump was real real bad for sure, but like, Trail of Tears, literal death marches at gunpoint bad? Idk.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Wait until his second term and you will probably agree with the lowest possible rank for Trump.

Or you can make the sort of detached cynical and dehumanizing raw numbers argument that without Trump doing basically everything he could to fuck up handling covid and spread insane misinformation, he is largely the most responsible of all people in America for covid deaths beyond basically the first wave, roughly 9 times more people than were killed/displaced/genocided than Jackson's trail of tears.

I dont even want to attempt to get into some kind of moral argument about which of those things is worse, so there ya go, numbers based.

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[–] [email protected] 58 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Substantially so, he is the worst president in US history. He can hug all the flags he likes, but at the end of the day he’s for Donald Trump not the United States

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (12 children)

Buchanan was pretty terrible. I'm shocked that Trump was ranked even worse than him. He literally sat on the fence and let the country literally fall apart because he was afraid to do anything. Many think he could have avoided the civil war had he acted, but he was coward in the wrong place at the right time.

Trump sucks, easily in the bottom 5, and I could see an argument for him being the worst. But you have a big hill to climb to make the case for him to be substantially worse than Buchanan.

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Lol, imagine being ranked as a worse president than William Henry Harrison who died immediately.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 9 months ago

Hell he may be the best president

[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago

He sets the bar for break-even.

Didnt make things better or worse.

Judt gave a speech and then died.

Some would consoder that ideal.

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

Two things that make Trump the worst and arguably traitor to the US. Just so you know where I stand.

  1. He literally try to overturn an election and remain king.

  2. He piled on $8,400,000,000,000 to national debt. $2.5T came from his stupid tax cut law, which were only off set in the billions of increased tariffs, and about $2.3 from discretionary spending increase, plain old Republicans in charge and spending out the wazzu. Saving the last one $3.6T for COVID relief and laws, which everyone and their grandma pointed out the potential for fraud and abuse, but no guard rails were put in place and DOJ is merely chasing back millions in peanuts only because some fraudster was too stupid to keep their mouths shut.

Circumventing the Constitution and exacerbating the wealth inequality, were real acts of degrading the US, and at best just not giving a damn about the American people. Compared to all the other crap he did that were more performative, while below the office if the President, these two things have long term effect of weakening the county that I love. He's the worst President and the modern Republicans are only in for themselves.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 9 months ago

I would argue the damage from stacking the Supreme Court with corrupt nut jobs may have the worst fall out in the end.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago (14 children)

I think you should add in the incompetence in handling the whole covid fiasco.

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Everyone debating the outcomes but no one’s talking about the criteria the list is based on. What criteria they used has to be discussed before we can debate why we think it’s wrong or if a particular president should actually be here or there.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Just assume the criteria is not being a corrupt, lying, incompetent, democracy-hating puppet of belligerent foreign enemies.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 9 months ago (6 children)

Honestly Andrew Jackson ought to be way down at the bottom too

[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago

Guess whose portrait they had hung in the oval when Trump took over the job?

https://time.com/4649081/andrew-jackson-donald-trump-portrait/

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Jackson is not in the bottom but Harrison is? People need to read some history books. Dying 35 days into your presidency is worse than a genocide?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago (6 children)

I've always thought that Harrison should be ranked much higher in these lists. If you equate his presidency with "doing absolutely nothing," then logically he should rank above all of the presidents who actively harmed the country/world. And there are quite a few of 'em.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Putting Harrison in the bottom five is just mean. It wasn't his fault he died 20 days into his term.

Well, it was kind of his fault. But more the doctors' fault.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (1 children)

We were assigned a random president in high school, and I had to write a paper on his presidency. My paper was too short.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago

Same. I wrote a ton of pages about his work as governor and lost points bc it didn't cover his achievements as president. I asked the teacher if she could name one, and she told me that was my job. She was forced to retire after that year.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago (11 children)

I wouldn't say Obama is a top 10 president but he was a good president.

Meanwhile Trump was objectively a terrible president - a venal, mercurial, criminal narcissist who sold out his allies and whose incompetence managed to kill hundreds of thousands of people during a pandemic and capped off his term with an insurrection. Not enough history has passed to judge exactly where he is in relation to some other terrible presidents but I reckon he'll be in the bottom 3 for sure.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Kinda funny that William Henry Harrison managed 41st place, considering he was only president for a few weeks in 1841. Considering the rankings were voted on by "self-styled experts", part of me wonders if they did that on purpose.

Also took me a moment to realize why the list includes 46 presidents (up to Biden) but only has 45 rankings. For anyone else who's wondering, it's because of Grover Cleveland's non-consecutive terms making him both the 22nd and 24th president.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If it makes them feel better... Trump makes the top 10 in my lifetime...

  1. Obama
  2. Clinton
  3. Carter
  4. Reagan
  5. Biden
  6. H.W. Bush
  7. Ford
  8. W. Bush
  9. Nixon
  10. Trump
[–] [email protected] 36 points 9 months ago (7 children)

Sort of amazed you have Reagan so high

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago

Franklin Pierce at 42

Pierce and Buchanan are always bottom tier. One laid groundwork for the Civil War and the other lit the match ensuring Lincoln would, if elected President, increase hostilities.

Pierce at 42 should in my mind be 44 if not 43. Trump coming in at 45 seems about right, maybe 44 if I’m being generous.

But Trump literally tried overthrowing the US government. There’s just no way history is going to be kind to him. There’s nothing that can be done, no one can go back and undo the past.

Dude’s lasting legacy is going to be defined by pretty much, “Oh yeah, he attempted to overthrow the US government. And he was so powerful and charismatic, he got nominated to run for President again to get a second swipe at overthrowing the Government.”

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago

They can freak out all they like. Obama was better.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The Fox News report was teased on social media with this tagline: "New presidential rankings place Obama in top 10, Reagan and Trump below Biden."

Seems like an understatement.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (12 children)

The conservative outlet noted that the figures were based on a survey of **154 respondents **[...]

That's... Not what we call a statistically valid sample size.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Note, that is not 154 random people on the street. That is 154 US academics specializing in presidential politics, a much smaller total population.

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