Fun with Ranking Presidents

Boise State has released their latest ranking of the Presidents. As I’ve said many times before, this is an absurd undertaking. It’s impossible to fairly compare Presidents who faced different challenges, different worlds, different expectations, different jobs. I do find them fascinating. It’s worth it to see how modern politics affects how experts view history. Before reading further, I suggest you click the link above and look at their methodology and breakdowns. Don’t comment on bias in this list. It’s addressed in the breakdown.

On the breakdown, they mention that they asked the experts about which presidents were the most polarizing. More fascinating than the answer to that question is the actual breakdown on ideological lines in the study itself. They broke down how the experts voted based on their political affiliation. The differences and similarities among Republicans, Democrats, Conservatives, and Liberals is worth a look. First, where all four groups agree:

Within the Top 10: Lincoln Washington FDR T Roosevelt Jefferson Truman Eisenhower

Firmly in the middle: Cleveland Grant Ford

Within the Bottom 10: Taylor Tyler Harding Fillmore Trump Pierce A Johnson WH Harrison Buchanan

You read that right. Even Republicans and Conservatives can agree Trump is already one of the worst presidents in American history. They think he’s worse than Taylor and Fillmore, whose lack of leadership put us on the unavoidable path to Civil War. They think he’s worse than Harding, who is considered the most corrupt president. Taylor, nor Fillmore, nor Harding even completed a full term, and right leaning experts still think Trump is worse. The only way they disagree with the left leaning ones is whether Trump is the worst president, or merely terrible.

Speaking of disagreements, here are notable entries when contrasting the lists:

• Comparing Republicans to Democrats, 22 presidents rank the same, or within 2 places.
• Republicans much prefer McKinley +13, Coolidge +12, Taft +11, Reagan +9, Polk +8
• Democrats much prefer JFK by +12, LBJ +11, Madison +11, Obama +10, Carter +8
• Comparing Conservatives to Liberals, 20 presidents rank the same, or within 2 places
• Conservatives much prefer Coolidge +18, McKinley +14, Reagan +11, W Bush +10, HW Bush +8
• Liberals much prefer Obama +16, JFK +14, LBJ +12, Carter +12, Wilson +11

It’s worth noting that I’m using positive language here, but it’s not just that one side prefers the other. As our country becomes more polarized, the opposition group is harder on the other side. These presidents represent a strong vision one way or the other, in a way that makes the opposition think they’ve actually harmed the country.

Comparing to Me:

In a much less scientific fashion, I wanted to compare this official list with the list I made a while back. I tried very hard to remove political leanings from my ranking. It’s the closest thing to an unbiased list, if for no other reason than I know my own biases, as opposed to some other supposedly impartial list. First, here’s my list, with how my list compares to theirs (eg-McKinley +12 means I ranked him 12 places higher than the Boise State list).

FUCKING SWEET 1. Lincoln  0 2. Washington 0 3. FD. Roosevelt 0 4. T. Roosevelt 0 5. Jefferson 0 PRETTY GOOD 6. Truman 0 7. McKinley +12 8. LB. Johnson +2 9. Eisenhower -2 10. Jackson +5 11. Wilson 0 12. Polk +8 13. Monroe +5 14. Reagan -5 15. Obama -7 16. Kennedy 0 17. HW. Bush 0 18. Cleveland 0 19. Coolidge +9 20. Clinton -7 21. Grant 0 KINDA EH 22. Hayes +7 23. Madison -11 24. Taft -2 25. Q. Adams -2

26. Garfield  +8 27. Arthur +4 28. B. Harrison +4 29. Adams -15 PRETTY BAD 30. Carter -4 31. Taylor +4 32. Ford  -7 33. Van Buren -6 34. WH. Harrison +8 ------------------------------- 35. Hoover +1 36. Fillmore +2 37. Tyler 0 38. Harding +1 MISERABLE FUCK UP WHOSE ACTIONS AS PRESIDENT (A) CHEAPENED THE OFFICE, (B) KILLED THE PUBLIC'S FAITH IN THEIR PUBLIC SERVANTS, (C) WIDENED THE GAP BETWEEN THE GOVERNMENT AND THE PEOPLE, (D) AND/OR WENT BEYOND SUPPORTING SLAVERY TO THE POINT OF OPENLY ADVANCING THE CAUSE OF SUBJUGATING BLACK AMERICANS 39. Nixon (A-C) -6 40. W. Bush (A-C) -10 41. Pierce (A, C, D) 0 41a. Trump (A-C) * 42. Buchanan (A-D) +1 43. A. Johnson (A-D) -4

*It is way too soon to judge his presidency fairly. We don’t know yet if he will do more damage to black America than Buchanan or Johnson. I guess time will tell if he’s the worst president, or just regular terrible.

The first thing that popped out is that since Nixon, I rank modern presidents, as a group, a lot lower. From Nixon to Obama, they rank an average of 5.75 places lower. If you remove that 0 at HW Bush, it’s 6.57. Either I’m way too hard on modern presidents, or these guys are giving way too much credit to these guys. I mean, really? Obama and Reagan deserve to be higher than LBJ or Wilson? What did they accomplish that compares to the Civil Rights Act, the Great Society, winning World War I, establishing the Federal Reserve, or the League of Nations? Seems to me like people badly want to canonize a modern president to justify their own political leanings.

Some notable mentions:

• I got 12 zeroes! 12! Nailed it!
• 20 of mine were within 2 places of theirs
• My most underrated: Adams -15
• My most overrated: McKinley +12

Some of these differences make no sense to me. Adams was the only president in the first 5 to not get re-elected. He was wildly unpopular, and he passed the Alien & Sedition Acts, which remain some of the most repressive, un-American laws ever passed. Madison lost the War of 1812, and didn’t accomplish much else. How could they rank McKinley so low? He ushered in the Progressive Era and helped establish the US as a world power. Polk did more in four years than the much higher ranked Reagan, Obama, and Clinton did in eight.

And some notable mentions compared to the ideological breakdowns

• Republicans: W Bush +17, Taft +10, Reagan +9 / LBJ -11, JFK -8
• Conservatives: W Bush +17, Reagan +11 / LBJ -12, JFK -11, Wilson -10
• Democrats: Adams +14, Madison +12, W Bush +10 / McKinley -15, Coolidge -14, Polk -9
• Liberals: Adams +14, Madison +12, Obama +9 / McKinley -16, Coolidge -13, Polk -9