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."
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"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."
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.
I think it is less a judgment of how good Obama was buy rather an indictment of how bad (or inconsequential) most presidents have been.
That being said, the executive branch was really only as powerful was it is today rather recently. For the majority of the US existence it was just another bureaucratic office of government.
What are 10 presidents that are better than Obama, according to you?
Not the other guy but ill throw out a list of mine.
This aint an organized list, just those I considerr better than Obama. Also using Washington is a bit of an asspull on my part but I dont care.
Ok, thanks for sharing.
I'd be hard pressed to name 10 presidents that were better...
Edit: would love for someone to give me an actual list (with actual reasons for the non-obvious ones. The only person who even attempted so far didn't name 10, and included famous KKK supporter (member?) Woodrow Wilson, so...
I bet you would be.
Go ahead and do it then. I think we're both probably a bit too old for the whole "lul you can't name all of the presidents" shit, but hey if that's all ya got...
Or you can go ahead and do it. Make me look like an idiot.
And tell me why you think the non-obvious ones that you pull out of your ass deserve higher on the list.
You might not but there are plenty of lists that do and give their reasons. The likes of Lincoln, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Washington, Wilson, Kennedy, Reagan, Lyndon Johnson are frequently listed ahead of him and for some obvious reasons. Obama might squeak into the top 10 of some compilation lists, maybe higher if people only consider modern presidents.
Lol Wilson? Ummm...
Also, no way Reagan deserves to be ever close.
Argue with the scholars who made the lists, not me
I mean ok I will...
But I don't remember asking for 10 presidents that scholars think were better than Obama. That's literally their job, I'm sure they could have discussions on the topic for countless hours.
I was asking you, a normal American citizen in the year 2024, to name 9 presidents that were better than Obama (and the reasoning would be nice, but I know the caliber of discussion here, so I won't hold my breath).
Besides, if you're going to put a Wilson on the list, it should probably be Edith, as she essentially ran the county while good ol' KKK Woody was stroked out and incapacitated. Something the public wasn't fully aware of until much later. We have laws governing who assumes control in such situations, but I guess fuck all that shit, right? Good presidents don't lie about being incapacitated while their wife covers for them.
People like to attach Wilson's name/legacy to the League of Nations (which the US never joined, and ultimately failed), and tend to rank him highly entirely for this reason, ignoring all of the awful and racist shit he did. And yeah maybe that was par for the course at the time for rich old white dudes, but that's exactly why he doesn't stand out among his peers enough to be top 10 imo.
TL;DR - I wasn't looking for some scholar's list, but just a normal US citizen in (current year) for a top 10 that is actually well informed and well reasoned, and doesn't include Obama. I think most people would be hard pressed to do so.
At this point I'd be happy to take an average American that can name ten presidents that don't include: Trump, Bush, Obama, Biden, or Clinton.