It’s a real challenge to out-worst the 3 presidents who dragged America into the Civil War and then bungled Reconstruction — that’s a very tough act to follow — and Trump didn’t quite make the cut, but he came close.
In updated rankings, 142 academic historians surveyed by C-Span have parked Trump just above the 3 worst presidents in U.S. history: James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, and Andrew Johnson, in that order.
The rankings result from a compilation of scores in 10 categories that include such factors as crisis leadership, economic management, relations with Congress, moral authority, and “performance within the context of the times.”
Lincoln consistently ranks #1 and his predecessor, James Buchanan, continues to be ranked the worst president in American history as more lousy presidents are added to the rankings.
Those who hoped Trump would get assigned the bottom ranking will be disappointed, but probably weren’t being realistic. It’s really, really hard to inflict more misery on a country than by leading it into a civil war, although Trump tried. Buchanan, a pro-slavery, states-rights politician from Pennsylvania (!), defeated the incumbent, Pierce, for the 1856 nomination and thus snatched the blame for the Civil War away from Pierce, another northern politician who sucked up to southern slaveholders. Johnson earned the enmity of Congress, which impeached him, and future historians by trying to undo the South’s defeat by opposing the 14th Amendment granting citizenship to former slaves, restoring Confederate politicians to power in the secession states, and backing early Jim Crow laws.
In addition, Trump had a few things going for him; for example, his incompetence and cowardice arguably were assets that kept him from being even worse than he was. He didn’t, for example, attempt a military coup after losing reelection, nor order the military to shoot peaceful civil rights protesters; he only entertained those ideas and discussed them with aides and supporters. Talk is cheap and doesn’t count if you don’t follow through.
Read story here, and see the rankings here.
Image below: As bad a president as Andrew Jackson was (22), he’s unlikely to be bumped from the $20 bill by Trump (41), which will become obsolete anyway when its value plummets to less than a penny.
