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.”
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.