Trump is Fourth From the Bottom

They asked the historians what they thought of Donald Trump, and not surprisingly he ranks near the bottom, but not dead last - fourth-worst - which really surprises me. I’d rather have someone in that office with the gravitas of James Buchanan any day, compared to Trump. 

The big Cinderella story in regards to the historians in recent years is the rise of Ulysses Grant. When I was a kid, historians, with their ranks filled with white Southerners, ranked him dead last, even below Buchanan. He’s now about 20th. There are more minorities in historian ranks these days, and greater interest in Black history, and Grant is finally getting credit for his far-sighted but doomed Reconstruction policies.

Overall, historians ranked Trump as the fourth-worst president ever, coming in one spot below former President William Henry Harrison, who died after just one month in office. The only presidents on the list to rank worse than Trump were Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson, and James Buchanan.

From C-SPAN: HISTORIANS SURVEY RESULTS CATEGORY TOTAL SCORES/OVERALL RANKINGS President 2021 Final Score Overall Rankings 2021 2017 2009 2000 

Abraham Lincoln               897 1 1 1 1 

George Washington            851 2 2 2 3 

Franklin D. Roosevelt        841 3 3 3 2 

Theodore Roosevelt           785 4 4 4 4 

Dwight D. Eisenhower      734 5 5 8 9 

Harry S. Truman                713 6 6 5 5 

Thomas Jefferson              704 7 7 7 7 

John F. Kennedy                699 8 8 6 8 

Ronald Reagan                  681 9 9 10 11 

Barack Obama                  664 10 12 NA NA 

Lyndon B. Johnson           654 11 10 11 10 

James Monroe                   643 12 13 15 14 

Woodrow Wilson              617 13 11 9 6 

William McKinley            612 14 16 16 15 

John Adams                      609 15 19 17 16 

James Madison                 604 16 17 20 18 

John Quincy Adams         603 17 21 19 19 

James K. Polk                  599 18 14 12 12 

William J. Clinton           594 19 15 14 21 

Ulysses S. Grant              590 20 22 23 33 

George H. W. Bush          585 21 20 18 20 

Andrew Jackson              568 22 18 13 13 

William Howard Taft       543 23 24 24 24 

Calvin Coolidge               535 24 26 26 27 

Grover Cleveland             523 25 23 21 17 

Jimmy Carter                   506 26 27 25 22 

James A. Garfield            506 27 29 28 29 

Gerald R. Ford                 498 28 25 22 23 

George W. Bush               495 29 33 36 NA 

Chester A. Arthur             472 30 35 32 32 

Richard M. Nixon            464 31 28 27 26 

Benjamin Harrison           462 32 30 30 31 

Rutherford B. Hayes        456 33 31 33 25 

Martin Van Buren             455 34 34 31 30 

Zachary Taylor                 449 35 32 29 28 

Herbert Hoover                396 36 36 34 34 

Warren G. Harding           388 37 40 38 38 

Millard Fillmore               378 38 37 37 35 

John Tyler                         354 39 39 35 36 

William Henry Harrison   354 40 38 39 37 

Donald J. Trump               312 41 NA NA NA 

Franklin Pierce                 312 42 41 40 39 

Andrew Johnson               230 43 42 41 40 

James Buchanan               227 44 43 42 41