It's basically a beauty contest run by leftist academics. But FWIW, here it is. IMO they got the top three and the bottom two right. Everything in between I disagree with, in some cases pretty strongly. That said, I don't rank presidents in order. That's a bit too subjective for my taste. I grade them. Here is my list.
Grades
- A+ GOAT
- A Great
- A- Near Great
- B+ Very Good
- B Good
- B- Good(ish)
- C+ Above Average
- C Average
- C- Below Average
- D+ Poor
- D Bad
- D- Very Bad
- F Catastrophically Bad
- U Unrated
Presidents in chronological order
- George Washington: A
- John Adams: C
- Thomas Jefferson: B
- James Madison: C+
- James Monroe: B-
- John Q. Adams C-
- Andrew Jackson D+
- Martin Van Buren C-
- William H. Harrison: U (only in office for 1 month)
- John Tyler: C-
- James K. Polk: B+
- Zachary Taylor: C
- Millard Fillmore: D+
- Franklin Pierce: D
- James Buchannan: F
- Abraham Lincoln: A+
- Andrew Johnson: D-
- Ulysses S. Grant: B-
- Rutheford B. Hayes: C
- James Garfield: U (only in office 6 months and incapacitated for half that)
- Chester Arthur: C+
- Grover Cleveland: B-
- Benjamin Harrison: C
- Grover Cleveland: C+ (2nd term is rated slightly lower than 1st)
- William McKinley: B
- Theodore Roosevelt: A-
- William H. Taft: C+
- Woodrow Wilson: D
- Warren G Harding: C-
- Calvin Coolidge: B
- Herbert Hoover: D+
- Franklin D. Roosevelt: A (mostly on the basis of his war record)
- Harry Truman: B
- Dwight D. Eisenhower: A-
- John F. Kennedy: B-
- Lyndon B. Johnson: C+
- Richard Nixon: D+
- Gerald R. Ford: C
- Jimmy Carter: C-
- Ronald Reagan: A-
- George H. W. Bush: B
- William J. Clinton: C+ (the last fiscally sane president)
- George W. Bush: C-
- Barrack Obama: B-
- Donald J. Trump: F
- Joeseph R. Biden: U (incumbent but not looking too good for future rankings)
* Grades are not based exclusively on how well they conform to my own political beliefs, but also include how effective they were as a political leader, what they got done in terms of their objectives, their impact on the country while in office and the long-term consequences of their presidency whether for good or ill. To get a solid A from me, the president had to have either successfully dealt with some grave crisis that may have posed an existential threat to the country or, in the case of Washington, successfully set up a new country largely from scratch and given almost all future presidents guideposts in how to conduct themselves. To get an F from me, the president's record has to have gone well beyond mere corruption, incompetence, and/or the pursuit of bad policy. Their conduct in office must have been so egregious that they materially threatened the survival of the Republic. Happily, only two earned that grade.
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