Rank Trump 1-45 (Aug. 2017)

[dead0man]

bottom 3

[SWE]

I reject the premise of this question. Let's stop pretending there were 45 presidents.

That being said, at this point, Trump's incompetence has limited the amount of damage he's been able to accomplish, so at this point, there's still a few Presidents below him. I'd say Polk, Buchanan, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, and Bush II are still below him, in no particular order.

[BudgieForce]

I reject the premise of this question. Let's stop pretending there were 45 presidents.

That being said, at this point, Trump's incompetence has limited the amount of damage he's been able to accomplish, so at this point, there's still a few Presidents below him. I'd say Polk, Buchanan, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, and Bush II are still below him, in no particular order.

Uhm...

[Middle-aged Europe]

I reject the premise of this question. Let's stop pretending there were 45 presidents.

That being said, at this point, Trump's incompetence has limited the amount of damage he's been able to accomplish, so at this point, there's still a few Presidents below him. I'd say Polk, Buchanan, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, and Bush II are still below him, in no particular order.

Uhm...

Well, he didn't exactly say which Johnson.

[HisGrace]

No except for maybe Andrew Johnson has been less competent in the job.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

I can't place him much higher than 34 after The Mooch. A rather tragic fall of at least 15 spots. One of the most dreadful mistakes in the history of the country's highest office, but enough have disgraced it before to save him from the bottom 10

[Stranger in a strange land]

bottom 3. Too early to tell if he'll end up being worse than James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson.

[elcorazon]

hard to see him above being #45 frankly

[Thank you for being a friend...]

He's the worst person to ever become President.  In terms of accomplishments that are positive for the country's progress, he has zilch. 

He has none of the positive qualities other bad Presidents have had.  There's nothing redeeming about him- he's just a very insecure, mentally ill, nasty man who has no business being in charge of anything.

[pbrower2a]

He's the worst person to ever become President.  In terms of accomplishments that are positive for the country's progress, he has zilch. 

He has none of the positive qualities other bad Presidents have had.  There's nothing redeeming about him- he's just a very insecure, mentally ill, nasty man who has no business being in charge of anything.

Add "hollow" or "shallow".

[Senator Spark]

33

[AN63093]

Way too early to give him a rating, or even predict what his eventual rating will be.  It is somewhat unfortunate to see some of the lack of historical perspective in this thread, albeit not terribly surprising.

When evaluating presidents, I attempt to imagine what people will be saying about him 100 years from now.  What will a future textbook write about him?  Most people have myopia and a sense of self-importance, so they tend to grossly exaggerate how important their lifetime (and their current president) is, and they proclaim that certain presidents must be the "best ever" or "worst ever."  The sorry truth is that most presidents end up in a large forgettable mass that no one remembers.  Like Harrison.  I bet if you asked a majority of Americans, even people with a college education, they wouldn't be able to tell you a single thing that happened in Harrison's administration, or even who he was.

You see this with even major events.  I was in college when Iraq kicked off, and even before it descended into chaos, I'd never hear the end of how it was basically the greatest human atrocity since the freaking Holocaust (said without exaggeration and a completely straight face, mind you).  Ask a current high school student what they think about it now, and they either don't care, or are as likely to respond to that exaggeration with the same eyeroll that Gen X kids did when the Boomers would get going on Vietnam.

And so will be the same with Trump.  Right now I picture a history textbook 100 years from now saying the following: that, unlike other presidents, he was an outsider who had no public service experience, and that he was elected in a contentious primary that saw splits in the party.  And that's probably it.  Because the truth of the matter is, he just hasn't done a whole lot yet.  The only real notable event in his presidency so far was the failure to get Obamacare repealed, and that was moreso the GOP's failings than his (as they backed themselves into a corner of their own making, but that's another topic).  No one 100 years from now will know, or care, of what he tweeted one monday morning at 630 AM.  That may distress some of you, but it's the truth, whether you choose to accept it or not.

So I place him maybe somewhere in the 30s right now, as he hasn't really done much yet, with the giant caveat that I discussed above, that ranking current presidents is rather silly.

At some point, Trump will be tested by a major event, such as economic downturn, and that will change the evaluation significantly.  Or he won't be.  And then somewhere in the 30s he'll probably remain, remembered only for the fact that he was an outsider, and that's pretty much it.

[SWE]

I reject the premise of this question. Let's stop pretending there were 45 presidents.

That being said, at this point, Trump's incompetence has limited the amount of damage he's been able to accomplish, so at this point, there's still a few Presidents below him. I'd say Polk, Buchanan, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, and Bush II are still below him, in no particular order.

Uhm...

I was referring to Andrew Johnson, not LBJ. I'm guessing I don't need to justify that one.

With regards to Polk, if I'm going to rate Buchanan as harshly as I do, it would take quite a bit of cognitive dissonance to not judge Polk similarly.

While there's no one, damning thing I can point to with Reagan, like, say, the Bush and Iraq or Buchanan and slavery, I think in sheer number of individual horrible things done while in office, the Reagan administration has to take the cake. From his support for death squads, terrorists, and dictatorships abroad, to his policy of "Reaganomics" at home, which created a great deal of misery by leading to things such as dramatically  increasing homeless, environmental destruction, union busting, to his Jim Crow-esque drug policies, to the fact that he was literally a traitor, Reagan definitely warrants a mention when discussing the worst presidents. And I won't even say anything about the AIDS crisis, because Reagan didn't either.

[Rookie Yinzer]

40.

I have Andrew Johnson, Bush 43, Harding, Buchanan, and Pierce below him.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Dumb to rate a President less than a year into his tenure. At any rate, he hasn't done anything spectacularly ill-judged like the Iraq War or Teapot Dome yet.

[Mr. Smith]

Atm, 39 [38 if you don't separate Cleveland]

Is inherently locked below 35, as is any Reaganomics Republican.

[mileslunn]

Although I don't live in the US, I would probably put him as 45.  True some of the earlier presidents might be worse, but you need to put things in context.  What was acceptable 100 years ago may not be today.  He seems a lot like leaders you see in many third world countries today and I don't think any president in living memory you could make that type of comparison.  I didn't like George W. Bush, but would take him any day over Trump.  At least he had good intentions even if results were bad, whereas Trump is a narcissists eglomaniac who only cares about his own ego.

[AtorBoltox]

Dumb to rate a President less than a year into his tenure. At any rate, he hasn't done anything spectacularly ill-judged like the Iraq War or Teapot Dome yet.

Russiagate?

[GGover]

Dumb to rate a President less than a year into his tenure. At any rate, he hasn't done anything spectacularly ill-judged like the Iraq War or Teapot Dome yet.

He also hasn't really done anything worth mentioning.

I'm opposed to all of his major "accomplishments" like are getting Gorsuch on the court (it's really McConnell's accomplishment), pulling out of the TPP, and pulling out of the Paris Accords.

[HisGrace]

Dumb to rate a President less than a year into his tenure. At any rate, he hasn't done anything spectacularly ill-judged like the Iraq War or Teapot Dome yet.

He also hasn't really done anything worth mentioning.

I'm opposed to all of his major "accomplishments" like are getting Gorsuch on the court (it's really McConnell's accomplishment), pulling out of the TPP, and pulling out of the Paris Accords.

Surprised a socialist would support TPP.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Dumb to rate a President less than a year into his tenure. At any rate, he hasn't done anything spectacularly ill-judged like the Iraq War or Teapot Dome yet.

Russiagate?

We don't know how bad that is yet.

[Bojack Horseman]

As echoed by the others, definitely in the bottom five. By the end of this soap opera nightmare, he'll probably be dead last.

[Nyvin]

Dead Last,  or at the very best bottom three.   

If he withdraws from Afghanistan I'll rank him higher though.

[Del Tachi]

Objectively in the bottom 5 so far for incompetence. Theoretically there's plenty of time to improve, even improve drastically, but we all know that's extremely unlikely.

[°Leprechaun]

He's tied for last place with W, but it depends on whether the US goes to war while he is in charge.