FINAL RANKING:
https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=411693.0The goal of this thread is to rank the presidents.
We have 45 presidents (44 presidencies) so my plan is to divide them up into groups by approximately their time period. We will rank presidents within their time period, then use those rankings to sort them from worst to best. I will keep some interesting stats as well.
Although I personally have strong opinions here I will refrain from biasing the discussion by including my own rankings. Feel free to include numeric scores and/or justifications for your rankings as well, to make it more interesting and spark debate. I will keep track of every ranking so you are welcome to fill the thread with debate.
Currently we are on week 9. Rank these terrible presidents from best to worst.
Week 9: Worst of the WorstWilliam Henry Harrison
Martin Van Buren
Andrew Jackson
Millard Fillmore
John Tyler
Franklin Pierce
Andrew Johnson
James Buchanan
Benjamin Harrison
Warren Harding
Herbert Hoover
Richard Nixon
George W. Bush
Donald Trump
FINAL RANKING1: Abraham Lincoln (1.179)
2: Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1.162)
3: George Washington (1.144)
4: Theodore Roosevelt (1.96)
5: Lyndon B. Johnson (1.77)
6: Harry Truman (1.75)
7: Dwight Eisenhower (1.73)
8: Ulysses S. Grant (1.49)
9: Barack Obama (1.45)
10: Thomas Jefferson (1.43)
11: James Monroe (2.63)
12: John Quincy Adams (2.62)
13: James Madison (2.47)
14: Bill Clinton (2.44)
15: John F. Kennedy (2.36)
16: George H.W. Bush (2.36)
17: John Adams (2.35)
18: Ronald Reagan (2.34)
19: Zachary Taylor (2.31)
20: Jimmy Carter (2.30)
21: Woodrow Wilson (3.48)
22: William Howard Taft (3.41)
23: Gerald Ford (3.39)
24: William McKinley (3.34)
25: James Garfield (3.31)
26: Grover Cleveland (3.29)
27: James K. Polk (3.28)
28: Calvin Coolidge (3.23)
29: Chester A. Arthur (3.23)
30: Rutherford B. Hayes (3.20)
and more to come...
Week 1 Results1: George Washington (avg 1.25)
2: James Monroe (3.5)
3: Thomas Jefferson (3.75)
4: John Quincy Adams (4.33)
5: James Madison (4.5)
6: John Adams (5)
7: Martin Van Buren (6.67)
8: Andrew Jackson (7)
Standard deviations:
Washington: 0.62
Van Buren: 1.37
Madison: 1.38
Jackson: 1.41
Monroe: 1.45
Adams: 1.86
Jefferson: 1.96
JQA: 2.19
so lots of confidence on George Washington being the best, and a lot of wildly different opinions about Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams.
Week 2 Results1: Abraham Lincoln (1.05)
2: Ulysses S. Grant (2.71)
3: Zachary Taylor (3.62)
4: James K. Polk (4.09)
5: William Henry Harrison (5.05)
6: Millard Fillmore (5.43)
7: John Tyler (6.67)
8: Franklin Pierce (7.90)
9: Andrew Johnson (8.33)
10: James Buchanan (9.67)
Standard deviations:
Lincoln: 0.22
Buchanan: 0.66
Taylor: 0.92
Pierce: 1.14
Grant: 1.23
Johnson: 1.28
Fillmore: 1.33
Tyler: 1.39
Harrison: 1.54
Polk: 1.97
so if there's one thing Atlas can agree on... it's that Zachary Taylor was lowkey a pretty good president. And there are a lot of diverse opinions on Polk.
Week 3 Results1: Theodore Roosevelt (1.27)
2: William Howard Taft (4)
3: James Garfield (4.18)
4: Chester A. Arthur (4.56)
5: William McKinley (4.83)
6: Benjamin Harrison (5.17)
7: Grover Cleveland (5.22)
8: Rutherford B. Hayes (6.38)
Standard deviations:
Roosevelt: 0.83
Hayes: 1.72
Harrison: 1.79
Cleveland: 1.80
Garfield: 1.81
Taft: 1.94
Arthur: 2.04
McKinley: 2.36
This is probably the most difficult set to rank. The Civil War Era presidents were all short-lived failures, but at least it's fun to decide who was more odious and deplorable between drunk moron Franklin Pierce and actual confederate John Tyler. Up until McKinley, these presidents are just a parade of unremarkable mediocrities, distinguished mainly by their positions on obscure economic debates that are entirely irrelevant today. We can see the lack of strong opinions in the high standard deviation (other than TR, the rankings were more diverse than all Civil War presidents other than Polk). We can also see it in the fact that no average was higher than #4, again other than TR. McKinley is the most controversial of all. The man is generally considered a very successful president, but his biggest "successes" are acquiring Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, and (sort of) Cuba, essentially by stealing them from Spain. Just as with James K. Polk, many on Atlas reject the notion of territorial acquisition as an accomplishment.
Week 4 Results1: Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1.36)
2: Dwight D. Eisenhower (3.11)
3: Harry S. Truman (3.58)
4: Lyndon Baines Johnson (3.68)
5: John F. Kennedy (5.26)
6: Woodrow Wilson (6.33)
7: Calvin Coolidge (6.37)
8: Warren G. Harding (7.42)
9: Herbert Hoover (7.84)
Standard deviations:
FDR: 0.83
JFK: 0.93
Ike: 1.24
Hoover: 1.26
Wilson: 1.64
Coolidge: 1.71
LBJ: 1.83
Harding: 2.04
Truman: 2.24
Like the other three eras thus far, this one has a clear winner (FDR). This is followed by a strong second tier of Ike/Truman/LBJ, Kennedy is the agreed-upon median, and beneath Kennedy are a set of presidents who are either failures (Harding/Hoover), unremarkable (Coolidge), or very difficult to judge (Wilson). There's also an odd contingent of Truman haters out there -- without the two folks ranking him last, he would have easily been #2. Die-hard Dewey fans perhaps?
Week 5 Results1: Barack Obama (2.29)
2: Bill Clinton (3.41)
3: Jimmy Carter (3.68)
4: Gerald Ford (4.18)
5: George HW Bush (4.27)
6: Ronald Reagan (5.14)
7: Richard Nixon (5.91)
8: George W Bush (7.55)
9: Donald Trump (8.21)
Standard Deviations:
George HW Bush: 1.20
George W Bush: 1.26
Gerald Ford: 1.43
Richard Nixon: 1.63
Donald Trump: 1.72
Barack Obama: 1.90
Bill Clinton: 1.97
Jimmy Carter: 2.36
Ronald Reagan: 2.62
Trump goes down as the most unanimously-despised president of his set, second only to James Buchanan in Atlasian's confidence that he is the worst of this set. Meanwhile Carter's presidency, widely perceived as unsuccessful, has a solid fan club on Atlas. Obama gets very high marks, although not rising to the stratospheric levels of Washington, Lincoln and the Roosevelts.
