Will Trump be below Buchanan in historical rankings?

[Benjamin Frank]

Two rankings of presidents significant enough to get on Wikipedia happened in 2018. One placed Trump at the very bottom, the other put him at #42, ahead of only Buchanan and Andrew Johnson.

I eagerly await more of those rankings soon. Accurate or not, they'll surely stick in Trump's craw.

Donald Trump: "Fake History!"

[GeneralMacArthur]

Two rankings of presidents significant enough to get on Wikipedia happened in 2018. One placed Trump at the very bottom, the other put him at #42, ahead of only Buchanan and Andrew Johnson.

I eagerly await more of those rankings soon. Accurate or not, they'll surely stick in Trump's craw.

Donald Trump: "Fake History!"

I can't decide whether I just want him to die as soon as possible for the good of the country, or whether I hope he lives long enough to see his entire party abandon and disown him and all the historians unite to rank him as the worst president in our nation's history.

[AltWorlder]

The fact that George Bush hasn't been mentioned in this thread is a grave oversight. Trump may be as ineffective and as inflammatory as Buchanan, but Bush's presidency was actively harmful, and in fact engendered the environment to give rise to Trump.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Eh, more of a Hoover or Benjamin Harrison type.

[Benjamin Frank]

The fact that George Bush hasn't been mentioned in this thread is a grave oversight. Trump may be as ineffective and as inflammatory as Buchanan, but Bush's presidency was actively harmful, and in fact engendered the environment to give rise to Trump.

The two worst Presidents since the start of the 20th Century. These are the two people Republicans have elected back to back.

[One Term Floridian]

Trump has been no where near as bad as Buchanan, and honestly these 5 president are still worse

1. James Buchanan
2. Franklin Pierce
3. Andrew Johnson
4. Herbert Hoover
5. John Tyler

Yeah I’m not about to be a hack and say that Trump was even anywhere close to the worst president we’ve ever had. Not even the worst president we’ve had in the 2000s. That (dis)honor should obviously go to George W. Bush. Bush would probably make it close to my bottom 5 and Trump would be around my bottom 8.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

I mean, it depends on how you look at it. Donald Trump hasn’t yet started a civil war, but then allot of politicians would have failed at least as badly as Buchanan while Trump has face planted in a way only he could.

[tjstarling]

Trump has been no where near as bad as Buchanan, and honestly these 5 president are still worse

1. James Buchanan
2. Franklin Pierce
3. Andrew Johnson
4. Herbert Hoover
5. John Tyler

Yeah I’m not about to be a hack and say that Trump was even anywhere close to the worst president we’ve ever had. Not even the worst president we’ve had in the 2000s. That (dis)honor should obviously go to George W. Bush. Bush would probably make it close to my bottom 5 and Trump would be around my bottom 8.

I tend to agree with OSR’s list. I may swap Johnson and Pierce and I’d probably put Trump in place of Tyler. Pre-Covid I was inclined to think the damage caused by W’s presidency was more extensive and more long-term than Trump’s. I’m not sure anymore. I think perhaps when viewing things from a global perspective, W’s actions and missteps are slightly worse. But I think Trump has, internally, within this country, done more to destroy the social and institutional fabrics of America. Politics and elections are rather joyless affairs now a days (he doesn’t deserve all the blame for this of course). No man has left the office of the president weaker and more diminished in modern times.

[pbrower2a]

America is not on the brink of dissolution through secession this time. Buchanan was all but bribing the slave-owning interests to stay in the Union, which is not a good way of preserving the Union. Once the bribes for staying in the Union, that game was up. Did Buchanan see any alternatives? Maybe not. Lincoln wasn't going to appease slave-masters

So what follows? The Civil War.

Donald Trump is a singular disgrace as a person, but we are not on the brink of any replay of the Civil War.  Except for deaths from COVID-19 and the stuffing of the Supreme Court with extremist ideologues, nothing that Trump has done isn't irreversible.   

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Trump has been no where near as bad as Buchanan, and honestly these 5 president are still worse

1. James Buchanan
2. Franklin Pierce
3. Andrew Johnson
4. Herbert Hoover
5. John Tyler

Not having Andrew Jackson in the bottom five is criminal.

That reminds me...is Biden finally gonna get Jackson off the $20?

[Inmate Trump]

There is no question whatsoever that he will be bottom 5.

I believe that with his refusal to concede, which promotes further division and erodes America’s world standing, as well as his horrendous response to the biggest crisis the world has faced in some time, coupled with his divisive, dangerous, and oftentimes racist rhetoric over the last four years that there is very little doubt he’ll move below James Buchanan as the absolute worst president in American history.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Buchanan's administration was so bad that his Secretary of War John B. Floyd (later a Confederate general) ordered hundreds of thousands of muskets and rifles removed from federal arsenals and sent to Southern states on the verge of secession. (An equivalent would be like Mike Pompeo sanctioning a gun-running operation for ISIS.) Buchanan didn't merely let the Civil War happen through his incompetence and inaction, his cabinet was full of secessionist sympathisers who did their level best to make sure the Confederacy could win a war against the federal government.

This isn't even touching on Buchanan outrageously violating the separation of powers and leaning on the Supreme Court to inflame sectional strife by abrogating the Missouri Compromise and making black citizenship illegal in Dred Scott.

[Samof94]

Buchanan's handling of the slavery issue is pretty analogous to Trump's handling of COVID-19.

Buchanan refused to acknowledge the reality of the problem, refused to accept the grave and impending threat facing the nation.  He refused to take the decisive action needed to offset the crisis.  Similarly, Trump refuses to acknowledge the reality of COVID, refuses to accept the threat it poses to the nation, refuses to take the decisive action required.

Buchanan stocked his administration with pro-slavery southerners and sympathized with their cause.  He allowed secessionist, pro-slavery organizations like the Knights of the Golden Circle and other filibusters to operate without impediment under his watch.  Similarly, Trump has surrounded himself with hack frauds like Dr. Atlas who take direct action to make the pandemic worse, endorses similar figures in the media and internet, and tells non-stop lies to the press and the American people about the pandemic.

Buchanan was an arrogant, belligerent prick whose sympathy for southern secessionists and pro-slavery causes was unassailable.  He refused to believe that he was wrong and refused to take any action that might imply that he was wrong.  Trump, similarly, is an arrogant, belligerent prick who buys into these idiotic and self-serving conspiracy theories about the pandemic, repeats them in public, and can not be convinced by evidence or reason.

You can make the argument that both men were treasonous, in that they betrayed their oaths of office by not only failing to protect the nation in a time of crisis, but actively working to undermine it.



The thing is, Buchanan places at the bottom of historical rankings for these actions alone.  The rest of his presidency was unsuccessful but uneventful and unmemorable.  Trump's COVID response is just one of the many, many terrible things he will be remembered for.  It's not even the worst facet of his legacy -- Trump's assault on American democracy will be viewed as far worse by history (as will the Republican Party's disgraceful participation in that assault).

Furthermore, Trump's malicious mishandling of COVID-19 was far more malignant and involved than Buchanan's mishandling of slavery.  It seems like not a day has gone by in the last eight months that Trump hasn't done something outrageous or harmful to try to get more people killed and exacerbate the crisis.



Trump's COVID-19 crisis has killed 230,000 Americans so far.  365,000 Americans died in the civil war (as did 290,000 confederate traitors, but they deserved to die and their deaths are a good thing).  The only question left is if Trump's crisis will lead to more dead Americans than Buchanan's.

Exactly. States stated seceding when he was still President just because Lincoln got elected. The war was coming anyway. Likewise, COVID-19 was obviously an external thing that exists for reasons unrelated to Trump. It’s origins relate more to Xi than Trump given China, while responding well to controlling it, let it get out of control in the first place.

[Blue3]

He won't be below Buchanan, unless he tries to start another civil war.

But he's bottom 5ish, along with Buchanan, Pierce, Johnson, and a few others from that era.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Trump at least got electoral votes. Buchanan was a flop in 2000.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Trump has been no where near as bad as Buchanan, and honestly these 5 president are still worse

1. James Buchanan
2. Franklin Pierce
3. Andrew Johnson
4. Herbert Hoover
5. John Tyler

Not having Andrew Jackson in the bottom five is criminal.

That reminds me...is Biden finally gonna get Jackson off the $20?

Probably not.  He's likely to return to the original plan to move Jackson from the front to the back to make room for Tubman on the front.

[StateBoiler]

Need to wait about 40 years before you can properly rank presidents.

[DC Al Fine]

Need to wait about 40 years before you can properly rank presidents.

This x 1000.

We're just starting to be able to properly evaluate Jimmy Carter, Trump's long term evaluation is a long way off, much less comparing him to Buchanan.

[parochial boy]

OK, randomly somewhat rude question. But is endelessely ranking presidents something historians actually do?

Because it doesn't really sound like an especially interesting or particularly illuminating pursuit, academically speaking.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

C-SPAN pulls out rankings every Presidents Day after a new one takes office, so wait until February.