Atlas ranks the presidents [[[FINAL RANKING]]]

[GeneralMacArthur]

1:  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)
31:  Benjamin Harrison (4.165)
32:  Martin Van Buren (4.152)
33:  Andrew Jackson (4.131)
34:  William Henry Harrison (4.128)
35:  Warren G. Harding (4.125)
36:  John Tyler (4.119)
37:  Richard Nixon (4.111)
38:  Herbert Hoover (4.106)
39:  George W. Bush (4.102)
40:  Millard Fillmore (4.95)
41:  Franklin Pierce (4.75)
42:  Donald Trump (4.58)
43:  Andrew Johnson (4.52)
44:  James Buchanan (4.40)

[GeneralMacArthur]

Some analysis as to how this ranking compares to the Siena institute ranking, the most recent ranking done:

President	Atlas Ranking	Historians Ranking	Difference
Abraham Lincoln	1	3	+2
Franklin Delano Roosevelt	2	2	=
George Washington	3	1	-2
Theodore Roosevelt	4	4	=
Lyndon B. Johnson	5	16	+11
Harry Truman	6	9	+3
Dwight Eisenhower	7	6	-1
Ulysses S. Grant	8	24	+16
Barack Obama	9	17	+8
Thomas Jefferson	10	5	-5
James Monroe	11	8	-3
John Quincy Adams	12	18	-6
James Madison	13	7	-6
Bill Clinton	14	15	+1
John F. Kennedy	15	10	-5
George H.W. Bush	16	21	+5
John Adams	17	14	-3
Ronald Reagan	18	13	-5
Zachary Taylor	19	30	+11
Jimmy Carter	20	26	+6
Woodrow Wilson	21	11	-10
William Howard Taft	22	22	=
Gerald Ford	23	27	+4
William McKinley	24	20	-4
James Garfield	25	28	+3
Grover Cleveland	26	23	+3
James K. Polk	27	12	-15
Calvin Coolidge	28	31	+3
Chester A. Arthur	29	34	+5
Rutherford B. Hayes	30	32	-2
Benjamin Harrison	31	35	+4
Martin Van Buren	32	25	-7
Andrew Jackson	33	19	-14
William Henry Harrison	34	39	+5
Warren G. Harding	35	41	+6
John Tyler	36	37	+1
Richard Nixon	37	29	-8
Herbert Hoover	38	36	-2
George W. Bush	39	33	-6
Millard Fillmore	40	38	-2
Franklin Pierce	41	40	-1
Donald Trump	42	42	=
Andrew Johnson	43	44	+1
James Buchanan	44	43	-1

Overall, Atlas and the historians are, like most Americans, in agreement as to the best and worst presidents in our nation's history (Trump will join this consensus within a decade).  Lincoln, Washington, and the Roosevelts are the top 4.  Trump, Andrew Johnson, and the antebellum presidents are the worst.

Other than that, the biggest differences are:

Ulysses S. Grant:  The president Atlasians disagree on most with the historians.  Historians mostly see Grant as a mediocre, corrupt, disinterested president.  The recent Chernow hagiography of Grant may have a lot to do with his image revitalization.

Lyndon B. Johnson:  Atlas has LBJ as a top 5 president, worthy of being carved on Rushmore along with FDR.  Historians grade his personality and his handling of the Vietnam War much more harshly.

Zachary Taylor:  Atlas has some weird fetish for this old, do-nothing antebellum whig who died after an uneventful year in office.  Someone should probably explain way.  Historians generally agree that he's the best of the antebellum era presidents, if only because he at least had good intentions, and died before he could make too many mistakes.  But that's not saying much.

Andrew Jackson:  Atlas loves to hate on Andrew Jackson and veto his entire presidency over his handling of Indian removal.  Historians, for a long time, ranked him as one of our finest presidents, given the many successes of his administration and his strong, confident leadership.  Lately, with renewed focus on the trail of tears, his reputation has declined.  But there's still a yawning gap between how historians and Atlasians rank his presidency.

James K. Polk:  I expected Jackson to have the biggest difference, but it's actually Polk.  A protege of Andrew Jackson, Polk is generally remembered as a successful president who conquered major tracts of land for America and fulfilled all his campaign promises in just one term.  Atlas isn't impressed.

(it's worth noting that Martin Van Buren, Jackson's other presidential protege, is also very low-ranked by Atlas relative to historians.  Y'all just really hate the Jacksonian movement!)

Woodrow Wilson:  The quintessential bipartisan deal-maker and global visionary, Wilson is one of American's most successful presidents both at home and abroad, and made a sincere effort to forge global peace and avert World War 2.  Had he succeeded, he may be remembered the same way FDR is today.  Instead, like much of the WW1 era world, he's been largely forgotten a century later, overshadowed by WW2.  While historians see Wilson as one of America's finest presidents, Atlas ranks him alongside mediocrities Carter and Ford, probably in large part due to his segregationist views and policies.

[Alben Barkley]

Not a horrible list, though I think Grant is overrated and Wilson and Jackson underrated. Those are the most glaring issues.

[KaiserDave]

Looks like a fine list, of course I probably have some disagreements. Happy to see Grant get his due. Wilson had some very good first term accomplishments, but his racism, authoritarianism, and disastrous second term do bring him down.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Felt like this deserved a bump given the recent interest in ranking presidents (and surprising lack of attention the final ranking earned relative to participation during the ranking cycles, probably due to it coming out a few days after election day).

I still don't understand why you guys love Zachary Taylor so much.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Grant is becoming overrated both on Atlas and potentially by historians.

[KaiserDave]

We should do this again

[beesley]

We should do this again

I second this - if the OP doesn't want to then one of us can.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

We should do this again

I second this - if the OP doesn't want to then one of us can.

How was it done last time?

[beesley]

We should do this again

I second this - if the OP doesn't want to then one of us can.

How was it done last time?

I have no idea, but we could easily replicate the survey (or more realistically, a streamlined version) that Presidential scholars use. We could even rate the Presidents from 1-10 as a whole and just average the scores, but as someone who studied Presidential history, I would prefer something a little deeper.

[GeneralMacArthur]

We should do this again

I second this - if the OP doesn't want to then one of us can.

How was it done last time?

Last time, I spent four months going through seven rounds of presidents and compiling them in a merge sort.  I put a lot of effort into it to avoid asking people to rank all 45 presidents at once, which would result in people just picking the top ten and bottom ten and then randomly sorting the ones in-between.

The end result was this post that got 3 replies, so I'm not very eager to do it again.

I also don't see the point, it's not like our rankings will have changed that much in a year.

[Big Abraham]

LBJ, Truman, and Obama are way too high. So are HW, Reagan, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Clinton for that matter.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

We should do this again

I second this - if the OP doesn't want to then one of us can.

How was it done last time?

I have no idea, but we could easily replicate the survey (or more realistically, a streamlined version) that Presidential scholars use. We could even rate the Presidents from 1-10 as a whole and just average the scores, but as someone who studied Presidential history, I would prefer something a little deeper.

Idea: rate presidents by some metrics (such as ideological beliefs, job performance, personal life) and overall from 1 to 10. Not all will be done at once.

[GeneralMacArthur]

We should do this again

I second this - if the OP doesn't want to then one of us can.

How was it done last time?

I have no idea, but we could easily replicate the survey (or more realistically, a streamlined version) that Presidential scholars use. We could even rate the Presidents from 1-10 as a whole and just average the scores, but as someone who studied Presidential history, I would prefer something a little deeper.

Idea: rate presidents by some metrics (such as ideological beliefs, job performance, personal life) and overall from 1 to 10. Not all will be done at once.

Most people don't even know who Benjamin Harrison or Chester A. Arthur were.  Requiring people to have opinions of specific facets of their lives, like their ideologies or personal lives, is just going to create more randomness, or people scootering over to Wikipedia and adopting the first opinionated sentence they see on the subject.

[Continential]

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=382656.msg7455200#msg7455200

Here's where GMac did the rankings.

[Aurelius]

We should do this again

We should do this again

I second this - if the OP doesn't want to then one of us can.

I'd be down to do this. I've already made enough Presidents-related threads lately so I'll hold off for a bit. Maybe in a week or two. I've thought of a methodology that I think I like better: have people rank their top 10 presidents, their bottom 10 presidents, and then have people rank the presidents of each era in overlapping tranches (for example, rank presidents 1-8, then rank presidents 5-12, then presidents 9-16, etc). Then to complete the overlaps have them rank presidents 42-45 against presidents 1-4. If people's rankings are internally consistent (big ask, I know) that'll allow me to construct that user's ranking of all 45 presidents without actually asking them to rank all 45 directly.

Edit: never mind. I tested this algorithm on myself and it turns out to be almost impossible to resolve into a single ordered ranking. Best to stick to the tried and true method I guess.

snip

Quoting you so you see this.