This is an update over an early 2017 piece, with notable changes.
With nine years of hindsight and us now in Trump 2.0, I am revising to put
him in the bottom malebolge with Andy Johnson, Buck Buchanan and Frank
Pierce. I’d also revise to push Lincoln from A+ to A, even with grading
on a curve, and maybe even A-. I’d still keep him No. 1, which would
pull Washington down to A-, too.
Since it’s a popular task for both armchair and more professional
historians, I’m going to wade into the battle myself. In fact, it's so
popular, this is an edited and updated version of one I did the year
before Dear Leader was elected president. Hence, one reason for the
update.
Beyond that, I've read, over that decade, numerous new historic books
that have covered in detail all or part of several presidencies,
including Fillmore, Taylor, Benjamin Harrison, Wilson and McKinley,
among others.
Presidents are ranked by numeric order and given a letter grade on the
standard A-F scale, including pluses and minuses. Contra historical
writing, since I’m analyzing presidents, not presidencies, Cleveland’s
two presidencies are lumped under one rating.
Several presidents have made moves several places up or down (more that a
couple have moved sharply down) from my previous ranking.
I've also decided to put some "tiers" in place. And, tried to do some thematic work with the tiers.
(As for the most recent occupant? A brief preliminary take is at the bottom.)
Tier One
1. Abraham Lincoln, A/A-. Even with grading on a curve, I can go no higher. I don’t believe in perfection, but Lincoln comes
very close. This is no longer true, due to how much I've read about his stance on colonization of Black Americans, an issue that, had he not been assassinated, he likely would have pushed into his second term. I don’t strongly denigrate his early views on race, but do
note he was a moderate, not a true progressive, when coming to the White
House. But, he evolved and grew, including through his personal
meetings with black leaders such as Frederick Douglass. My final comment
quotes Secretary of War Edwin Stanton: “He belongs to the ages.”
2. George Washington. A-. He set the tenor for the office of the
presidency, being amongst the people without being too much of the
people, something that Reagan recognized but Carter and Clinton didn’t;
the same can be said of many members of the House in Washington’s own
day. My one minor knock is his adding “so help me God” to the oath of
office, thereby giving the “civic religion” so beloved by the late Chief
Justice William Rehnquist and Associate Justice Antonin Scalia its
first bit of nose under the camel’s tent. (And, per my response to a
commenter below, even if that isn't true — and I'm now willing to call
it "undecided" but not a myth — good old George still chose to be sworn
in on a Bible.) He moves down because I still rank Lincoln higher.
Tier Two — the "good to very good, but" presidents
3. FDR. A-/B+. I can’t see any other Democratic candidate in 1928 —
certainly not either Al Smith or John Nance Garner — handling the
Depression nearly as well as Roosevelt did. The only major fault is that
he didn’t think of a national health insurance plan at the same time as
Social Security, which of course wasn’t his original idea anyway.
(Actually, supposedly, Hopkins and a few others were hoping national
health care would be part of the deal.) Not so much moved down as placed
in Tier Two and graded lower, as I think more about how conservative
his 1932 campaign was. He also had his political stumbles, like not
pulling back his court-packing bill when the "Switch in Time that Saved
Nine" happened just a month after he announced it. That said, Walter
Karp thinks this was deliberate. It could have been to some degree, but
not the way Karp spelled it out.
4. TR. A-/B+. Though not an actual bigot (well, actually, kind of yes on
blacks and 'genteel Eastern Establishment' anti-Semitism0 his less than
fully-enlightened (even for his day, compared to the best) racial
attitudes, as exemplified in the Brownsville Army incident, knock him
off the A pedestal. And, too many people give him credit for too much of
what Taft did. (Grade dropped.)
5. James Monroe. B. He stayed under the radar screen, didn’t screw
anything up, and got Quincy Adams to pen the Monroe Doctrine. He
presided over a cabinet that had two 1824 presidential candidates and a
third that switched to Veep. (Imagine Calhoun making that a five-man
race; probably would have undercut both Jackson and Crawford.) He also
navigated the shoals of Missouri's admission to the union as part of the
larger Missouri Compromise. (Moved up.)
6. LBJ. B/B-. In his own words, that “bitch of a war,” which knocked the
props from beneath the Great Society, keeps him from being in the top
five. Nonetheless, as Republican hacks have shown today with
politicizing the so-called “War on Terror,” LBJ’s fears of being tarred
with the label of “first president to lose a war” weren’t to be taken
lightly. (Unfortunately, not being a regular part of JFK's ExComm, he
didn't know Kennedy swapped missiles for missiles over Cuba, and may
have felt he had to be that hawkish on Vietnam.) But, even though he
followed the lead of the Best and Brightest on Nam, he could have gotten
off the ride sooner.
7. Ike. B/B-. I think Eisenhower deserves more of his modern
reassessment than what Truman got more than a decade ago. Yes, it’s easy
to skewer Levittown, duck and drop nuclear bomb drills in schools, and
such, but, Ike was prescient about the military-industrial complex, in
possibly the best farewell message besides Washington’s, kept those duck
and drop practices from ever having to become real, and presided over
the economic boom times that allowed Levittown and suburbia. (Dropped
because he took the Supreme Court literally, and probably deliberately
so, with its "all due deliberation" statement on its Brown II ruling.
And because his administration was the heyday of CIA-coup plotting, with
the military-industrial complex being replaced by the spook-coup
complex.)
8. Truman. B/B-. High marks for desegregating the Army and for how he
handled MacArthur, though European allies in the Korean War had hoped
for even swifter action. Further kudos for attempting to get national
healthcare, though he couldn't overcome the three legs of opposition
from the AMA, the national Chamber of Commerce, and ... unions. But, his
domestic accomplishments were relatively modest, and his administration
was marred by arguably the worst cronyism in hiring since Harding.
Plus, he was intemperate at time on Cold War issues, and started loyalty
oaths on his own, even before McCarthy got to running hog wild.
Tier three — the "good, but" presidents
9. Jefferson. B-. Ranked lower than other presidents based on
presidential years only. Louisiana Purchase was given to him, not
initiated by him; the Lewis and Clark voyage was originally, in essence,
espionage. His embargo on American commerce during the Napoleonic wars
wrecked New England’s economy and he was basically clueless. Other high
points, though, for submitting to a Supreme Court ruling defining the
bounds of executive privilege, and getting the Adams-era Alien and
Sedition Acts repealed. Gets dinged further for presidential and
post-presidential retreat from earlier views on slavery-related issues.
Gets dinged yet further for his attempt to invoke presidential
privilege, his near-conspiratorial angle toward Aaron Burr and more.
(Moved down.)
10. Carter. B-. A president of integrity and principle on a variety of
domestic political issues, he got pummeled for it. Doesn’t get his share
of credit for fall of the Soviet Union, as he started the “Reagan”
defense build-up. Not ranked higher due to lack of political flexibility
and acumen. Also not rated higher for being, in some ways, the first
neoliberal president, a fact overlooked by many and obscured by his
post-presidential career. That all said, he was less neoliberal than
later presidents, and, apple-polishing aside, of higher moral rectitude.
11. Taft. B-/C+. Yes, he did initiate trust busting beyond cases
inherited from TR, and he didn’t really screw anything up, but he had no
vision for the office otherwise. Of course, he didn't want it as much
as the Supreme Court in the first place. His wife pushed him into it,
then had two strokes within his first year in office. If she had been
fully healthy, he might rank higher yet. (Moved up several spots.)
12. Arthur. B-/C+. Credit for backing civil service reform after
Garfield’ assassination; unclear if he would have done so otherwise.
(Moved up.)
13. Hayes. B-/C+. Elected president in 1876 by a bipartisan commission
of SCOTUS justices and Congressmen, that just “happened” to break 8-7 on
party lines, he restored integrity after the Grant corruption years and
by promising not to run for re-election. Nonetheless, he got his hands
tied by GOP agreement to end Reconstruction — which the Grant
Administration had been phasing out anyway. (Moved down more as I think
about his strike-busting activity, among other things.
14. James K. Polk. B-/C+. If we’re ranking him solely on morals, the way
he provoked war with Mexico would get him severely dinged. But, as far
as achieving the goals he proclaimed in 1844, he hit a grand slam. A B
seems like a compromise, if we don’t look too hard at the slavery issue.
(Moved down from previous, in part because he had already written a war
message ready for delivery to Congress even before hearing about
Zachary Taylor's scrape with Mexican troops in disputed territory at
Palo Alto.)
15. Kennedy B-/C+. Let’s puncture the myth of Camelot. He blew the Bay
of Pigs by not either going all-in, including air support, or else
scrubbing it. His post-Pigs obsession with Castro gets him dinged, as
does the illicit sex, not on account of the sex itself, but for ditching
the nuclear “football” while doing so. Pluses for calm in handling the
Cuban missile crisis and offering inspiration to a younger generation.
Tier four — Reagan and his wannabes, along with names from the past
16. John Quincy Adams C+/C (would get an A+ as Secretary of State and A
as Congressman). His administration itself was not bad, but honoring the
“corrupt bargain” with fourth-place presidential finisher and former
Speaker of the House Henry Clay by making him Secretary of State (at
that time the normal stepping-stone to the presidency). He should have
had the political sense to know that would guarantee a one-term
presidency, and that Clay favored him over Jackson anyway. However, he
had good ideas as president, even if many were laughed at. (Moved up,
primarily due to slippage of several others.)
17. Clinton. C+/C. Took the worst of the edges off welfare reform and
gave us a balanced budget, among other things. Gave us NAFTA and the
WTO, on the other hand, and botched health care reform; probably, any
bill would have been tough to get past Congress, but his plan didn’t
make it any easier. The D shows how much I’m disappointed that he
expanded the Bush I privatizing of the Armed Forces and started, though
not to the degree of Bush II, illegal “renditions” by the CIA of
terrorism suspects.
18. Obama. C+/C See this recent post for more on him.
19. Madison. C. A decent man and a great political theorist, promoted over his head into the presidency.
20. Reagan. C+/D+. Reagan wasn’t all that bad in his first term,
relatively speaking, and, although he had to lie to himself about what a
tax increase was in 1982, he swallowed the need for it. D+, or lower,
for the second term, for Iran/Contra. Plus, it’s a legitimate question
to ask if the onset of Alzheimer’s was influencing some second-term
decisions, although from what we know about Iran-Contra, that doesn't
seem true.
The late 1800s (and others) "meh" tier
21. McKinley. C/C-. While he didn’t screw much up, his pious platitudes
about taking on the “white man’s burden” in the Philippines, while
annexing Hawaii, introduced imperialist America to the world stage.
22. Garfield. C/C-. His relatively short term makes it hard to offer too
much judgment. He might have done a Pendleton Act "lite" on civil
service reform and not much more.
23. Cleveland. C and D. The C is for his first term, his principles on
budgetary matters, and for being reasonably principled in general. The D
is for his second term, for his anti-labor stance and his role in
exacerbating, or at least exacerbating the pains of, the Panic of 1893,
arguably the country’s first modern industrial depression.
24. Ford. C-. Political ineptitude, not to mention ethical
questionability, for his pardon of Nixon, especially its unseemly speed
after taking office. He could have stalled thing out until after the
1976 election, as far as the political sensibility of not pardoning
Nixon right away.
25. Bush, George H.W. C-/D+. Handled the Gulf War well, but the blame is
ultimately his for April Glaspie. Too slow to “cut losses” with
Gorbachev rather than Yeltsin, and otherwise react to a post-Cold War
world.
26. Benjamin Harrison. C-/D+. Quiet administration that didn’t screw
much up. A nonentity otherwise, other than not having a clue about the
rise of organized labor. However, his push to admit new Republican
states on the Plains sparked the last conflicts with the Sioux, among
other things. (Downgraded moderately.)
27. Adams. C-/D+. Avoided war with France in 1798; but, first president
to manipulate immigration and civil liberties for political advantage by
signing into law, and personally backing much of, the Alien and
Sedition Acts. Arguably, with hyperworry about French radicals, THIS,
not A. Mitchell Palmer in 1920-21, was the first Red scare.
28. Fillmore. C-/D+. Yes, some version of the Compromise of 1850 was
probably necessary, but Fillmore was certainly lacking in leadership in
some ways in crafting the bill, especially in not anticipating the
reaction to the Fugitive Slave Act. However, he was pretty skilled in
working behind the scenes to get the other parts passed, which passed
individually in the Senate first, not as an omnibus. In addition, he
thought more highly of himself than warranted. (Moved up)
29. Grant. C/D. He did enforce Reconstruction pretty vigorously in his
first term, but then started backing away. (The Supreme Court's
Cruikshank ruling reined in executive power on Reconstruction somewhat,
but not totally.) Possibly the most corrupt administration in
presidential history, and a president with a mix of obstinancy and a
high susceptibility to flattery, plus a thin skin, even though often
courteous to others. (Moved down, then moved back up due to Ronald C.
White's new bio.)
Tier XXX?
30. Coolidge. D+. Failed to address the agricultural depression
happening throughout the “Roaring ’20s” and also failed to see the stock
market house of cards building up already in 1928. Term otherwise
undistinguished. But, not as laissez-faire as sometimes pictured, and
tried to override the worst of isolationism.
31. Hoover. D+. Far more intellectually qualified than any other of the
D-rated presidents, his stubbornness about his idea of the role of the
federal government, even though he tried some tinkering at the edges
later in his term, get him ranked here. I did give him a plus because this is partly myth from the chameleon on plaid, FDR.
32. William Henry Harrison. D/Inc. Yes, he only served a month, but
giving a two-hour inaugural laced with Latin maxims while standing
without a hat in the rain indicated a lack of common sense.
33. Tyler. D. Stuck by his principles when succeeding W.H. Harrison;
nonetheless, outside of hating Jackson, such principles should have kept
him firmly in the Democratic party. Little accomplished.
34. Van Buren. D. Cluelessness about the country’s first major recession
and its causes, and failure to step out from Jackson’s shadow, say
enough to put the country on a better financial footing.
35. Woodrow Wilson. D. At times, one wishes Wilson’s two terms could be
considered separately, like two presidencies. That said, the major
accomplishment of his first term, the establishment of the Federal
Reserve, is probably overrated, and just as Taft inherited some
trust-busting from Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson inherited some from Taft. The
four constitutional amendments of a direct income tax, women’s
suffrage, Prohibition and direct election of U.S. Senators, were the
doings of Congress and state legislatures; Wilson could have used a
bully pulpit, especially on women’s suffrage, but didn’t. Besides, Taft
got the 16th Amendment voted out of Congress and sent to the states. And
his racism, which began from the start of his first term and his
official segregation of the executive branch is an indelible blot. Plus,
even though stroke-afflicted, he presided over the first Red Scare. With giving Hoover a D+, plus what Coolidge already had, I needed to move him down, and decided going below all other D's besides Biden was right.
36. Biden. D. It wasn't an actual promise, but breaking the hinted-at idea of running just one term, and him digging in his feet before being pushed out, are half of why he ranks no higher. The other half is Israel and Gaza, and willingly letting Secretary of State whitewash Israel. Actually, this is overdetermined. His mid-level response to COVID plus an early removal of the degree of advanced safety net he extended is another one-quarter. So is his continuing the NATO "barking at" Russia via Ukraine, then presumably agreeing with Boris Johnson on nuking peace talks, is yet another one-quarter.
The bottom tier, with an asterisk
37. George W. Bush, D. The only reason he is not ranked dead last is the
following three presidents’ failings were even more egregious, and at
more dire times in our country’s history. (Moved up primarily because
others moved down.)
38. Taylor. D/D-. While his Jacksonian resolve to hang Southerners who
refused to accept the admission of California as a free state is
admirable, it, if he had lived, would have thrown gasoline on the
Compromise of 1850. And, his idea, as influenced by the Svengali named
William Seward, that he could ram through the admission of New Mexico as
a free state after California, was ludicrous. His death spared the
nation the possibility of a civil war a decade earlier.
39. Harding. D-. Not an F, because he recognized, if belatedly, the
cronyism and corruption in his cabinet and started trying to do
something about it when he died. But, he never, ever should have been
there in the first place, and he didn't pass on the opportunity to run.
40. Jackson. D-/F+. His blatant disregard of the Supreme Court’s ruling
on Cherokee removal (even if some of that is mythical), combined with his cluelessness about the Bank of
the U.S. and his temper, amply earn this ranking, for the first imperial
presidency.
41. Nixon. D-/F+. Gets bumped out of pure “F” territory for having more
brains than the four below him. The combination of
Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos, on the one hand, and Watergate on the other,
offset détente and environmental legislation.
42. Trump 1.0. D-/F+. A somewhat greater level of caution in action than Trump 2.0 has shown gets this rating.
The bottom malebolge of hell
43. Pierce. F+. The slightest of bumps above the three bottom dwellers,
but his signing off on the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and Missouri slaveholder
corruption in Kansas that led to “Bleeding Kansas” and accelerated the
march toward secession, is bad enough.
44. Andrew Johnson, F. Intemperate when sober and even more so when
drunk — stubborn, petulant and politically a butterfingers — Johnson
refused to see that he in fact wasn’t following what Lincoln’s
Reconstruction policy had been moving toward before his assassination.
Lincoln never would have been Thaddeus Stevens, but he would have been
closer to him, far closer in spirit, than to Andrew Johnson.
46. Buchanan, F. His failure to stand up for the United States of America in the face of secession says enough.
46. Trump 2.0. F.
==
As for Donald Trump? Per this good piece
from Counterpunch, I think he'll need work indeed to get in that bottom
malebolge. He might be in the "bottom tier" just above it, but even
that isn't guaranteed. Very tentatively, I'll but him somewhere between
Taylor and Harding at this time.
