Trump and recentism.[edit]

A recent editor changed "Warren Harding" to "Donald Trump" in the article's list of "consistently ranked worst three presidents": which comes across as WP: Recentism. This isn't to state that he'll likely be viewed positively — at least in assessments by future political scientists, historians, and probably the general public (Jan. 6 essentially ensured that) — but it's way too soon to definitively state that there is a uniform (or strong) consensus among historians that he ranks among the worst three ever. Similarly, Bush was ranked among the bottom five until ~2015ish.

Historiographical assessments of presidents often change radically in the first twenty years. Let's come back to this in 2030. It's way too soon. KlayCax (talk) 13:37, 19 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'd have to agree. The historians will be rating him last for decades, but for now, we have to see how the results of his policies play out in the long run. Let's kick around Harding some more. Bkatcher (talk) 15:58, 19 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You're exaggerating again, if not as baldly as in your edit-summary (where you falsely said W "scored in the bottom three in initial historical surveys"). W was only ranked in the bottom 5 twice, and once that was in a tie with Nixon. On the other hand, he was twice ranked in the middle, one of those just above average. So we would never have ranked him in this spot, even early on. In contrast, Trump has consistently ranked in the bottom 3. It may be early, but it's a clear trend. If that changes in the future, we will of course change our coverage to match. — kwami (talk) 20:36, 19 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Trump has consistently ranked in the bottom 3. Surveys taken before his presidency concluded should obviously not be considered apart of this. There's only been two surveys conducted after January 2021. One of those two — C-SPAN, 2020 — does not place him in the bottom three. The other places him 3rd. That's hardly consistent or a consensus. Recent Republican presidents have almost always scored lower in initial assessments than where they usually end up. (From Reagan, the two Bushes, et al.)
Where you falsely said W "scored in the bottom three in initial historical surveys... On the other hand, he was twice ranked in the middle... one above-average Yes. Right at the very beginning of the Iraq War (2005) and the latest one (2022) conducted. During the late 2000s/early 2010s he was frequently ranked among the worst presidents in American history. A lot of historians claimed exactly this after his term concluded: Asked to rank the presidency of George W. Bush in comparison to those of the other 41 American presidents, more than 61 percent of the historians concluded that the current presidency is the worst in the nation’s history. Another 35 percent of the historians surveyed rated the Bush presidency in the 31st to 41st category, while only four of the 109 respondents ranked the current presidency as even among the top two-thirds of American administrations. He was statistically tied with Piece/Harding in the 2010 Siena Poll, the first conducted after his presidency. As mentioned: historiographical assessments of presidents often change radically in the first twenty years. It's improper to extrapolate future rankings from Siena, 2022 KlayCax (talk) 00:30, 20 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Ah, correct, he's 4th from bottom in CSPAN 2021, so post-presidency we can't say he's bottom 3.
I partially reverted myself, but by removing Trump entirely, as it's not clear that there's an obvious candidate for 3rd worst, unlike the top 3 which are fairly consistent. (Pierce underperforms Harding this century, but it's pretty close: Pierce in the btm three 7x, Harding 4x, and both 3x.) — kwami (talk) 04:16, 20 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I rv'd the claim that Harding is in last place in 20th-century surveys. First, would need a RS that that is true in general, and not just in the surveys we happen to cite. But more importantly, our intro should reflect current thought, not the situation in the last century. We can talk about Harding being in last place during the 20th c in the text, but that historical note shouldn't dominate our overall presentation. — kwami (talk) 23:39, 22 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@KlayCax: You wrote, "Recent Republican presidents have almost always scored lower in initial assessments than where they usually end up." I'd say overall they almost always score lower over time too.
Try this empirical experiment. Go to any of the tables and sort them by party, so that Democrats and Republicans fall into groups. Now step back from your screen a bit and observe the colors. You'll see that the Republican group is predominantly yellow/red while the Democrat group is predominantly blue/green, with a few outliers. This suggests that Republican presidents generally score lower and stay there. This result may be due to inherent bias in the academic reviewers or perhaps Republican presidents generally are "worse", it's impossible to know. ~Anachronist (talk) 03:41, 23 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Not as bad as the Whigs!
I suspect that W's future rankings will be tied to Trump's legacy, since W started the ball rolling. And Trump's of course will depend on whether someone competent will take him as an inspiration and succeed where T failed. If that doesn't happen, then T might move up in the 4th quartile as his legacy becomes mostly a footnote. But if there's a severe lasting impact, expect T to remain rock-bottom and W to take a dive as his unwitting enabler.
But that's irrelevant. Are you of the opinion that there's anyone who can fill out a trio of bad presidents, to balance the trio of good? I'm not sure there's balance to be had here. People can tell you why the top three are rated highly, and to a lesser extent why the bottom two are rated low, but I would challenge most people to say anything intelligent about either Pierce or Harding. Well, presumably the people on this talk page can, but I don't know that either of them had the lasting impact of the other five. — kwami (talk) 06:08, 23 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Anachronist: If you sort by rank, you see one pink and on blue in the top two slots, and one pink and one blue in the bottom two. But the btm pink was A.Johnson, who was a Democrat. Isn't it a bit misleading to color him pink? — kwami (talk) 06:24, 23 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Andrew won election with the National Union Party, a de facto alliance of the Republican Party with the War Democrats. I am not certain how to reflect this in coloration. Dimadick (talk) 11:18, 23 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
"This suggests that Republican presidents generally score lower and stay there." Not entirely surprised.:
  • Richard Nixon often ranks highly in terms of foreign policy and environmental policy. But his reputation was ruined by the Watergate Scandal, and his term is associated with a financial crisis. Despite placing wage and price controls, he could not really resolve inflation. He is also blamed for food shortages around the country (particularly for a shortage in meat products). The dismantling of the Bretton Woods system remains controversial.
  • Gerald Ford is "credited" for overseeing the collapse of South Vietnam, and the end of the Vietnam War (with the United States failing to achieve its goals in the conflict). He presided over the worst economy since the Great Depression, with stagflation in full effect and unusually high unemployment for this era. Ford gained a reputation for honesty, but he is regarded as rather ineffectual.
  • Ronald Reagan was popular with the public, but Reaganomics remain controversial. He is also strongly associated with rising income inequality, the near-tripling of the federal debt, the savings and loan crisis (which started under his term, though systemic problems were visible by the late 1970s), and a large increase in the number of federal civilian employees.
  • George H. W. Bush often gets high ratings for his handling of the Gulf War, for his social policies towards people with disabilities, and for introducing effective measures against air pollution. He gets blamed for his perceived mishandling of the Early 1990s recession in the United States, for the relatively high unemployment for much of his term, and for multiple tax increases during an ongoing financial crisis.
  • George W. Bush's reputation is tied to the rather unpopular Iraq War, the two decades of War in Afghanistan (2001-2021), and the Great Recession. A number of his social and educational policies were also controversial, but they get overshadowed by bigger problems.
  • Donald Trump had plenty of scandals and controversies in his term. But his reputation is tied to his perceived mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, the COVID-19 recession, the China–United States trade war, and an overall increase in the United States trade deficit (largely due to retaliatory actions from both China and the European Union to Trump's policies). To say that he is seen as ineffectual is probably an understatement. Dimadick (talk) 12:51, 23 September, 2022 (UTC)

Okay, an edit-war with the photos in the lead to claim that scholars surveying the 20th century have placed Harding last, when really it's 20th-century scholars who ranked Harding last overall. Needed a bit of tweaking. Not sure that what scholars thought in the last century is among the most important info in the article. — kwami (talk) 06:07, 24 September, 2022 (UTC)

To say that he {Trump} is seen as ineffectual is probably an understatement. This is true for the anti-Trump faction, who are over-represented in sources. However, many people in this country have very different views of Trump and his administration, views which are under-represented in RS. In any case, RECENTism applies, especially given the extreme controversy surrounding Trump. Historical rankings of presidents should wait at least 25 years, at minimum, to draw up a fair assessment. Yes, I'm saying that not only Trump, but also Obama & W Bush are all too RECENT in this case. Xcalibur (talk) 21:35, 29 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
We can not make up our own rules about rankings. As for "views which are under-represented in RS", we already have a policy on minority views. Dimadick (talk) 10:33, 30 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
My point is that the massive amounts of controversy surrounding Trump significantly muddy the waters, making it very difficult to give him a fair historical ranking. I'm not "making up my own rules", I'm suggesting how RECENTism applies here. I think for any US President, you have to let the dust settle before giving them a historical ranking, and this applies doubly so to Trump. Whether the rule-of-thumb should be 25 years or some other figure, there must be a significant time-lapse, encompassing multiple administrations, to achieve the sober perspective needed. Xcalibur (talk) 15:26, 30 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Comment What exactly is the cutoff if it's too recent to include Trump? Does he need to score below Harding 10 times? 100 times? Without an actual template to go on, this whole thing is technically synth. -- Sleyece (talk) 23:36, 6 October 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

As I said, I'm not sure exactly. However, there should be enough time-lapse so that it's no longer current events, and long-term perspective is feasible. In the case of Trump, his presence still looms large in US politics (eg the Mar-a-Lago raid), and there's a real possibility he may run again. Certainly we can't give a historical ranking to a President if he may not be finished serving! Xcalibur (talk) 22:16, 7 October 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Sure, lmao, Trump theoretically could return to the Presidency in 24' and surpass the legacy of FDR. According to string theory, that is the case in at least one of an infinite number of timelines, lol. -- Sleyece (talk) 13:09, 16 October 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Let's not forget that 95% of polls predicted Hillary in '16, and 95% got it wrong. Stranger things have happened, and it's not beyond the realm of possibility. In any case, due to Trump Derangement Syndrome (or if you prefer, Righteous Indignation over the Orange Fuhrer), we should be very cautious about recent interpretations. Xcalibur (talk) 19:46, 22 October 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
What is the cutoff? How about after he dies? This reminds me of my kid's "Historical Halloween" event at his school, where every student had to pick a historical figure and make a costume to wear on Halloween day. One rule was that you couldn't pick anyone still alive. Kids made some excellent costumes for recently-dead: George Harrison, Bob Ross, Gary Gygax, and others. The point is, once a president is dead, he's history. ~Anachronist (talk) 19:16, 8 November 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
That's a possibility, but as you hinted at, even a deceased person can be subject to RECENTism. There's also the problem of bias in judging Presidents. For example, Andrew Johnson is considered one of the worst for obstructing Reconstruction and Civil Rights, despite his foreign policy success against the French in Mexico, and having plenty of support at the time excepting the Radical Republicans. Clearly he was capable, and if you're in favor of racism and the Confederacy, he was actually a great President for the same reason he's considered the worst. So is it a judgment of ability, or the morality of their larger decisions? There seems to be ambiguity there.
Likewise with Trump, he pulled the US out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Iran Nuclear Deal, and the Paris Climate Accords; he also negotiated the end of the war in Afghanistan (it was the Biden admin that failed in the execution), and energetically pursued a populist, nationalist agenda with the trade wars and beginning a US-Mexico border wall. He also supported social conservatism with the trans military ban and opposition to Critical Race Theory. As for COVID, it's debatable how much better he could've handled it, since it took everyone by surprise. As for Trump not doing more, he faced alot of obstruction in the form of legal challenges, uncooperative bureaucracy, and investigation of the Russian collusion conspiracy theory. Really, if you agree with right-wing populism, Trump performed well, all things considered. The only grounds for calling him the worst, as I see it, would be a moral objection to his administration in favor of the establishment-left agenda he opposed. Xcalibur (talk) 15:32, 13 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
But, isn't that ceding the point, really? Donald Trump was not the President For The Right Wing Populists. He was meant to be President of the United States, not for what is ultimately a small minority of the nation. His inability to appeal to most of the country or even convince them that he represented or had concern for their interests is why he is no longer in office, and that is a failing of him as a President.
Even with that said, there are many reasons detached from morality about why it can be argued that he was bad at his job. Straightforward stuff involving the logistics of the job: that he managed his time poorly, the incredibly heavy turnover of staff, that he was a poor communicator, that he was frequently unhappy with speeches written for him after he delivered them (suggested that he was poor at vetting this stuff). Even your own post talking about 'obstructing bureaucrats' can be critically examined to conclude that in fact Trump was a very poor political negotiator, easily backed up by events such as him turning a gimme photo op to promote his willingness to be diplomatic with Pelosi and Schumer into a petty sparring match.
He was also horribly inconsistent. A lot of his good image for isolationists is based on him being the anti-war President, but you need to be wilfully ignorant of a lot of awkward facts to buy that: That he drastically increased bombings in the Middle East while cutting accountability, that he funded the Saudi War against Yemen and that he nearly started another war on a whim with the assassination of Soleimani. His strong man image was based largely on his hard line language directed at terrorists, and yet he set free thousands of Taliban prisoners free to start negotiations and ultimately gave the Taliban everything they wanted, including setting the US withdrawal date for the optimal time for them to invade Kabul.
Trump's populist bona fides during his campaign also banked on notions of supporting manufacturing, (more factories closed during his term), draining the swamp (by appointing half a dozen former Goldman execs?) and supporting independent journalism away from the mainstream (did nothing to help Assange and Snowden, and claims to have actively covered for MBS over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi).
You really should have put more emphasis on 'supported social conservatism', because that was the main aim of his Presidency and what most of his coherent energy was directed at, just simply looking like a conservative politician. And he was that, an all dog-whistling, all-screaming extravaganza of an alt-white minstrel act that was easily worth the price of admission given his many, many rallies were free. If entertainment or coded red meat are criteria then he is easily the greatest President of all time, squatting alone majestically in the S-Tier disdainfully eying off the bugs floating beneath him. Unfortunately the rankings are for doing the job of President, with awkward criteria such as 'handing over to the person who won the election', because this world is inherently unfair to his unique brand of genius. 203.213.243.117 (talk) 05:52, 17 April 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

to summarize: Ratings of US Presidents seem to mix performance/ability with morality/ethics without clearly distinguishing. That creates alot of ambiguity for this topic. Xcalibur (talk) 22:45, 20 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 12 December 2022[edit]

Trump must be worse than Harding, due to the fact that he was impeached two times in a row, refusing to concede after losing his re-election bid. and downplaying the COVID-19 pandemic, and can you stop changing it, because I don’t want Harding to be ranked after Trump again. 2600:1017:B838:F046:18AC:3C21:FA11:C98A (talk) 00:59, 13 December 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

We've had a discussion about this. It's just too soon to include him in the worst of all time. Remember, a great number of presidents were die hard slavery supporters and they're not on the list. Bkatcher (talk) 01:03, 13 December 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Regarding when the cutoff is for RECENTism, WP seems to define post-1992 US politics as a contentious topic. So, how about this: a POTUS is no longer RECENT once they've been out of office for at least 30 years. If you had to set an arbitrary limit, I think that's as good as any. By this definition, HW Bush has just become eligible, while Clinton won't be for awhile, and Trump won't be eligible until at least early 2051 (assuming he doesn't get re-elected, which would push it further back). eta - If you're not satisfied with 30, I'd consider a range from 20-50 years, but not above or below that. Xcalibur (talk) 01:40, 24 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Reverted ‘Racism Ranking’[edit]

Please achieve consensus before re-adding material.

Section quoted a single book published in the early 2020s ranking presidents’ “racism”.

In addition to the…usual…nature of the section, it suffered from recentism.

It marked Lincoln as a “white supremacist”. It is…a highly unusual position, and one especially associated with a particular ideology that was most popular in 2020-2021. It is definitely something that will remain to be seen, whether there is still a serious historian ranking presidents by “racism” number in 30 years. Oxenfording (talk) 07:27, 27 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I have to concur, the “racist rankings” should be deleted, it’s quite obscene. Nate Rybner 02:07, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
adding my $0.02 here, this list is silly especially as it lists certain presidents in multiple categories. Nixon is both "anti-racist" and "white supremacist."— Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.26.248.228 (talk) 06:29, 17 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Bravo![edit]

BRAVO: Kudos to the many editors who have contributed to this article over the years. It looks great. For fun, take a peek at the first draft from 2005. Anyway, yay you. jengod (talk) 16:18, 2 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Warren G. Harding[edit]

I think that perhaps Historical rankings of presidents of the United States#Reassessment of Warren G. Harding be forked to Historical reputation of Warren G. Harding. This is precedent in Historical reputation of Ulysses S. Grant. jengod (talk) 16:25, 2 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I agree; in the context of this article it looks like grossly undue emphasis. Ewulp (talk) 00:18, 3 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
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