Talk:Historical rankings of presidents of the United States/Archive 5

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Scholar survey summary - Rating of presidential racism

Why is there a section dedicated to presidential racism in section 2.1? This is not relevant to the topic and not an accurate representation of the surveys listed. RacismIsntRelevantHere (talk) 09:53, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

I agree with this and support it's removal. It's out of place and shouldn't be in the table. At the very least consensus should have been reached for it. Definitely veering into POV. BBX118 10:31, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
WP:IDONTLIKEIT -- It's directly related to the subject and already in the article with consensus. -- Sleyece (talk) 19:59, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
It is the result of a professional presidential ranking survey. It's dissimilar from other presidential rankings in that it assigns verbal categories rather than numerical values, but since we no longer sum up the numerical values, that's no longer relevant. I would quibble about the format -- visually it's not very accessible the way it is now, and it's out of order chronologically, but the other surveys differ widely from each other as well, from a simple assessment of best to worst, to weighting of multiple parameters of presidential effectiveness and legacy. Ranking a president for racism is not out of place with the many other criteria presidents are ranked by in these surveys, and it is interesting to see it side-by-side with those other rankings. — kwami (talk) 20:51, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
This is exactly correct. -- Sleyece (talk) 22:13, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
Support for removal I support including this information in the article in the current section that it resides. However, I oppose including in the summary table. That table is a summary of surveys, purposely without context. All the context is in subsequent sections. It doesn't make sense to include such a specific piece of information in such a generic table, and it probably violates WP:NPOV. Kstern (talk) 23:03, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
How exactly does a scholarly survey in a table of scholarly surveys violate NPOV? -- Sleyece (talk) 00:40, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
The table contains quantitative data (rankings of presidents). The racism survey, while still scholarly, is qualitative data. Inserting qualitative data (esp with a particularly charged term like "racist") into a quantitative table could be construed as non-neutral. Either way, it simply doesn't fit with the other data and should be removed. Kstern (talk) 01:18, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
Would you like to rename the section to "Notable Scholar Surveys that are Quantitative and Don't Mention Race Ever"? It currently is just "Notable Scholar Surveys" without additional limitations or caveats. -- Sleyece (talk) 04:42, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
I don't get the quantitative/qualitative distinction. All the surveys are qualitative. Asking someone how much they like ice-cream or how bad their pain is on a scale from 1 to 10 doesn't make the answer quantitative or objective. The rankings are highly subjective, as many of the surveys note. (There are some great quotes along those lines from participants in the Times survey that I haven't gotten around to adding to the article.)
Granted, that study sticks out like a sore thumb, and the graphic presentation needs work IMO. But I would think that excluding controversial results would be the NPOV violation, not the other way around. We're already comparing very different surveys and implying that they're equivalent. Adding this survey just makes it obvious that they don't follow the same methodology, so IMO that gives the reader a more accurate impression.
While the word 'racist' is loaded, it does have its proper use. 'Fascist', 'Nazi' and 'Communist' are loaded too, and frequently abused, but we use them in hundreds of history articles. Its hardly controversial to say that Jackson or Nixon was a racist. My quibble would be that I define the word differently than they do, but that's the usual RS vs TRUTH conflict we have. — kwami (talk) 05:06, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I disagree with it being included into the ranking section, the entire chart is just numerical rankings. Add in this here and why not more things? Women's sufferage, war crimes, pro-life/pro-choice... It has a place further down but not intermixed within this chart. Xenomorph1984 (talk) 11:44, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

No race mixing? Weird. -- Sleyece (talk) 13:38, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
@Sleyece care to explain your above comment please? Xenomorph1984 (talk) 11:11, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
Calm down. I've already been accused of violating AGF. Whatever you're about to toss at me pales in comparison. -- Sleyece (talk) 11:43, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Comment A lot of y'all are acting like this is a personal stance. All I did was add a scholar survey to a table of others. All this talk of why the survey shouldn't be in the table have no bearing on the current consensus. The section is "Notable Scholar Surveys" and Subsection 2.1 is "Scholar Survey Summary". The survey I included in the table easily clears both hurdles. Everything else is HARD WP:IDONTLIKEIT unless y'all want to RfC and alter the consensus. -- Sleyece (talk) 14:28, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

The content of a recent racism survey isn't relevant at all to historical presidential rankings. Not only does it not belong in 2.1 but it doesn't deserve it's own section in Section 3 either. It should be included in it's own subsection in Section 2 though.RacismIsntRelevantHere (talk) 15:09, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
You're going to find more success with that here: https://conservapedia.com/Main_Page You seem very unaware of Wikipedia policy in general. -- Sleyece (talk) 15:29, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
I generally agree with Sleyece and a couple of others' comments above: if it's a notable scholarly survey it belongs in the table, although the formatting could be improved. Currently it sticks out like a sore thumb, but in twenty years it might be one of a dozen notable scholarly surveys that focus on racism. On the other hand, the table could get messy if it turns out that notable scholarly surveys exist on narrow (yet interesting) topics such as ranking/classifying Presidents by "Command of international affairs" or "Mastery of rhetoric" or "Commitment to institutional transparency". —DIV (1.145.43.213 (talk) 15:56, 5 September 2021 (UTC))

I disagree with it being included in the main table, as the table is about their quantitative historical rankings, rather than the perceived racism of their administration. If we're going to include this column in the main table, by the same logic we may as well add a column of a foreign policy study as to whether each president was perceived as a foreign policy hawk or dove, for example. This is not just me saying WP:IDONTLIKEIT, I just don't think it belongs in the table. If it must be in the article at all, it would be better off as back in its original position with its own section (although I'm not even sure it belongs in the article at all as it isn't a qualitative historical ranking, although I'm prepared to overlook this for the sake of saving having a row over it). Cooltrainer Hugh (talk) 18:25, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

It is literally a qualitative historical ranking by definition. -- Sleyece (talk) 21:30, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
Typo; I of course meant quantitative. Cooltrainer Hugh (talk) 21:43, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
All of these rankings are qualitative. Assigning a number to a qualitative judgement does not make it quantitative, except in the trivial sense that there are numbers involved. Since we can't manipulate the numbers, other than to sort by them, they serve no quantitative purpose. The racism survey could've assigned numbers for racism, but it would still be qualitative.
The valid objection, IMO, is that it's such a specialized topic. As you said, "by the same logic we may as well add a column of a foreign policy study". Indeed, foreign policy is a parameter that many of the other surveys (and almost all of the recent ones) have evaluated presidents on. I just don't know of any survey on only that one thing. Or as Xenomorph1984 said above, "why not more things? Women's sufferage, war crimes, pro-life/pro-choice..." That's a valid objection, not because such surveys don't belong here, but because the table could get so cluttered as to be unusable. But Xenomorph1984, do you know of any such studies that would make this a problem? If it ever becomes an issue, I could see a second table, where you could see how they compare for racism vs foreign policy vs war crimes or whatever. But since it's just one survey, I don't see how it's a problem. I'm not saying it needs to be in the table, I just don't find any of the objections very convincing. The user name of the original objector says it all: "RacismIsntRelevantHere". But of course it is relevant here. Slavery is the original sin of the USA, and racism and discrimination are its legacy. Much of the domestic policy score that presidents get in these surveys is based on how they dealt with slavery, the Civil War and their legacy. Indeed, that's the reason the top and bottom presidents are where they are. It's the reason Johnson gets a reasonably high score despite the disaster of the Vietnam War. You could just as easily say "ForeignPolicyIsn'tRelevantHere" because the president is president of the USA, not of the world. Except of course that foreign policy is a huge aspect of the presidency, and of all rankings of presidents. — kwami (talk) 06:38, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
The reason Foreign Policy rankings aren't here is the same reason why how many days they were in office isn't - because it's not relevant here. Those would be single metrics rather than overall assesments. The main table is for overall assesments of the presidents' ranking and the agenda pushing needs to stop. I think all edits by Sleyece here should be reversed until a consensus is made. RacismIsntRelevantHere (talk) 09:37, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
Right, but none of what you just said is true are based on any current consensus... -- Sleyece (talk) 20:11, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
The real problem is that it's not a ranking. It's more of a classification of presidents. It doesn't even claim to be a ranking. Also, ½ of its criteria for those classifications is about the personal views of presidents, which is about the man, not the president (which is why this page has the footnotes for it). It's just so far from the what this page is about that I don't see how anyone sees it as meeting the criteria for this particular page. That isn't to say that it might not merit its own page. Or, if this org DOES rank presidents based on racism as a criterion, we should at least use those numbers rather than the classification. Even then, though, it'd be ranking of one aspect of the presidencies, not of the presidencies themselves. But, really, the biggest problem is that it's not a ranking. If we're going to keep it, we should change the name of the page. Icowrich (talk) 21:25, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
I find it hard to take seriously any assertion that racism has played no role in shaping the History of the U.S. Also, the personal views of President affects policy. For instance, J.F.K. and Johnson pushed for the Civil Rights Act, and Nixon followed up with incremental, albeit significant policy. The personal views of Presidents affect how they addressed policy historically even though all three were rated Anti-Racist. In a table of scholar surveys, your currently trying to declare which scholars surveys count and trying to segregate the black ones, so I'm not going to respond beyond this. -- Sleyece (talk) 21:51, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Support for removal — I personally see no reason to include something as inflammatory as rating how racist an American president may or may not have been. As far as I am concerned, this table does nothing to add to the encyclopedic function of the article, and has no educational benefit aside from providing what can only be described as a narrowly-interpreted view of a president's character based on entirely subjective standards from a single scholar's research. There is no solid reference aside from a 13-year old publication that has no scientific analysis behind it to back up its purported findings within the article itself. Why and how is Andrew Johnson considered "institutionally racist" while Donald Trump is boldly proclaimed a "white supremacist"? What views and domestic policies did Trump publicly proclaim that earned him that claim, while Johnson, a man who actively curtailed and resisted the efforts of Reconstruction following the civil war and throughout his administration, is not painted in same light? Wilson on the is likewise considered only "institutionally racist" when he actively wrote on the perceived superiority of whites while the head of Princeton University, and actively ignored the Ku Klux Klan during his administration, directly resulting in its strongest period of growth in the 1920s. and this is to say nothing of Andrew Jackson, a man who actively held slaves, oppressed Native Americans, and founded an entire political party for the purposes of protecting southern slavery. What are the prerequisites that grant these distinctions between the various presidents, and why it is necessary to include something that subjective in this article? Vivaporius (talk) 20:52, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

The entire article is subjective. Every bit of data in it. The whole thing is just opinions. All of it is arbitrary construct of the the evaluations of academics and pollster. It's an article of subjective rankings. It is a collection of historical rankings based on the subjective evaluations of various sources. Those sources have subjective opinions, and those opinions were ranked in various ways. Those subjective opinions were collected into a table. -- Sleyece (talk) 05:41, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Agree with removal of column from the table. The fundamental error here is the inclusion of nominal data from a typology in an ordinal table about rankings: The article page and table itself refer to presidential rankings, but the typology provided from Walton and Smith (2008) is not ranked. Those authors do not provide a ranking of presidents' racism; they provide a typology of presidents' racism. If you want to include this column, you need to provide a poll where scholars rank the racism of presidents (e.g., 1 through 45, most to least racist), which is not provided by the cited material. kwami seems to have missed this detail in writing above, "Ranking a president for racism is not out of place with the many other criteria presidents are ranked by in these surveys", as in fact no ranking of racism has been provided here. Sleyece seems to have missed this point also in the form stated above by Icowrich, the latter writing correctly: "The real problem is that it's not a ranking. It's more of a classification of presidents. It doesn't even claim to be a ranking." Lastly, I do not see where any consensus was achieved for this inclusion in the table—a consensus which Sleyece purports was achieved already in the 4 September edit. --Scuoise (talk) 16:11, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Sleyece said it's in the article by consensus, not in the table by consensus.
The question here hinges on how strictly we need to adhere to numerical ranking. But absolute rankings are largely illusionary, as the Times survey reports: you might be able to rank the top and the bottom, but there's little to differentiate the majority of the presidents in the middle. So the problem with this survey is that it doesn't present spurious numbers. It's not uncommon for tables that rank things numerically to also include non-numeric evaluations. — kwami (talk) 16:51, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
In the absence of consensus for inclusion in the table, the earlier reverts should not have been undone. I will restore Bbx118's edit for the time being, because there is clearly significant opposition above to the change. To your point, obviously there is no such thing as an objective ranking of presidents' racism. The problem is that the cited material is not even a subjective scholarly ranking of presidents' racism. It is not a ranking at all. The table is not designed to list typologies of presidents' beliefs about a range of issues. A typology of racist views does not belong on this table for the same reason that typologies of presidents' views on gender equality, same-sex relationships, or foreign policy do not belong on this table: If you want to make a table that lists whether a president is typified by scholars as racist/anti-racist, misogynist/philogynist, homophobic/LGBT advocate, or isolationist/interventionist, then that belongs elsewhere, not in aggregated or disaggregated rankings of presidents' success. --Scuoise (talk) 17:17, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
WP:IDONTLIKEIT, WP:NPOV -- Sleyece (talk) 17:47, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
Unless you would like to explain how I have infringed either of those policies, I can't take your response seriously. My objections above do not constitute "Undo it because I don't like it". I can only advise that you re-read the text and try again. As for NPOV, which you cited in your undo, you may just be confused. Do you think I am violating NPOV by engaging in WP:BRD? The addition to the table degraded the quality of the article for reasons explored above, it was reverted for those reasons, and it should gain consensus before being re-added. Please actually engage in discussion instead of throwing policy links that you are not even using correctly. --Scuoise (talk) 17:57, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
The consensus seems pretty clear here. The column should be removed from the table. If there was previous consensus to include the data in the article in the current section it's in, then that's fine. However, there has been enough legitimate justification provided here for removing the column from the table. I don't see any WP:IDONTLIKEIT arguments. Kstern (talk) 18:13, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
Normally it would be inappropriate for me to respond so quickly, but you tagged me in your WP:POV edit, so that's on you -- Sleyece (talk) 17:58, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
@Sleyece: I have been watching this page and reading this discussion for the past few days. Linking to WP:IDONTLIKEIT will do nothing to help you because it implies that dissenting people do not have an actual case. It is the online equivalent of aimless and insistent shouting in an argument. Please do not accuse another editor of trying to segregate the black ones, so I'm not going to respond beyond this (diff). Allegations about an ideological agenda violate AGF. Do not insult others, either, as very unaware of Wikipedia policy in general (diff). I fear that this dispute will evolve into an edit war, so I would let the article be in its current state (with the racism classifications in the table) and seek reaching a CONSENSUS. A request for comment, as mentioned earlier, may be the only way to resolve this dispute. wikinights talk 23:19, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Dead(-Last) Presidents

It should be easier to see, at a glance, which president ranked in last place within a given survey. For obvious reasons, it's always easy to ascertain who ranked first (hint: look for no. 1). But because the number of presidents included per survey varies widely—from 29 to 44—it's not easy to see who ranked last. Harding was ranked dead-last at no. 29 in the earliest survey, Shlesinger 1948, but by Siena 1982 onward the no. 29 rank is no longer even in the bottom quartile. Currently, the only way for a reader to determine who ranked last would be to manually sort each column against the "total surveyed" figure in the bottom row; that's a tedious task, and especially so on mobile, where table sorting is not typically an option.

It doesn't look like this has been proposed or discussed before, so I've gone ahead and edited the table so that last-place rankings are underlined. Here's my edit. I'll readily admit there may be better ways to format or notate this, but I definitely think "last place" should be notated in some way.

For what it's worth, only four presidents have ever ranked last in one of these surveys: Buchanan, A. Johnson, Harding, and Trump. There's only one more member of that club than the triumvirate of first-place rankers: Washington, Lincoln, and FDR. —BLZ · talk 02:00, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

You can just hit the sort arrow twice to get the person in last place. RacismIsntRelevantHere (talk) 03:14, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
Not on mobil -- Sleyece (talk) 01:13, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Observations/Comments

I have tried to look over the impressive table, and have found that it is rather unmanageable. Namely it relies on the slider bar at the bottom of the table, but if you scroll up to see the top part of the table, that slider bar is not accessible. One solution is to zoom out so that the font is small and more of the table can be seen at a time, but then I can't read the font. Would there be a way to do away with the slider bar at the bottom of the table and rely instead on the browser slider bar (the one that doesn't go away)?

I noted that the party affiliation is given for each president, and indicated by colors. This is just misleading over the ages in terms of assessing a president's political philosophy. In Lincoln's day the R's and D's were reversed in political tendencies. A Lincoln republican was in no way related to an Eisenhower republican; political party indicated this way on the table has very little meaning (unless one is well-versed in American history). I am wondering if there isn't some measure of the president's political philosophy (e.g., progressive-liberal-conservative) that could be indicated on the table. For example, the party could be stated by text, as it is now, but then the background color changed to indicate political tendencies. One would have to find a reliable source that has done this sort of analysis. At the very least, perhaps the table caption could succinctly state this issue, perhaps giving links to the histories of the political parties. Bdushaw (talk) 22:10, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

We'd need a whole 'nother table for the conflicting assessments of political tendencies, and ppl can be liberal on some issues and conservative on others, so that would probably be unworkable. Party affiliation, however, is party affiliation, apart from a few oddities. By today's standards (or at least rhetoric), Reagan is a socialist, but that doesn't mean he should be categorized as having the same political philosophy as Sanders, who actually belonged to the Socialist Party. — kwami (talk) 03:17, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
There is some continuity in party politics. One has always appealed to the more privileged, while the other has attempted to build coalitions of the less privileged. Their changes in policies can be explained by this overriding difference. So Lincoln for example was supported by New York business elites and Northern Protestants, while his Democratic opponents (at least in the North) appealed to minorities and the poor. His supporters would benefit from the end of slavery, while Democratic supporters would have to fight in the war and then compete with freed blacks in the labor market. Socialists meanwhile supported Lincoln. So it would be hard to assign modern political concepts such as liberal and conservative to politics in the 1860s. TFD (talk) 11:49, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 November 2021

Donald Trump got him beat though 🤷‍♂️NCSWIC 47.219.204.30 (talk) 03:39, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Cannolis (talk) 06:31, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
Who the heck is "him"? Dimadick (talk) 10:56, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

Andrew Johnson and National Union Party

I just noticed that the colour assigned to "National Union Party" (which Andrew Johnson is listed under) is really inconsistent in this article. In most cases it's Democrat blue, but on the first chart ("Scholar survey summary") it's Republican red, and in the sixth chart ("2021 C-SPAN") it has a lighter shade of red.

Ideally, this should be consistent across all every chart. Blue makes sense, seeing as Andrew Johnson was a Democrat both before and after his presidency. Grey could also work, but personally I don't really see much of a case for any sort of red. Thoughts?

69.172.150.195 (talk) 08:48, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Makes sense. He was the opposite of Lincoln. — kwami (talk) 20:47, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Scholar surveys of diversity and racism

I do not see how a diversity and racism ranking would have any effect on how a president is ranked politically. I am aware that this article was created by a person generally leaning left, indicated by the lack of right-leaning presidential surveys and rankings, but the relevance of "racist policies" should be highlighted under policies, otherwise we should make a table for every "minority", including gay and religious minorities in the United States and see how each president treated every group.

They're surveys of scholars. Scholars tend to lean left. If you have right-leaning surveys that aren't crackpot, they're welcome here too. And no, racism isn't like the others. It's our founding evil, and how presidents handled it affects the modern US in a way that treatment of Catholics or women does not. The only other comparable would be Indian policy. — kwami (talk) 20:46, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes, but I do not see how the policies or views of presidents regarding race are different from ones, say, regarding foreign policy. Also, it is impossible to objectively carry out a study of presidents across 4 different centuries because ideas are constantly shifting. Specifically in the section "Northwestern Presidential Leadership on Diversity and Inclusion Survey (2019)", I don't see how racial equality is a fair way to judge a president. As it says in the text above, it is a highly partisan poll, and very clearly unobjective. For me, therefore, to obtain a fair rating of presidents, this poll should be excluded.

They're not fundamentally different. If you have surveys that focus on foreign policy, those would be welcome too. It's impossible to objectively evaluate presidents for foreign policy either. Several of the surveys note that any poll of scholars is going to be subjective. That's inherent to all opinions. — kwami (talk) 05:59, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

It is very interesting how revisions to the table that change the placement of presidents while citing actual actions those presidents took get reverted with no comment. There is clear bias. Scatoogle (talk) 08:51, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

"Best presidents" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Best presidents and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 December 28#Best presidents until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 17:38, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Donald Trump

There is no evidence to assert that Trump is a white supremacist. To say this and have the page blocked from edits is shameful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DevoutBeast007 (talk • contribs) 16:48, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

It was according to that one specific scholarly survey and it is well cited. The page is not blocked from edits, either. Bkatcher (talk) 17:49, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
The article is semi-protected. DevoutBeast007 has too few contributions to edit semi-protected pages. If it wasn't protected then it would probably often say much worse things about Trump than including him in a list of 24 presidents who are rated as white supremacists in a source. I have checked his rating in the source. We definitely shouldn't lie and claim he doesn't have that rating. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:58, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
We were talking about whether or not to include that scholarly article in a specific table. We aren't going to censor academic articles just because you don't like them. -- Sleyece (talk) 00:21, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

RfC on including Racism study in Scholar Survey Summary table

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
A summary of the debate may be found at the bottom of the discussion.

The table contains quanitative rankings of the presidents, based on scholar surveys. The racism survey (current rightmost column) is qualitative data and does not belong in the table. Previous discussion here. Kstern (talk) 00:47, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

  • Oppose addition Repeating arguments stated before:
  1. The table was aggregates the results of multiple scholarly surveys that assess a presidency in all its parts, not just in a specific area. We can find other surveys that rank them partially, like in foreign policy.
  2. The racism survey classifies presidents with adjectives (in two categories), but does not rank them.
  3. Therefore, the racism survey's results should not be reported in the same table as the other scholar surveys. We may add that racism, a controversial and incendiary accusation, will be more noticeable to readers than the quantitative surveys' individual rankings, presenting problems with WEIGHT. wikinights talk 04:10, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Comment I have yet to see these surveys on foreign policy that you keep mentioning. If they exist, we should add them to the article. If they don't exist, you should stop making strawman arguments.
Your argument per WEIGHT is also bogus. By that argument, we should censor all of WP to downplay anything controversial. We don't weight coverage by how much we fear to offend people, but by evaluating how notable the information is. — kwami (talk) 07:53, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
You would like to see a survey typifying foreign policy, but I would rather see a survey ranking racism: No survey ranking racism was provided here, and therefore we have no evidence by which to tabulate a ranking of presidents' racism. A survey typifying foreign policy would be just as irrelevant for this table as the racism survey presently in dispute—it would just be another item we ought not to include in a rankings table. --Scuoise (talk) 10:21, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
This is really a WEIGHT problem. The incendiary accusations of racism are more noticeable to readers than any of the other quantitative surveys, when many of us would agree that it is not as worthy of inclusion in the table than the other surveys. With the way it is presented now, it seems like we are ascribing white supremacism to a president as fact. We ignore more thorough studies of a specific president's racial views just because they are not surveys. The header ("Rating of presidential racism") does not even mention that it is a survey. wikinights talk 19:50, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Support addition The addition helps resolve inherent bias in the article's contents, where we oversimplify how a president's policies were regarded in available sources. I see no reason to exclude qualitative data. Dimadick (talk) 08:26, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
I am interested in hearing your response to the following:
  1. It's not that the data should be excluded because it is qualitative, but that the data should be excluded because it is unranked. I would agree that 'qualitative' is the wrong label here. However, the table presents rankings of presidents' success according to scholars, and the cited material in dispute is not a ranking at all. Including such a column in the table requires providing relevant evidence, which here means a scholarly survey ranking the racism of presidents. That evidence was never provided.
  2. Discussion of racism surveys would not be wholly removed from the article, addressing your concern about inherent bias. I think many editors above were OK with the earlier subsection discussing racism surveys, but not with the mismatched inclusion of typologies in the rankings table. --Scuoise (talk) 10:21, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Comment I'm not participating in the RfC. -- Sleyece (talk) 11:46, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose addition The current version of the table does not include the "racism survey", so for those wondering, this is the "rightmost column" being discussed in this RfC. Oppose adding that column since it's clearly WP:UNDUE. Additionally, the column classifies/labels the presidents; it does not "rank" them. Some1 (talk) 14:45, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose addition As per PRESENTISM.Rja13ww33 (talk) 00:46, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Removal of Racism study in Scholar Survey Summary table

It is clear this is a highly politically charged and biased table. As the majority of previous commentators have stated this violates the intent and non-biased nature of Wikipedia articles. This table additionally violates WP:PRESENTISM and WP:UNDUE. It also makes factually unfounded and untrue claims based on views and policies. Scatoogle (talk) 08:50, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

  • Support removal It is not critical to the article and could easily be perceived as biased. Viktory02 (talk) 20:25, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Is there a request here? Scatoogle's statement is incoherent: the racism study does not appear in the table, so it cannot be removed, and then it appears Scatoogle wants the entire table removed, which isn't going to happen based on IDONTLIKEIT. — kwami (talk) 01:39, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

There is a RFC going on in another section on this topic.Rja13ww33 (talk) 15:25, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Lyndon B. Johnson being listed as anti racist has to be some kind of bad joke

The man is literally legendary for how racist he was. He used the N word in casual conversation, is responsible for the quote "Keep those n_____s voting Democrat for 200 years", and actually went to the trouble of learning how to pronounce the N word in the local accent of every southern state he visited. Jtrainor (talk) 00:28, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

The word "racist" has an odd usage here. They're talking about his policies, though, not his views. — kwami (talk) 03:38, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
The N word is associated with racists but I'm not sure that should be assumed when it's used by a white man born in Texas in 1908, and your specific quote is doubtful. He died in 1973. The claim that he said it in a private conversation is from 1995. Anyway, it's about how the source ranks him, it's not a ranking by Wikipedia. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:19, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
Johnson introduced legislation and policies designed to alleviate racial inequality, which is what was measured. TFD (talk) 14:52, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Ranking presidents by racism according to one source

Title says it all. I remember the good days when this site was neutral. Now it is just fucking leftist propaganda. Is it too much to ask to just present information the best you can without having a political slant, either left or right? Ridiculous LordRage2 (talk) 05:08, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

The other polls that I looked at in this article also cite a single source, because they come from a single poll conducted by a single agency.War (talk) 06:05, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
There is a RFC going on in another section on this topic.Rja13ww33 (talk) 15:25, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
To be clear, that RFC was for removing the racism study from the summary table. That was apparently already taken care of, so I went ahead and closed the RFC. You would need to start a new RFC for this topic. Kstern (talk) 16:30, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
The one source is not one person but a poll of 44 African-American political scientists and historians (at least it was 44 in the original 2002 poll, don't know about later). Do you have sources using a better method than a poll of presumed experts? Or would you maybe just prefer sources which agree with your own views, whatever they are? Or omit information if the best source we can find doesn't agree with your views? PrimeHunter (talk) 10:55, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
How does someone's race in any way make them more of an expert or source on anything? It is clearly a politically and socially motivated ranking that, as can been scene here, serves to do nothing more than to sow division and discord. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scatoogle (talk • contribs) 07:08, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
"How does someone's race in any way make them more of an expert or source on anything?" That sounds like an argument for deleting sources reflecting predominately white polls and surveys, due to being clearly inaccurate. Dimadick (talk) 08:31, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

No Johnson?

Did the 2021 Gallup poll omit Lyndon Johnson? Or it this table bad copying? --mtw — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.210.149.122 (talk) 21:54, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

The poll [1] omitted both Johnson and Ford. PrimeHunter (talk) 06:13, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

President Donald Trump is now the greatest President.

Public opinion is changing abd Donald Trump is now considered the greatest President of the living generations. His accomplishments and successes for America have made him a living hero for anyone who loves America. 2603:8081:140B:F797:DDDF:33B8:BB21:E02C (talk) 13:49, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

You mean white supremacists and other traitors? Dimadick (talk) 20:47, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

No, no, let’s here OP out. This is the type of talk from a studied historian, one who knows the complete history of American presidents, their ethics or lackthereof. Former President Trump gracefully left office, never lied about a pandemic, certainly never made fun of any war heros, and is the most notably Christian president ever.

Lincoln? Overrated. Washington? Over the hill. Trump? Top 3, for sure. Tyrone (talk) 11:39, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Siena College Research Institute, Presidential Expert Poll of 2022

On June 22, 2022, the Siena College Research Institute released it most recent scholarly study on U.S. Presidents on their website.

In Siena’s 7th Presidential Expert Poll 1982 – 2022, the top five ranked presidents (FDR, Lincoln, Washington, Teddy Roosevelt & Jefferson) remain unchanged along with the the worst five, Andrew Johnson, Buchanan, Trump, Harding & Pierce. Two years into his term, Joe Biden enters ranking at 19th and Obama is at 11th. “The scholars that participate in this study have changed over 40 years but the top five – FDR, Abe, Washington, Teddy and Jefferson remain carved in granite year after year. In fact, this year a large plurality of 41% say that if we added onto Rushmore, it should be FDR’s face gracing the South Dakota hills,” according to Don Levy, SCRI’s director.


Downloadable files from the webpage:

1. Press Release: https://scri.siena.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/draft-final.pdf

2. Rankings: https://scri.siena.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/PDF-Ranking-FINAL-REAL.pdf

3. Graphics: https://scri.siena.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Graphics-for-Presidents-Release-2.pdf

4. Survey: https://scri.siena.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Pres-Paper-Survey-2022_final.pdf


--SCRITB (talk) 19:19, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll add it in to the table at least, maybe more if I have the time. — kwami (talk) 19:48, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Average for scholarly summary table

I believe adding a column averaging out the results of the scholarly summary table would help make sense of it. I will add this, but remove it if people disagree. Aramiah (talk) 05:24, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

In some cases that would be averaging results that come from polls while some of them were still president....so I don't know if that really captures their whole terms in office.Rja13ww33 (talk) 14:32, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
We discussed that before. It would be OR, because we would assume that each result had equal weight. (If they did not, we would need a weighted average.) And the average would not be able to account for such things as that Jackson's esteem has declined considerably in modern times. In comparison, we could provide an average of American views on mixed race marriages throughout history, but it wouldn't provide any meaningful information. TFD (talk) 17:21, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
I'm late to this, but we're not going down that rabbit hole again. -- Sleyece (talk) 03:02, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

"Perhaps the only scholarly review"?

In perhaps the only scholarly review of Felzenberg's 2008 book What's the reference for "perhaps the only scholarly review" here? Is it some editor's personal speculation? If so, it should be removed. 2601:547:B03:8F2:B9F5:3901:B777:83F8 (talk) 02:07, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

To the point, it is rather easily answered. I searched for scholarly reviews and immediately found a second one by Burton Folsom, Jr., professor of history at Hillsdale College.
I do not know why the phrase was originally written that way, but consider the mystery solved for future edits - it is not the only scholarly review. Scuoise (talk) 03:22, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Everybody and recentism

A lot of these polls seem to feature the current president rather disproportionately. The polls taken in 2014, for example, have many people expressing strong opinions about Obama (which of course aren't borne out by later polls). Similarly, we have one poll listing Donald Trump as one of the worst by a wide margin... in February 2017, whereas he was sworn in on January 20th. It seems to me like a lot of these are just measuring what's been on people's minds lately. I guess my concrete recommendation would be to add a note to each poll saying who was the president when it was taken. Does anyone have a problem with this? jp×g 09:00, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Seems to me someone could look at the date of the poll and know that.Rja13ww33 (talk) 15:10, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
The year the poll was taken is listed for each poll. -- Sleyece (talk) 19:39, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
What would this change? We quote a poll from 1982, but it did not rate the-then current president: Ronald Reagan. And it ranked Jimmy Carter as the 25th best president. Dimadick (talk) 20:21, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Racist presidents

Wondering why Joe Biden isn't on the racist president poll on here? 2600:1006:B049:A68C:58DF:19E2:763A:DE54 (talk) 20:56, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

The polls were made before he took office. Do you have evidence of updated versions which include him? PrimeHunter (talk) 06:05, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

If we have a poll from RS, we would be happy to include it. Tyrone (talk) 11:39, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

rolling stone? you mean fake news? 2600:1700:13F0:8110:EDCD:6F68:C425:5536 (talk) 04:34, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, no. I'm pretty sure "Tyler" meant Robert Smith, one of the original professors that did the racism poll the first time. There is no Presidential Racism poll that evaluates Joe Biden currently, and you've been informed already. -- Sleyece (talk) 19:34, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
It's virtually certain that they meant WP:RS. Leijurv (talk) 00:42, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

this poll is bullshit

a bunch of bias against thomas jefferson??????? 97.124.254.211 (talk) 08:41, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

WP:NOT -- Sleyece (talk) 19:36, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

You can feel free to vote in one of these polls next tume they're done Caucasianhamburger (talk) 15:20, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

What does "dichotomous or schizoid profiles" mean?

This may be my mind failing to understand these words, but a brief explanation after the quote might help Caucasianhamburger (talk) 15:23, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

I didn't write that, but dichotomy refers to being split into two opposing parts, and schizophrenia is a mental illness which often involves disassociation & bizarre logic. In this context, I think it means that the ranking of US Presidents can be contradictory or conflicting, ie different factions rating the same President very high or low, or scholars both praising and condemning their actions. If you read on (under General findings) the text helps explain that. Xcalibur (talk) 19:42, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Both of these statements can't be true at the same time. Make up your mind.

"Note that 'white supremacist' refers to personal belief; the other categories refer to policy." "Trump is rated as white supremacist both for his personal beliefs and his policies."

It can't be both at the same time. Either Trump is rated as a white supremacist for his beliefs AND his policies, or the other categories do NOT refer only to policy. You can't have your cake and it eat as well. 159.117.189.107 (talk) 22:14, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Please clarify. It's not clear to me what statements can't both be true at the same time. For example, I can personally believe that blue is an ugly color and also have a policy to never wear blue. I can also have a policy to always wear blue and have a personally believe that it is ugly. So, you see, I must be missing something in your complaint.War (talk) 08:48, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
"It's not clear to me what statements can't both be true at the same time"
...I have no idea how you could not. It says quite clearly that "white supremacist" is ONLY categorized by personal belief... only to then say that Trump, and only Trump, is categorized as such for his personal beliefs AND policies. This is a contradiction. Clear cut, no way around it. It can NOT be both ways at once. 159.117.189.107 (talk) 09:48, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
There was a bit of weirdness in the table. Trump should have been (and now is) included in both the "White supremacist" and "Institutionally racist" columns. I've changed the footnote to match. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 13:03, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

I question the inclusion of these "racism rankings" (for a lack of a better term) in the first place. I thought this article was about overall job performance. It (also) reeks of PRESENTISM. What's next? Are we going to have a survey on how pro-LGBT a 18th/19th century President was? It's nonsense.Rja13ww33 (talk) 14:34, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

"Are we going to have a survey on how pro-LGBT a 18th/19th century President was" That seems like a good idea. Dimadick (talk) 18:27, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
  • If such a survey of academics exist on the matter, I don't see what the issue would be. The title of the article is Historical rankings of presidents of the United States, so rankings based on various political issues seems to fit the article perfectly. We should take care to ensure that we are not WP:UNDUE with our inclusion, to watch the length of the article so it does not get too out of control, and the earlier sections should focus on overall performance, but additional scholarly rankings on individual policies make sense here. 155.188.183.55 (talk) 18:31, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
The whole point here is: some sort of a "race" survey seems to be only part of the picture. All the other surveys in the article tend to focus on overall job performance. Why break out this aspect of their Presidency? There are a bunch of issues we could break out. And yes, UNDUE becomes a issue when you start doing that. Why not just stick to overall perception?Rja13ww33 (talk) 18:45, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
I agree to the extent that the only non-overall ranking we have highlighted currently is one on racism. It would make a lot more sense if there were other rankings including economic policy, foreign policy, civil rights, etc. on top of what we have here. Honestly I would be more concerned about length for the article, do we really need to detail out every individual survey that we include in the table? Would a link not be sufficient for many of them? It is an absolutely enormous article and it would make sense to scale it back a bit. 155.188.183.55 (talk) 18:51, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
"Why not just stick to overall perception?" Because it is rather misleading, and actually ignores outright discriminatory policies by these presidents. Historical rankings which ignore things like racism and discrimination are practically useless. Dimadick (talk) 20:14, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
If we start including stand alone racism rankings....we would have to start including stand alone rankings on foreign policy, economics, and so on.....then the size of this article get completely out of control. As per DUE/UNDUE, these type of rankings should only be included as part of a whole host of criteria (in the same poll).Rja13ww33 (talk) 20:50, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
We cover the polls. That's our job. There are polls that focus on racism, so we cover them. If someone started to poll historians specifically on the economic policies of the presidents, then we would cover that as well. If no-one did, then we wouldn't. It's not our job to create some artificial balance on the topics of the polls.
And yes, if there were polls of historians on the LGBT policies of the presidents, then we would cover that as well. Racism isn't 'recentism', though. Race relations have been a major issue since the founding of the country. — kwami (talk) 23:50, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
So you are suggesting we start packing this with polls on individual issues? Hope you like long articles.Rja13ww33 (talk) 00:09, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
How many polls like that are there? I'd like to see the LGBT polls that you're so worried about. — kwami (talk) 00:31, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
Let me see if I have this right: you are saying there are not polls out there rating various Presidents (at different points in time) on individual issues?Rja13ww33 (talk) 00:43, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
It's hard to know exactly what you mean. If you're referring to polls comparing all or many presidents on a single issue, I'm likely to support inclusion. If you mean polls asking about just one president on one issue, then I don't think this is the page for it, though it might be due at the article about their presidency. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 01:59, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
I'm talking about single polls comparing Presidents on single issues. (Especially issues that aren't particularly critical ones that Presidents are typically rated on (i.e. the economy, war & peace, etc).) To me, the kind of poll that should be included are ones like the 2017 C-SPAN Presidential Historians Survey.....where all sorts of factors are considered along with a overall ranking. A single poll considering race alone sticks out like a sore thumb in this article because all the other polls either consider multiple performance criteria (along with a overall rating) or just a overall ranking. To have this stand alone poll is a issue with UNDUE. And if we start expanding the article with multiple single polls on multiple single issues.....we then start running into length issues. So I think these racism surveys should be excluded.Rja13ww33 (talk) 17:02, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
If length is the issue, I would suggest excluding the inaccurate C-SPAN polls and expanding the section on racism. It provides for a better understanding of presidential history. Dimadick (talk) 17:59, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
Why exactly is the C-Span poll "inaccurate"?Rja13ww33 (talk) 18:05, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
The various elements considered in the study do not even mention discriminatory legislation by the Presidents This undermines its accuracy. Dimadick (talk) 19:23, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
In other words: because it doesn't include BS criteria that you want....it's inaccurate. Sorry but this smacks of ACTIVIST or POV pushing at the least.Rja13ww33 (talk) 00:30, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
Thank you for clarifying. I would be surprised to learn that there are enough such polls that we'd run into length issues. If we do, we can start to trim based on reliability of the sources and secondary coverage. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:33, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
There are tons of this stuff out there. (In both academic and RS mainstream press.) For starters, 'War, Presidents, and Public Opinion' (by John E. Muller, packed with tons of opinion polls on wars of the 20th century, including by President). James Patterson's Restless Giant... is packed with all sorts of polling data as well (comparing various Presidents on single issues). This is not even getting into sources like Gallup [2] and so on. We can pack this thing to death with RS on single issues. It makes much more sense to have polls that have overall ratings and (where given) the various criteria.Rja13ww33 (talk) 00:30, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
The Gallup link makes me think I'm still misunderstanding your point here. Those are the types of polls I asked about above: ones that are "asking about just one president on one issue". I don't think such polls, or analysis of them, belong in this article. Inclusion of that type would make this article unwieldy. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 01:44, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
In case you missed it, the Gallup poll went back over the last three presidents. And there is more where that came from: [3][4] Rja13ww33 (talk) 01:52, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
I saw, but each administration of the poll is just asking about one president. I see a qualitative difference between the rankings included in the current article and the polls you've linked. Maybe others will see it differently. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:17, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, you haven't provided any examples of single-issue polls, so I conclude that this isn't actually a problem. — kwami (talk) 04:55, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, if you ignore what I have posted....you'd be right.Rja13ww33 (talk) 19:54, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Does this page need an update?

Specifically the ending of the initial "Notable scholar surveys" section. It ends at 2018. Maybe something could be written on Trump's presidency now that it's over (for now, at least)? Of course, there are recent polls below it that include Trump, so I don't think it's a major loss or anything if it's left as is. Delukiel (talk) 03:41, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 November 2022

James Buchanan
Andrew Johnson
Warren G. Harding
Donald Trump
21st century surveys mostly consider James Buchanan, Lincoln's predecessor, as the worst president for his leadership during the build-up to the Civil War. Others vote Lincoln's successor Andrew Johnson, for blocking civil rights for freed slaves and undermining Reconstruction. In the 20th century, surveys focused on the corruption and scandal-laden presidency of Warren G. Harding, ranking him in last place. Donald Trump is one of four of America's worst presidents, for being impeached twice, and refusing to concede after losing re-election.

That’s what I want to add. 2600:1017:B82D:AFA4:754B:D900:A7BA:888C (talk) 18:38, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

 Not done for now. While I agree there are several reasons why Trump might be considered the worst, I think it's too soon for a historical perspective on Trump. He's only 2 years out of office. ~Anachronist (talk) 19:02, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 November 2022

24.46.59.173 (talk) 20:47, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Trump is actually worse than Harding.

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. In particular, if you're looking to change the caption of the multi-image, the part about Harding is about 20th-century surveys, which were unlikely to have included Trump in the rankings. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 21:26, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 November 2022

24.46.59.173 (talk) 21:12, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Much better!

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Cannolis (talk) 21:56, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 November 2022

According to the scholar survey summary, Roosevelt is actually better than Lincoln, or not?2600:1017:B839:CE8E:1000:5693:66FC:F405 (talk) 21:40, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 01:11, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Who changed it?

Somebody changed the three worst presidents from Warren G. Harring to Donald J. Trump, but there was a conversation (aboved) saying that we should wait. Can someone do something about it? MasterWolf0928-Æthelwulf (talk) 18:35, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Table not fully shown

Due to the new line width maximum, the table "Scholar survey summary" is not shown in its full width. Esp. in tables with many rows, sideways scrolling is inconvenient! Alexander 185.109.110.10 (talk) 09:50, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

That is a wiki-wide issue. Drdpw (talk) 15:32, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 December 2022

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)

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)
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)

Trump and recentism.

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)

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)

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)

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)
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)
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)
@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)
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)
@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)
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)
"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)
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)
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)

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)

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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)

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)

Bravo!

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)

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