It is time once again to for me to rank a president finishing a term. This is the fourth go around for this and I face several oddities with my rankings:
- Do I Rank Trump terms separately or overall as president?
- How does what we’ve found out about Trump’s first term during the Biden years affect his ranking?
- How do you rank a president who while legally might have been president but may not have actually been the president?
All these are excellent questions so I will tackle them as they come up using the same system that I’ve been using.
The top Tier of Presidents is:
Teddy Roosevelt, Grover Cleveland, Abe Lincoln, James K. Polk, George Washington and formally Donald Trump
Last time around I noted that Trump has a lot in common with both Teddy Roosevelt & Lincoln who accomplished a lot while being hated by elites who thought him an idiot & or a cowboy. We now know that also like Lincoln those elites were trying to bring him down from the inside (I would not be surprised if this was true of Teddy too.) De in that he is a plain speaker who accomplished a lot while being hated by elites.
Four years of experience has told us that Trump should be marked down for
- His inability to overrule and reject Fauci & Co on Covid
- His attacks at the time on governors who recognized what they were & successfully went their own way
That counts against him but what counts for him is the knowledge of the extent that Washington both inside and outside his administration was actively trying to destroy his presidency in general and him in particular. That he was able to accomplish so much in that situation not only would keep him in this top tier but put him, in my opinion way ahead of Polk and Cleveland (who he nudged by a hair last time) and ahead of Teddy as the third best president of all time, at least if he was not serving another term…
…but he IS in fact serving another term so because we did not rank Cleveland’s terms separately we can not in fairness do the same for Trump so he will for now be removed from this location on the list until his term of office is complete and his years as President can be ranked as a whole (more on that later).
The “Near Great” president’s group consists of:
Reagan, Truman, FDR, McKinley, Monroe, Madison, IKE
As before FDR’s socialism and fawning over the USSR costs him, McKinley’s and Madison’s willingness to put us into wars we didn’t need hurt them. Truman standing up to the Soviets got him here. Reagan’s immigration deal almost knocks him down and I’m still wondering if I have Monroe too low. There is one change however and that’s the inclusion of Ike on this level. Madison’s decision to give the fleet a chance in 1812 is what keeps him here.
The last few years have really made clear how his grasp of war and peace, the prosperity he brought and his willingness to stand up to both the military and academic elites for the sake of the people have allowed me to appreciate all he did even more thus Ike moves up to the near great tier. I’ll leave it to others to make the case that he deserves to rank even higher.
The next tier of President’s on my list is:
Kennedy, Coolidge, Hayes, Jackson, Tyler, Jefferson, John Adams and George W Bush
I must confess I’m temped to move Coolidge higher for his restraint and small government but while Silent Cal once said He’s never had to explain something he didn’t say neither can he be given points for things he didn’t do. The current orthodoxly not withstanding I still think GWB belongs here, he really was the right man at the right time. Some would rank Jackson or JFK higher, I disagree, Jefferson’s disastrous response to the British and French moves keep him here despite Louisiana & Tripoli and Adams success in keeping the US overtly out of the European war (Navel fighting with France not withstanding) gets him here along with simply keeping things going after Washington. Hayes like Biden really should not have been president, but unlike Biden governed wisely. This was really the highest Joe Biden could have hoped to achieve and as you might guess he came nowhere near it.
The tier of President’s just above the Obama failure tier is:
Clinton, GHW Bush, Ford, LB Johnson, Taft, Andrew Johnson, Pierce, Fillmore, Taylor.
I’m now absolutely convinced that Bill Clinton is the Best of this Tier as his accomplishments overshadow Ford and Johnson but while I might be tempted briefly to consider moving Clinton up a level I suspect this is really because he is the best Democrat President we’ve had in my lifetime since Kennedy and that Obama and Biden were SO MUCH WORSE that they make Clinton seem better than he is, when the reality is that the Clintons laid (pun unavoidable) the groundwork for the moral corruption & mendacity that made the Democrats what they are today. Bush’s tax mendacity enabled the Clinton years and really there is nothing that has happened which advances either LBJ or Ford, although if we find out that LBJ had any connection to the Kennedy murder he will of course drop. What I said about the 19th century presidents from this tier last time around still applies.
The Bottom or Obama Tier of Presidents are:
Carter, Nixon, Hoover, Harding, Wilson, B. Harrison, Garfield, Grant, Buchanan, WH. Harrison, Van Buren, JQ Adams, Obama and now Joe Biden or whoever has actually been president for the last four years.
Carter’s reputation continues to sink it hasn’t sunk to Obama/Buchanan levels. While I’d like to move JQ Adams out of this ranking my admiration for him as a man and stateman doesn’t count, that’s why Hoover remains grouped with them as well.
Eight years ago I ranked Obama above Buchanan because I figured that Buchanan had tons of experience that Obama didn’t. Four years ago I moved Obama below him because I concluded that he is and remains “the 1st American president in history whose goal was the downfall of the United States of America who was not named Jefferson Davis.”
Given the Obama administrations involvement to destroy Trump and his administration involvement in the Biden administration he would seem to have a stranglehold on that bottom rung.
And then came Biden.
Four years ago I said this about him:
He comes into office with one advantage that Trump had namely the lowest expectations of any incoming president for years.
I also noted two wild cards concerning his administration. That first was said this:
Biden’s core set of beliefs are as flexible as a contortionist turned prostitute I have no idea what he actually believes other than in getting rich off his office
The only thing that has been more positively confirmed than this observation is the 2nd one I made:
I suspect he isn’t actually holding power both due to his own infirmities and the crowd that owns him. They have enough on him and his own to put his entire family away and if he chooses to stray from anything beyond useful idiot status his owners from China to Obama will destroy him before Jan of 2023 rather than afterwards. Of course he is old and sick enough that he might not even live to be pushed out for Harris at that date but with the best health care available who knows?
The only miscalculation from this paragraph was the Harris thing. Who knew that Kamala Harris was so incompetent that whoever was running the Biden administration preferred keeping the dementia patient than giving her power. Without a question if it had not been for the June debate they would have considered the façade with the help of the media which maintained the coverup as long as they could. My conclusion:
Bottom line given his age, infirmity, corruption and the nature of his gaining power by theft I can’t imagine that he can max out to make even level three with Hayes and company and what we’ve seen already suggests it will take real effort to avoid the bottom tier.
I would be absolutely delighted to be proved wrong here, but I doubt that will be the case.
Not only was I not proven wrong but the Biden years excelled my wildest nightmares
The list of Biden failures are legion, enabling Russia, enabling Hamas, enabling china basically enabling every possible enemy of the US.
Then there is the unending stream of illegal immigrants the aiding and abetting of the destruction of law and order in cities, the Covid restrictions and nightmare that they fostered on the country all the loss of jobs, all the fear and panic and that doesn’t even count the deaths of innocents who played along.
No Democrat dares define “woman” no liberal dares suggest at a male sex offender should not be held with female prisoners. All of this is a product of the Biden years. Truth has been a casualty of this administration and their embrace of lies by the administration by the 2nd Catholic President is the living example of the admonishment given by Christ in John 8:44.
Then there is a rampant antisemitism and the enabling of terrorists which goes on.
None of this is the worst of it. Of all we’ve seen the 2nd worst of it has been the lawfare, the kangaroo courts for J6 people, the selling of an insurrection that wasn’t, Americans imprisoned, people’s bank accounts and livelihoods threatened for having the wrong opinions or for supporting Trump and the use of the Federal Government to persecute political foes, even to the point, in my opinion, of agencies doing what they can to enable the murder of his opponent in the political race.
That is, believe it or not, the 2nd worst thing we saw from this administration.
The worst that we saw was what happened in East Palestine Ohio and Western North Carolina.
In the former case you had Americans dealing with the aftermath of a train derailment of chemicals, in the later the aftermath of an incredible storm and unprecedented flooding.
But in both cases Americans trying to recover from disaster saw the response of the Federal Government be at best non-existent and at worst based on their state’s or region’s support for the administration.
The very idea that Americans facing the aftermath of a disaster might have their access to food, drinking water and shelter dependent on the political whims of an administration is the most obscene thing I’ve heard of in my life. It’s inhumane it’s disgusting and it’s beyond what I would have believed was possible by an American administration.
There were people, including the first lady who might have been in charge and knew where enough bodies were burred to keep old Joe in power who could have insisted on something different being done.
They did not.
I thought Obama had a stranglehold on that bottom rung, but apparently Joe Biden or those who actually were running the country decided to push him aside and say: “Hold my beer.”
If you had told me on January 19th 2021 I would see these things in a Biden administration even given the practically non-existent expectations I had for them I would not have believed you but then again why would I have expected better from people who literally stole a country for their own gain and power.
But in the end it doesn’t matter if Joe Biden was actually running the show or a cabal of Obama minions or Chinese minions or Jill Biden was actually in charge. Joe Biden was legally president from Jan 2021 to Jan 2025 as sure as Pop Moran’s (A Fitchburg native BTW) Cincinnati Reds won the World Series in 1919. No matter what shenanigans took place to make it happen or caused that result, that is the legal and result on record so Joe Biden gets the blame for the worst presidency of my lifetime.
I closed my piece four years ago saying:
Pray for the country we’re going to need it.
On Nov 5th of last year those prayers were answered and that brings us to the return of the leader that the people had actually chosen in 2020 before their choice was stolen from them, Donald Trump.
As I’ve already said, if Trump died at 11:59 AM EST he would be ranked 3rd best president of all time but now he has to be judged by his entire term.
To say the expectations are beyond the moon is to understate it, but Trump is a problem solver who has apparently learned a lot from his first term.
He has a team in place and is ready to act at once and has a clear idea of what he wants to do and has amazingly already managed successes in the weeks before taking office.
But the moment he takes the oath he becomes a lame duck so I think he has maybe a year at best two to get his agenda in.
If all he manages to do is secure the boarder and bring down energy prices his second terms will be a success.
If he manages to do this AND bring peace to Ukraine and Israel and avoid a Chinese invasion of Taiwan it will be a Great Success.
If he manages to do this AND made a deal with Denmark and Greenland and restore order to cities it will be a tremendous success.
If he manages to do this AND drain the Swamp, then he moves above Lincoln and Washington.
If however the economy sputters, gas prices don’t go down and he doesn’t manage to get the wars under control he will without a question drop down at least one level and perhaps maybe more and they’ll be plenty of deep stators eager for that result.
I have no idea how this will all end, and will frankly be surprised if he makes it to the end of his term unmurdered but a rising tide lifts all boats and if Trump delivers an America where even the Biden grifters are able to make money he just might make it to 2029 alive.
Let’s hope my optimism for the next four years is as justified as the pessimism I had four year ago.
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