Archive: Opinions

By now it's not news to anybody that President Trump is a big fan of 'great'.  His campaign platform was 'make America Great Again', and he has made countless references to greatness.  So it's not a giant leap to think that he isn't thrilled with the 2018 Presidents and Executive Politics Presidential Greatness Survey that was released Monday.  The survey puts Trump dead last in the list of great presidents.

It is not surprising that Abraham Lincoln is ranked number one in greatness, with George Washington ranked as second greatest.  That is something we all learned in elementary school, and their deeds do support the notion.  Interestingly, Trump, who received failing grades on his first year in office, was ranked as the most polarizing president in United States history.

That sent up a red flag for me, because it seems to me that the country was most polarized during Lincoln's presidency.  After all, despite disagreements among US states, none of them have been at actual war with each other over the past year.  It reminded me of the Winston Churchill quotation in which he said, "History is written by the victors."

Because it is really too early to know whether Trump is at all great as a president.  The rises and falls of presidents up and down the list make it clear that while there is some legitimacy to our ideas of greatness at any given time, modern biases and the simple fact that there has been more history since the last survey changes our views on what greatness is.

In this new survey the Roosevelt boys take the #3 and #4 spots (first Franklin, then Teddy), followed by Jefferson, Truman, Eisenhower, Obama, Reagan, Lyndon Johnson, and Wilson.

George W. Bush didn't do so well on the greatness scale in the 2014 version of the survey, but this time he rose by five places to #30.  Ulysses S. Grant also did well in the new survey, rising seven places to #18.  Barack Obama has risen ten places to #8 since 2014.  Bill Clinton fell by 5 places, now ranked at #14.

The study breaks down the responses by ideology and the differences are predictable, though Trump ranks at the bottom no matter who you ask.  Close to two thirds of the respondents  -- Republicans and Democrats -- said they think Franklin Delano Roosevelt should be the next president to join George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln on Mount Rushmore.  GOP and Dem respondents also agreed James Madison deserves a spot.  Democrats thought Barack Obama and Lyndon Johnson should also be considered, while Republicans chose Ronald Reagan to fill out their list.

Does this mean Trump may be considered greater later?  That's kind of the point -- it is too early to tell, and it may be too early to really tell about any president all the way back to Eisenhower, or even at all.  It's hard at this point to imagine someone less great, but if there is one thing we have learned it ought to be that we should never underestimate the depths to which our civilization can fall.

By the way, James Buchanan ranked as the second least great president, probably because he didn't address issues that led to the Civil War.  So maybe he was the most polarizing president, not Lincoln...

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