US Presidents: Who's Up, Who's Down

 #352: I Revise My Presidential Rankings

...................................

Today is Barack Obama's 60th.  Let's celebrate by checking out the most recent presidential rankings.

Alex Voltaire, over at The Northumbrian Countdown feeds off the latest (this time from a CNN panel of presidential historians).  Note: Voltaire has an interesting point about the over-abundance of conservatives among CNN's experts.  

My approach, below, is to take Wikipedia's list of 22 rankings over the past 75 years, average the results, and then compare them to the latest CNN panel's opinion to see who's up and who's down.  My own opinion then follows.  Each number is the position of a given president among the 41 possible ranks (I don't include presidents who served very short terms).  #1 is best and #44 worst (CNN ranked all 44).  The names are listed in historical order.

Using 5 and 10 points as handy dividers, we have Jackson falling off a 10-point cliff (Down), and Van Buren, Tyler, Polk, Pierce, Buchanan, Johnson, Hayes, Cleveland, Wilson, and Hoover taking minor spills of 5 points or more (Dips), but less than 10.  Meanwhile, Grant rises nearly 10 (Upwards).  All presidents experiencing slight declines of more than 1% or so are colored Red.  All with slight upticks of more than 1% or so are Blue.  Bold Red and Bold Blue are indicative of 5 point 'Dips' and 'Upwards' motion.  Underlined names are the big movers.

                            Average    2021                                          My     

Washington             2.59        2                                                5         

Adams                   13.14      15                                              16                 

Jefferson                 4.86         7                                              10        

Madison                12.14       16                                              25                

Monroe                 13.59       12                                                9        

JQA                       17.82       17                                              17                

Jackson                 11.32      22         Old Hickory down        34        

Van Buren             24.23      34        Another down               33         

Tyler                      33.86      39         Late slaver dips            28    

Polk                      13.00       18        Expansionist dips           23          

Fillmore                34.36       38                                               30       

Pierce                   36.95       42         Antebellum dip              36       

Buchanan             38.86      44        Antebellum dip II            39        

Lincoln                  1.59          1                                                   1      

Johnson                37.23       43       Ugly Period dip                38      

Grant                    29.18       20       Upwards Revision             7    

Hayes                   25.86        33     Winner's up...er, not           21      

Arthur                  28.00         30                                                 27     

Cleveland            18.05         25      Double dipper dips            13   

Harrison              29.00          32                                                 31     

McKinley           17.14          14                                                 19      

T. Roosevelt         4.50            4                                                    4       

Taft                     21.23          23                                                  15    

Wilson                  7.73         13           Race-based dip               18                

Harding              38.18          37                                                   26       

Coolidge             28.36         24                                                    32      

Hoover               29.73         36      Hooverville Road dip           22     

FDR                     2.14           3                                                      2      

Truman                7.05           6                                                       8          

Eisenhower          9.24           5                                                    20   

Kennedy            11.35           8                                                       6             

LBJ                    12.90         11                                                     11          

Nixon                 29.70         31                                                    37        

Ford                    26.10         28                                                   29                   

Carter                  25.70         26                                                   14                 

Reagan                13.89          9                                                    33       

Bush I                  21.06         21                                                   24        

Clinton                17.50         19                                                   12      

Bush II                 31.09        29                                                    40     

Obama                 11.88        10                                                      3    

Trump                  42.30        41                                                    41   

As might be expected, our recent Presidents stayed put, for the most part (though Eisenhower and Reagan almost rose 5 points each).

My own opinions are occasionally off by a lot (Red and Blue, in bold).

.............................................

Now we'll take a look at Alex's list, which is in bold when it's off by more than a few from CNN's:

1. Abraham Lincoln
2. George Washington
3. Franklin D. Roosevelt
4. James Monroe
5. Harry Truman
6. Lyndon Johnson
7. Theodore Roosevelt
8. Barack Obama
9. John Adams
10. George H. W. Bush
11. Thomas Jefferson
12. Dwight Eisenhower
13. Ulysses S. Grant
14. John F. Kennedy
15. John Quincy Adams
16. William McKinley
17. William Howard Taft
18. James Garfield  (omitted on above list, due to short term)
19. Bill Clinton
20. Ronald Reagan
21. James Madison
22. Grover Cleveland
23. Jimmy Carter
24. Rutherford B. Hayes
25. Zachary Taylor  (omitted, due to short term)
26. Chester Arthur
27. Herbert Hoover
28. Gerald R. Ford
29. Woodrow Wilson
30. Benjamin Harrison
31. Millard Fillmore
32. Warren Harding
33. Martin Van Buren
34. James K. Polk
35. Richard M. Nixon
36. John Tyler
37. Calvin Coolidge
38. William Henry Harrison (omitted, due to short term)
39. George W. Bush
40. Franklin Pierce
41. Andrew Johnson
42. James Buchanan
43. Andrew Jackson
44. Donald Trump

Alex deserves recognition for his prescient view of Jackson as one of our worst presidents (I can remember, as a boy,  thinking of Jackson as one of our most celebrated presidents).  Another revelation was reading Alex's view of Polk.

Perhaps Alex's most challenging placement is Monroe at #4.  I've now re-read his piece on Monroe from several years ago (a tab at the top of his website reads: "The Ranking of the Presidents"; he covers them all) and have revised my ranking of Monroe accordingly.  In doing so, I noticed that he has adjusted his rankings a bit.  The biggest changes include LBJ (downwards), Wilson (downwards), Grant (upwards), and McKinley (upwards).  

In the months after his multi-year project was finished he put together this reflective over-view.  Reading and responding to his Presidents Project has been a highlight of my limited experiences on the internet.   Anyone who's serious about knowing the former presidents should give Alex a chance.  Pick one president you'd like to read about, and see what a fine writer Alex is, and how fascinating history can be.