A better exercise to survey historians on might be to rank how influential on American/world history the various presidents have been. Takes out the moral element of 'well this guy was a slaver' or 'that guy started unjust wars.' Many of the "best presidents" from this list would still be at the top, like Lincoln and Washington and FDR. Donald Trump would probably score much higher then he did in this one too as the president who started the end of democracy. Meanwhile, good presidents who mostly got blocked by Congress -- like Obama -- probably fall.
Im wrong that money entering politics actually didn’t happen because of Reagan? I’m wrong that the anti government sentiment didn’t happen because of Reagan? How many Republicans have repeated the line about somebody calling saying “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”? I know that historians are basing this ranking off of influence and legislative accomplishments so they aren’t wrong in that perspective. He was influential. But so was Trump. So maybe a power ranking from historians is problematic from the beginning. There’s no nuance or perspective with a simple power ranking.
If it was based primarily on World history Lincoln might not score so high as he did very little regarding foreign relations other than keeping the UK from getting involved in the Civil War on the side of the Confederacy. If based on influence of World History (with no judgement on whether good or bad) I would rank it: 1. FDR 2. Wilson 3. Jefferson 4. Monroe 5. Truman 6. Reagan 9. Washington 10. Polk 11. GW Bush
Right. Which is why it’s boggling to see Trump so low if the justification is influence. If it’s legislative accomplishments you’d have a completely different ranking. If it was historical moments happening under the president it’s completely different. To me it seems like the whole historian perspective is sidelined for simple public pole opinion ratings. Which we don’t need historians for. Nate Silver can do that for us.
Good list. I'd have Washington higher, simply because he framed what it was to be the chief executive of what would become the world's dominant power...even though that institution has certainly changed with time. There was so much left to his discretion...that was deferred to him, simply because he so well respected. Had he been a different sort of person, I'm not sure our Republic would be even what it is today (with all of its warts, obviously). Not an argument...just my thoughts.
Is being very influential necessarily a good thing? Why should Presidents be judged on the extent of their impact, as opposed to just doing their job really well?
Not sure I'd agree. That the US went to war with itself over slavery, that the Confederacy was not allowed to become a country of its own and the US was all the bigger for it, that American slavery was abolished, that after that the Federal government became much more powerful vis-a-vis the states -- all pretty pivotal in world history.
The good thing about the presidential rankings, whatever the methodology, is that it gets people talking about history.
It's not love but Polk's significance is that under him this country did truly become a continent spanning country. While there were the Oregon territories those were lightly populated with limited economic value. Adding TX and CA set the stage to the US becoming a World power. In terms of World history I think that is pretty significant.
Good points also but most of this was internal and perhaps if the CSA had survived could say that Lincoln was more influential regarding world history.
I don’t disagree. I’m saying that the model of what it was to be President was formed primarily by Washington…and that had he been a different person with more self interested priorities I’m not sure the American Revolution doesn’t turn on itself, the way virtually every other revolution did…thus pre-empting what would become a dominant power.
