Here is the top 20 from the “2024 Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey.”
- Abraham Lincoln
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- George Washington
- Teddy Roosevelt
- Thomas Jefferson
- Harry Truman
- Barack Obama
- Dwight Eisenhower
- Lyndon Johnson
- John F. Kennedy
- James Madison
- Bill Clinton
- John Adams
- Joe Biden
- Woodrow Wilson
- Ronald Reagan
- Ulysses S. Grant
- James Monroe
- George H.W. Bush
- John Quincy Adams
Obama and Ulysses S. Grant are on the upswing. Andrew Jackson and Calvin Coolidge out of the top 20.
The bottom three: Andrew Johnson, James Buchanan, and Donald Trump. Even self-identified conservative historians had Trump in the bottom three.
Jimmy Carter is the most underrated president. JFK is the most overrated.
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Thanks for posting this. I have two brief remarks. First, while these sorts of rankings are subjective, is it fair to even include Biden and Trump? I do sympathize with Trump’s low ranking. And I imagine that he will remain near the bottom for many years to come. Still, both Biden and Trump are running for president again in 2024, which means that we don’t have the final word on their political careers or time in office. Second, I agree with you that Carter is underrated. I would argue that George H.W. Bush, who presided over the end of the Cold War and Persian Gulf War, is also underrated.
The poll I’m looking at doesn’t distinguish the Harrisons, one of which is at a not-utterly-awful 31, the other at a nearly-rock-bottom 41.
Neither did a thing.
Yet the better Harrison (whoever that is) is above Bush II (who gave us PEPFAR), Nixon (who gave us the EPA just to mention one thing, and ended the draft and an extremely difficult war), as well as Hoover (who tried, really he did).
And Polk is at 25? Who launched a sheer land-grab of a war (Grant called it “wicked”)?
While I completely disagree with Polk’s policies, particularly the Mexican War, he was an effective and consequential president. Daniel Walker Howe observed in What Hath God Wrought (p. 708) that “judged by [the four presidential objectives that he confided to George Bancroft], Polk is probably the most successful president the United States has ever had. He stayed focused on these goals and achieved them all, two in foreign policy and two in domestic, while serving only a single term.”