The latest Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey puts Donald Trump very firmly in last place, which of course has the right-wing press apoplectic.
It's a perfectly academic exercise, featuring a poll of 154 "presidential scholars" (current and recent members of the Presidents & Executive Politics Section of the American Political Science Assocation, i.e. scholars, academics, historians - not politicians) ranking all the American presidents from George Washington onwards, according to their perceived "greatness" on a scale of 1 to 100.
Top of the pack this year, as in previous polls, is Abraham Lincoln, with a ranking of 93.87, followed by FD Roosevelt, George Washington, Teddy Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson. The most recent high-flyer is Barack Obama at No. 7 with a ranking of 73.8.
Down at the bottom of the ranking are a bunch of presidents I have rarely ever heard of: Harrison (26.01), Pierce,(24.6), Johnson (21.56), Buchanan (16.71), and there, right at the bottom, No. 45 out of 45, we find Donald Trump with a ranking of ... 10.92. Just to add insult to injury, Joe Biden is up there at a surprisingly middling-to-good No. 14, with a ranking of 62.66, above Ronald Reagan and barely below John F. Kennedy.
The conservative press, of course, assumes that this is a purely politically-motivated piece of left-wing propaganda. It seems to be beyond them to believe that this is anyone's objective opinion. Fox News slams the "ivory tower elites" and calls the poll a "highly questionable ranking", concluding that "this is infuriating in so many ways!", and finally, definitively, "this list is bogus".. Well, that'll show those ivory tower pinkos.
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