Rank Disapproval of Trump

This is Presidents Day here in the United States. What better occasion could there be to release a brand-new ranking of the best and worst chief executives in this nation’s history? The New York Times recently asked the 170 members of the American Political Science Association’s Presidents and Executive Politics section for their best assessments of all 44 men who have held America’s highest elected office. “Since our previous survey in 2014,” the paper observes, “some presidential legacies have soared (Barack Obama’s stock has climbed into the Top 10), while others have fallen (Andrew Jackson toppled to 15, out of the Top 10).” Meanwhile, “James Buchanan, who was at the helm as the United States careened into civil war, was dislodged from his position as our nation’s worst president by our current president, Trump.”

Here are the 10 presidents winning top honors, in order:

1. Abraham Lincoln
2. George Washington
3. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
4. Theodore Roosevelt
5. Thomas Jefferson
6. Harry Truman
7. Dwight Eisenhower
8. Barack Obama
9. Ronald Reagan
10. Lyndon B. Johnson

At the other end of the list, these are the lowest-ranked 10:

35. Zachary Taylor
36. Herbert Hoover
37. John Tyler
38. Millard Fillmore
39. Warren G. Harding
40. Andrew Johnson
41. Franklin Pierce
42. William Henry Harrison
43. James Buchanan
44. Donald Trump

In his report on this Times survey, The Maddow Blog’s Steve Benen notes that low opinions of Trump’s performance in office are shared across the board by APSA members, regardless of their political leanings. “When the scholars are broken down by party affiliation,” Benen explains, “Trump ranks #44 among Democratic scholars, #43 among independents, and #40 among Republican scholars. In other words, according to scholars of every stripe, our current president is off to a truly abysmal start and is well on his way to historical ignominy.”

Meanwhile, a new Gallup poll of U.S. voters finds that Trump’s approval rating has fallen yet again. Only 37 percent of respondents have a favorable opinion of him, compared with 59 percent who harbor negative opinions of that mendacious former real-estate mogul.

READ MORE: “Donald Trump Is America’s Worst, 2nd Worst, or 5th Worst President,” by Kevin Drum (Mother Jones).