Sunshine in the midst of some big, billowing clouds this near-noon Monday here in California’s Central Valley — despite another atmospheric river crashing into the state again, we’re most likely in waiting for bad weather to snare us, too. Forecasts are for heavy wind, even some tornadoes up north maybe, and a lot of rain starting this afternoon and into the work week.
Nothing new as so it goes.
And in response of today being Presidents’ Day, a new presidential ranking survey is out, putting the T-Rump (no surprise!) at the very bottom of the list — Joe Biden is at 14th best, Barack Obama set at seventh.
Trump worse of the worse (The New York Times): ‘Mr. Trump might not care much what a bunch of academics think, but for what it’s worth he fares badly even among the self-identified Republican historians. Finishing 45th overall, Mr. Trump trails even the mid-19th-century failures who blundered the country into a civil war or botched its aftermath like James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce and Andrew Johnson.‘
A ranking in shit smell by presidential experts (h/t Digby):
Y'all, please don't spread this awful survey of presidential experts who claim Trump was the worst president ever! You tell those Ivory Tower snobs to shove it! And please, for God's sake, don't retweet this survey because we wouldn't want to upset @realDonaldTrump. https://t.co/yVtxFsI8VE
— @ijbailey (@ijbailey) February 19, 2024
Details via the 2024 Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey (pdf):
The results of this ranking are quite similar to the results from our previous surveys
(released in 2015 and 2018): Abraham Lincoln again tops the list (95.03 average), followed by
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (90.83), George Washington (90.32), Teddy Roosevelt (78.58), Thomas
Jefferson (77.53), Harry Truman (75.34), Barack Obama (73.8), and Dwight Eisenhower (73.73).
The most notable changes in this ordering are Franklin Delano Roosevelt moving up to #2 from the
third spot last year, and Dwight Eisenhower falling back to #8 from #6 last year. The bottom of the
rankings is also relatively stable. Donald Trump rates lowest (10.92), behind James Buchanan
(16.71), Andrew Johnson (21.56), Franklin Pierce (24.6), William Henry Harrison (26.01), and
Warren Harding (27.76).
What is most noteworthy about the remaining presidents concerns who has risen and fallen
over time. Since our initial survey, several presidents have had significant changes in their rankings.
Barack Obama has risen 9 places (from #16 to #7), as has Ulysses S. Grant (from #26 to #17), while
Andrew Jackson has fallen 12 places (from #9 to #21) and Calvin Coolidge has dropped 7 spots
(from #27 to #34).
Examining the partisan and ideological differences among our respondents also indicates
some interesting dynamics. While partisanship and ideology don’t tend to make a major difference
overall, there are a few distinctions worth noting. For example, Republicans and Conservatives rank George Washington as the greatest president and James Buchanan as the least great. There are also
several presidents where partisan polarization is evident – Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Obama, and
Biden – but interestingly not for Bill Clinton.
Further:
In the current polarized political climate, we thought it would again be interesting to ask
which presidents were considered by presidency experts to be the most polarizing. To do so, we
asked respondents to identify up to five individual presidents they believed were the most
polarizing, and then rank order them with the first president being the most polarizing, the second
as next most polarizing, and so on. We then calculated how many times a president was identified
as well as their average ranking. We then repeated the same process but asked which presidents
were the least polarizing. The results of these questions can be seen in the tables below.
Donald Trump is by far the most polarizing of the ranked presidents, selected by 170
respondents and earning a 1.64 average (1 is a “most polarizing” ranking). Andrew Jackson is
second-most polarizing (74, 3.4), followed by Obama (69, 3.4), and Reagan (66, 3.6). Conversely,
George Washington is clearly the least polarizing president, selected by 125 respondents and
earning a 1.25 average (1 is a “least polarizing” ranking). Washington is followed by Eisenhower
(91, 2.7), Lincoln (60, 1.8), and Truman (45, 3.5).
In the nowadays, it’s a blip in the face of history, though, the shit might be a shitload heavier.
Rank by stink, or not, yet here we are once again…
Update
Another ingredient added this afternoon per Presidents’ day rankings and yesteryear — Joe Biden and Abe Lincoln are attached by history. Via the Guardian:
Joe Biden’s great-great-grandfather was charged with attempted murder after a civil war-era brawl – but pardoned of any wrongdoing by Abraham Lincoln, a newspaper said on Monday, reviving on the US holiday of Presidents’ Day the often contentious issue of presidential powers to grant pardons.
Citing documents from the US national archives, the historian David J Gerleman wrote in the Washington Post that Biden’s paternal forebear Moses J Robinette was pardoned by Lincoln after Robinette got into a fight with a fellow Union army civilian employee, John J Alexander, in Virginia. Robinette drew a knife and sliced Alexander.
The newspaper reported that Robinette worked as an army veterinary surgeon for the army during the US’s war between the states. He was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to two years hard labor after failing to convince a court he had acted in self-defense.
[…]
According to the Post, the fight between Robinette and Alexander took place on the evening of 21 March 1864, at the army of the Potomac’s winter camp near Beverly Ford, Virginia.
Alexander, a brigade wagon master, had overheard Robinette saying something about him to the female cook. An argument ensued, and Alexander was left bleeding. Robinette’s charges included attempted murder. Though he was not found guilty on that charge, he was convicted on the others and imprisoned on the Dry Tortugas island near Florida.
[…]
A brief obituary following Robinette’s death in 1903 eulogized him as a “man of education and gentlemanly attainments”.
The obituary made no mention of Robinette’s wartime court-martial or his connection to Lincoln, the Post said.
Robinette died about 12 years before Biden’s late father – his great-grandson – was born.
Another brick in the wall for the T-Rump — not only is the orange turd dead-stink last, but now Joe’s got a tap into American history in a good way.
Image out front is my favorite of the T-Rump mugs, though, ‘favorite‘ does not mean in any form or fashion, as in, ‘my favorite movie,’ or ‘my favorite song.’ It’s more of an anti-appreciation/like.
And aptly titled, ‘Basic Shapes,‘ by caricaturist/illustrator Chong Jit Leong (and found here), it’s an image that displays the elemental form of a purloined sociopath — a bloated profile of flatulent bile and arrogant ignorance.