Last week, President Trump trolled the media and leftists by repurposing a list of the Best and Worst Presidents, by putting himself at the top:
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Pundits overreacted, called the list stupid, and pointed out that he left out some of the presidents.
It was a joke, people. Take it easy! Besides, Trump has a right to punch back at the relentlessly negative press against him by putting himself on top.
Of course, how any of us rate the presidents tells a lot about ourselves and our times, and our ratings reveal the prevailing political attitudes of these times for posterity, too.
Of the 45 U.S. presidents (Cleveland and Trump served two non-consecutive terms), whom would I feature in the Top Five? The Bottom Five?
For added fun, which presidents are underrated?
Let’s start with the Bottom Five: get the worst of it out of the way.
Most historians and pundits (including myself) place 15th President James Buchanan on the worst list. Buchanan was the epitome of an office seeker. One could joke that he was born running for office.
He served as a state representative in the Pennsylvania legislature. He got elected to Congress and the U.S. Senate because of his long involvement in Keystone State politics. He also served as Secretary of State and Ambassador to Great Britain and Russia in two different administrations.
He even forced out an unpopular incumbent Democrat damaged by rising sectional tensions, then defeated the first Republican presidential candidate, John C. “The Pathfinder” Fremont.
Yet, for all his experience, Buchanan failed to resolve sectional and slavery tensions in the United States. In fact, he attempted to force the budding state of Kansas—and the country—to accept the fraudulent pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution, and he intervened in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case, which upheld the right to slavery and invalidated the Missouri Compromise.
In his lame-duck session, he dithered while Southern states began seceding from the Union. He turned over a fractured country to former Congressman Abraham Lincoln, who later witnessed the firing on Fort Sumter a month later and presided over our nation’s bloody Civil War.
President Woodrow Wilson was also awful. An arrogant progressive academic, self-convinced of greater intellect than the Founders and their vision, he rejected a limited constitution, pushed through a massive expansion of the federal bureaucracy, locked up political dissidents, and thrust the United States into the First World War to make the world “Safe for Democracy.”
Never mind that the United States is not a democracy, never mind the fact that Wilson repeatedly ran roughshod over the rule of law and the natural rights of American citizens, and never mind that, in his final years in office, he was hobbled by a stroke, and his wife did most of the work.
President Trump’s Worst list correctly included Jimmy Carter, Joe Biden, and Barack Obama: all of them evil in their own way. The unremitting incompetence of the Carter Administration remains a laughingstock in the history books, as he presided over a country stuck in the malaise of stagflation and fuel rationing, plus the fall of Iran and our embassy in that country to genocidal Islamic militants.
Carter was too weak to be the absolute worst, though. Obama was the divider-in-chief, and Biden was Obama’s third term.
So, who was the worst president? Lyndon Baines Johnson.
While Obama pushed divisive critical race theory and other Marxist tropes (and Biden prolonged his agenda), President Johnson initiated all those abusive government measures and much worse. He supercharged the federal bureaucracy, bloat, and bomb of federal debt with Medicare, Medicaid, and expanded handouts in Social Security.
He signed off on overreaching, unconstitutional Civil Rights legislation, not because he cared about black people, but because he wanted to buy their vote while sticking them in generational poverty and squalor and undermining our constitutional norms under the guise of fighting discrimination. His “War on Poverty” declared war on prosperity, transforming urban enclaves into interminable ghettoes and creating a generation of perpetual poverty.
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Race riots exploded across the country under LBJ’s watch, and the country witnessed multiple assassinations because of his lack of law and order.
He signed the 1965 Hart-Celler Act, which increased legal immigration from countries that share few of America’s values. The United States still labors under the fallout of Johnson’s mass immigration agenda to this day.
He wasted troops and resources on unwinnable quagmires like Vietnam.
Johnson was the worst, and our country still suffers because of his legacy.
Now let’s talk about the Five Best Presidents.
George Washington definitely belongs on the list. He is the Father of our country. He commanded the Continental Army to victory against the British, setting the standard for leadership and honor. He is the culmination of America’s fight for independence and freedom.
Trump and Reagan also belong in the Top Five. Trump has made Americans proud to be American again. He not only refused to accept decline as inevitable but taught Americans how to restore their country long after he’s gone.
He turned the tables on the Wilson-Johnson-Obama-Biden onslaught of progressive destruction, and he has built a broad coalition of successors at the state and federal levels to continue the work he started.
President Trump has kept his promises, restored American grandeur, and provided a roadmap to continue the restoration. He outshines Reagan on this front, though Reagan’s consistent victories against international communism and restoration of free-market capitalism in America cannot be ignored.
But who’s the best president?
Abraham Lincoln. The Rail-splitter from Illinois saved our country, freed the slaves (he pushed through the Thirteenth Amendment with incredible political maneuvering), and persisted in shutting down an unjust, unsound, and unconstitutional rebellion instigated by ruthless planter slavocrats demanding cheap labor, even if it meant destroying the country.
He was definitely America First on immigration, trade, and public order, as well.
While George Washington set the precedent for the presidency and served two terms, Lincoln gave his life for America and suffered the assassin’s bullet for the cause of liberty. For this reason, Lincoln edges out Washington.
He was a staunch defender of our nation’s ideals, even when unpopular. When American citizens were questioning the fundamental value that “all men are created equal,” Lincoln stood firm and refused to budge. He protected this glorious experiment of America from collapsing because rogue states had refused to accept a fair election.
For the fifth “Best President,” I add Calvin Coolidge. He doesn’t get the love he deserves because he was silent, simple, and cut everything: spending, wars, immigration, and corruption.
A final category: the underrated and overrated.
Coolidge is one of the few underrated presidents, along with James K. Polk, who oversaw the largest expansion of the country, and Grover Cleveland, who vetoed more bills than all other presidents combined.
Cleveland represented total commitment to fiscal discipline, sound money, and America First policies. Plus, he was the first president elected to two non-consecutive terms.
Would I add any overrated presidents? Teddy Roosevelt, a Big Government Progressive masquerading as a populist. He was a bold man, full of life, but did not honor our constitutional checks and balances.
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Of course, Obama is the most overrated, but I recognize him as one of our worst.
Image created using AI.