AMAC Exclusive – By Shane Harris
The annual President’s Day presidential ranking from the self-proclaimed “experts” at the American Political Science Association (APSA) has long been a largely political endeavor designed to smear the legacy of conservatives and wash over the failures of liberals. But this year’s iteration was particularly egregious by any objective metric – ranking Joe Biden 14th, above figures like Ronald Reagan and Ulysses Grant, and Donald Trump dead last, below notorious failures James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson.
As intended, the rankings created plenty of headline material for the corporate press.
“Presidential experts rank Biden 14th among presidents in survey, Trump comes in last,” proclaimed The Hill. “Poll ranks Biden as 14th-best president, with Trump last,” touted The New York Times. NPR, Newsweek, The LA Times, Axios, and The Independent all ran virtually identical headlines.
It is difficult to choose whether Biden or Trump’s ranking is more ridiculous.
Biden, despite implementing policies which caused 40-year high inflation and multiple foreign disasters, is ranked ahead of Reagan, who won the Cold War and ushered in a historically great period of economic prosperity, and U.S. Grant, who established the Department of Justice, snuffed out the first version of the Ku Klux Klan, and did more than any other president to mend the wounds of the Civil War.
Meanwhile, Trump, despite creating an economic boom that rivaled even the Reagan years, becoming the first president this century to not lead the U.S. into any new wars, holding Russia and China in check, and a host of other accomplishments, is ranked below James Buchanan, who is widely viewed as aggravating tensions which led directly to the Civil War.
The survey contains plenty of other things to quibble about as well. One of the most obvious is the fact that Franklin D. Roosevelt is now ranked second, wedged between Abraham Lincoln at number one and George Washington at number three. Despite all the recent talk about historical “reckonings,” it seems, FDR still gets a pass for being a notorious racist, worsening the Great Depression through his “New Deal,” shattering Washington’s precedent of only seeking two terms, and attempting to pack the Supreme Court.
But as Noah Rothman points out in a piece for National Review, “It seems that the point of this exercise wasn’t an objective assessment of American presidential legacies. It was to convey to the list’s readers that Donald Trump is bad.”
Many of those readers will be college students in freshman political science courses, eagerly listening on as their professors – some of whom contributed to the rankings – explain that because the APSA says Donald Trump is terrible, it must be true.
This will be just the beginning of their indoctrination. Over the next four years they will be inundated with propaganda about how conservative ideas never work and progressivism has never failed. Anyone who dares to suggest that Trump’s actual governing record proves he is perhaps the most successful first-term president in history risks a failing grade and a referral to the school’s DEI office.
Of course, academia smearing a successful conservative president is nothing new. In 1996, renowned (liberal) historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., ranked Reagan 26th on his list of presidents. Four years earlier, Justin Kaplan, editor of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, refused to include any famous quotes from Reagan, nicknamed “The Great Communicator,” in the publication’s 16th edition. Thus began the still-ongoing effort by the “expert class” to erode Reagan’s legacy.
Attempts to rewrite history are bad enough on their own. But this round of biased rankings is especially dangerous because, for the first time since APSA began ranking presidents, two men on that list will be facing off against one another in an election.
With the November contest less than nine months away, the rankings list has become just one more useful tool for the media to claim that Joe Biden is an objectively better option than Donald Trump, and that, despite what your own memory may tell you, the Trump years truly were terrible.
This can and should be seen as a coordinated effort by academia and the media to swing the election to Joe Biden. While a growing segment of the population which understands the corrupt game the left is playing will correctly laugh off these hopelessly biased rankings, it is also worth considering that this strategy is what allowed the left to elevate one of the weakest candidates in American history to the White House four years ago.
The APSA’s rankings are hardly the only cultural tradition that has become debased by “Trump derangement syndrome” and a vicious hatred of conservatism. Awards shows like the Grammys and the Academy Awards have now become little more than a stage for Hollywood elites to bash conservatives. Meanwhile, films and music are now judged by critics (supposed “experts” in their field) solely based on how well they adhere to left-wing social politics.
That’s not even to mention late night shows and network television, which are now megaphones for Democrat Party talking points. Even the Super Bowl and other major sporting events have become platforms to advance cultural leftism – a phenomenon which began, uncoincidentally, during the Trump years as another way for the left to thumb their nose at the president.
Academia, media, medicine, sports, entertainment – all of these industries have been under the ideological control of the left for decades, but it is the left’s insatiable desire to “get Trump” that has revealed how truly corrupt the whole system is.
In 2020, it was the “experts” who assured us via the media that Trump’s COVID-19 policies were responsible for every death from the virus. The “experts” told us that Joe Biden was in perfect physical and mental condition and it was Donald Trump who was in bad health (who can forget the weeklong media frenzy over Trump walking slowly down a ramp?), that Trump was a “threat to democracy,” and that Joe Biden, the expert diplomat, would bring about fewer wars and conflicts around the world.
In each case the “experts” have been proven exactly wrong. But no matter – they succeeded in advancing their ideological agenda, at the cost of politicizing their profession and permanently tainting their credibility.
The APSA long ago sacrificed its integrity in pursuit of politics. Its latest presidential ranking only makes this even more evident.
Shane Harris is a writer and political consultant from Southwest Ohio. You can follow him on Twitter @ShaneHarris513.
The best president in our history was George Washington. He managed to defeat the best and one of the largest armies on earth and he started with rag-tag militias. People saying Lincoln overcame more than Washington are nuts. Lincoln had the largest & best equipped army on earth. The Union was always winning, advancing into the South and the blockade starved the South. Lincoln could not lose if he kept fighting. The second best was Ronald Reagan. He defeated one of the world’s great powers, the USSR, without firing a shot. Sun Tsu [the Art of War] said the greatest warrior wins without fighting. Reagan won without fighting, plus saved the economy, and helped reform the federal bureaucracy. President Trump should be in the top 10 because he addressed the issue of US decline, confronted Red China for trade cheating, confronted Europe for tariff cheating, defeated terrorists in the Middle East, dramatically improved our economy, and so forth. Biden will be in the bottom five, if not worse, because he is trying to destroy the US economy and our Constitution. Biden has passed numerous laws that openly discriminate against white people, funds discriminatory woke education and other programs, and has spent [wasted] far more money than any president in US history. IMO, Lyndon Johnson was the worst president in our history because he totally committed the US to the worthless war in Vietnam, started many government programs that are still costing the US billions which achieve nothing, and sunk the US so deeply in debt that it permanently hurt our economy. The damage done by Johnson is indescribable and that severe damage continues to this day.
The political analysis by academics discussed in the article is so wrong it is hard to believe that any thinking person could believe any of it. This document is designed to forward the Democrat Party agenda, re-elect Joe Biden, and push super liberal presidents to the top of the list in our historic analysis. The analysis is based on lies and is a part of a huge propaganda campaign by the Democrats to destroy conservative values. Unfortunately, the vile propaganda effort is working to warp the concept of America. The propaganda redefines equal and equality in such a way that laws now openly discriminate against white people, fund programs that claim America is so permanently racist that it must be destroyed, that our Constitution is fatally flawed and must be destroyed, etc. These academics are Marxist and are spreading Marxist ideology through propaganda [lies]. Marxism was founded on filthy lies, was spread by lies, continues to exist through lies, and has overthrown several governments through lies & corruption. This is what is happening to us right now. Our culture and our Constitution are under attack by these Marxist spreading propaganda about the US, its history, and our Constitution. AD2
Well I am glad I don’t pay attention to these so called experts. All they are looking to do is game the American people into believing this so they will keep the democratic power over us. Apparently these so called experts haven’t studied history very well. Unfortunately there are a lot of people out there that have their eyes shut to what has transpired in these past three years.
??Presidential experts rank Biden 14th among presidents in survey, Trump comes in last?? After what china joe has done to my country?? Which rock in the swamp were they able to find these slimy so-called “experts”??
What you read is as important for mental health as what you eat is to physical health. Its essential to check out the biases of authors before the ingestion of their writings into your mind. The commies who wrote this drivel did so solely as a way to damage trump. Commies have no objectivity.
Trump’s presidency could be called The four years that shook Washington DC All the bottom and top feeders were shook up realizing the danger he represents to their existence That is the reason for the frenzy they are in He must be eliminated at any cost
For-Sale-Joe Buyden, the 14th BEST president? WOW! I guess these “experts” think that Adolph Hitler was next to God, and Joseph Stalin was the Resurrection. You’d have to be a blighering idiot to place Joe ANYWHERE above Number 50. And, yes, I know there haven’t been 50, yet, but he’s been so bad that we should build in a little room for more additions.
Just more brainwashing of the gullible. I remember Kennedy being assassinated. Being a teenager I knew there was something wrong with the one bullet theory. They have been lying to us ever since and I always wanted a president who was a businessman because all past presidents were pretty pathetic and never did what they said they would do. We finally get Trump, the best president of my lifetime, and all they can do is trash him because he wants to get rid of the criminality that’s embedded an hour government.
The dmeocrats are loosing party members like the covid death shot sheds spike proteins.
It is happening because of their corruption.
Whole DC System rigged against MAGA & Trump
Unbelievable! maybe, hopefully, sooner than later, such people who believe that ‘junk’ will WAKE UP!
These “experts” are about as bright as the “health experts” who think a boy can THINK himself into being a girl, an embryo is just a “blob of tissue,” and COVID came from a wayward Chinese bat!!
It is a slap in the face of every Republican voter. It is an out and out lie in all respects. The economy under President (bite- me) Biden has been anemic at the best. The lies that he professed during his campaigns and while in office have not been kept except for one. That one being to undo any good President Trump did. He has work to undo it all. From the best economy to the worst. Without a care about inflation or the effects it had on families, business, or our state and local taxes. People that want him reelected are single issue voters. Who believes in government handouts, Abortion, open borders, and government controls on guns. Fair voting, where everyone presents an ID to vote, is against their principles even if they are given out free at our government’s expense. Fair only fair if they can stuff the ballot boxes with their cronies’ votes to get their liberal agenda shoved down all our throats.
More DemonRat Propaganda! The True American Patriots know that President Trump is Our Country’s Best Choice to Make America Great Again!
An expert is a person who has a comprehensive and authoritative knowledge of or skill in a particular area according to the dictionary!! But an expert is also someone who has an extremely high opinion of oneself!! Maybe these so called experts are contributing to the problem with their own special bias!! I don’t know these people and just because someone called them ‘experts’ doesn’t mean anything to me!!! And, if I may, it was many so called ‘experts’ who actually caused us so many problems during the pandemic!!! So pardon me if I am not impressed by these experts nor their opinions!!!
Who “Vets” the “experts”? It’s bad enough that we have ultra liberal Marxists as college professors spewing their uneducated bias onto young, impressionable students.
Funny how this report comes out now when Biden has the lowest ratings ever and Trump, despite never ending legal battles thrown at him by the looney left, is enjoying a ground swell of support in his race to return to the White House.
It’s just more desperate rhetoric from the demoralized left who know that Biden is becoming more and more of of an obstacle for them to overcome. The Deep State, Marxist politicians and biased beauracrat’s and media have a lot to lose if Trump wins the election, again.
For some reason, I think these “reports” about Trump being last is a big Google controlled lie – like they have been doing for a long time now. They were the ones who called Biden winning, because they are the ones who set it all up by censoring everyone else, especially Trump. It’s not we citizens who vote, if that were true Trump won hands over everyone else. Nope the votes are set up by the big corporations think Phizer) and Google. – with many of the elites helping. Think McConnell, Pelosi, Schumer, Clintons, Obama, Biden -the billionaires in the WEF. They are the ones controlling it all, including the internet information (now they are all disinformation. They send out false information desired by the un-elected WEF as well as the life-time political people who have been in politics for 30 years or more. They. have all been lying and wheeling-dealing for longer than I have been voting (and that’s 59 years!) They have gotten rid of God in most areas, and have worked diligently with the Marxists to brainwash our children Most college graduates are now socialists because of the lies they were told and accepted. Abortion has brought about the Martha Sanger desired infanticide. Genocide is also in the works. Crime is rampant because there is lawlessness running wild with no consequences.
Because people have forsaken God, including the Vatican, He will forsake us. If you don’t think so, read your bible if you still have one. the Bible will soon be re-written, not according to God’s word, but according to Communists. Prayer and fasting. Calling on the Name of the Lord is what will save those who persevere in His love. He is a God of mercy, but the wrath of His justice is what we will experience first.
Another group that is prostituting themselves to go after President Trump. Right up there with 51 intelligence officials who prostituted themselves by claiming Hunter’s laptop was Russian disinformation, the government medical professional that wouldn’t admit that COVID came from a Chinese Lab and assured us the COVID vaccines were safe and Mayorkas and his bureaucrats claiming the southern border was secure. It seems like every government bureaucracy is willing to destroy what little integrity they have left in order to destroy President Trump. They are only destroying themselves. By the way, the greatest American President was George Washington. There have been so many revolution that have been initially successful but faltered when their leader failed to live up to the ideals which the people fought for. Washington is unique in history, this country is what is today because of his integrity and leadership.
I was once lectured by a superior that I was working with about the word expert. To say that one is an expert is to say that that person knows everything there is to know on the subject being referred to. I have in 74 yrs, met some really knowledgeable people but, I’ve never met an “expert”. There are just too many variables, especially in politics.
All this according to plan. With this listing they are not going after the MAGA people, we laugh at this, only it is sad what they are doing to the country. They are going after those that only watch CNN or never watch any tv but here the soundbites. Trump is ranked dead last. These people they need to vote for them. They rewrote history as well. It was the blacks that built this country. O said it already years ago, you, meaning the white race, didnt built this country. I would love to debate him on that point. He didn’t contribute anything to building this country, being a politician all his life. All he did was destroy it. The dems were the racists but Lincoln has to be destroyed in the history books. Being a republican president they have to be written out of Americas history books. If you have a democrat organization do the ranking they are not going to rate their dem presidents last no matter how bad they were. We just have to let them know we are done with destroying this land and them trying to eliminate every American who voted against them. Ole Joe did the eulogy for senator Byrd and Thurmond. Both members of the KKK and he calls todays reps worse than those two. I would say look by yourself first Joe, before you condemn a whole bunch of people you don’t even know.
Saying Trump is dead last is all we needed to hear. They are clearly biased and part of the plot to get him and ruin what little remains of this country. I’m not even wasting my time on the other stupid ratings because they are like everything else today, unquantified lies perpetrated by the self serving left.
Washington was first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of the nation. George W set the 2 term standard that was violated by FDR and created a Constitutional Amendment.
Lincoln second, Reagan a top 5, with Trump deserving to be in the top 10, if not the top 5.
Truman dropped the bomb killing hundreds of thousands Japanese but saved millions including US service men. That could be one of the boldest decisions in US history and will be debated for centuries to come. The BUCK STOPPED with Harry making him a top 10. Interesting that neither Truman or Trump was expected to win their first election and shocked the political ‘experts’. Maybe the People knew best!
Many could fill in the 6-10 gap, Grant, Madison, Jefferson, JFK etc. History has been kind but also not so kind depending on specific circumstances.
FDR led the nation through most WWII but failed to listen to Churchill regarding Stalin as his ego got in the way of being in the top 10.
The similarities of FDRs 4th term and Biden’s current term are not lost on me. As Harry Callahan said “A man has to know his limitations”. Biden will fall in dead last for his incompetence from the US border, the pull out in Afghanistan, to Putin’s ‘minor incursion’ into Ukraine. Robert Gates told us back in 200x, that Biden has been wrong on every foreign policy in the last 40 years. Add another decade to that and Biden has proven wrong again.
I thought Carter would fall in just before Biden but now have to think Obama might be worse than Carter since Biden’s term may actually be Obama’s 3rd.
Well obviously this libtard think tank is obviously full of you know what!! Joe Biden is not really a President per se but rather a mouthpiece for Obama’s unofficial 3rd term! This country has gone down the drain, but that’s what the hidden powers want. What a dire future, if any, for our Country!!!
It just boggles my mind that not one of my liberal family members or friends asks the question of why getting Trump has been the focus of the past eight plus years. They are too hung up on the day to day brainwashing of the MSM and progressive pundits.
The term “political science” was created to somehow make those who study the interaction and accomplishments of politicians in government to be a respectable career. Those who pursue science as a career know that politicization of science (for example, the study of carbon dioxide and climate change) is problematic.
I am tired of hearing conservative commentators saying, “The American people are not stupid. ” Maybe not all the American people aren’t stupid, but almost half of them are! They lack a lot of common sense, and a respectful knowledge of what is truth!
This stuff just gets more laughable every day. These people will lie to you, and when you’re skeptical, they will double down and lie to you some more. These people have no morals. They only have a lust for power.
Morals, ethics, integrity, citizenship, religion, and faith among other defining beliefs and behaviors are all taught by teachers instead of parents. These bastards have been screwing up our society for the last 40 or so years and the preponderance of lazy parents allowed their kids to be trained by others. If you are a member of a teachers union, then you are clearly a member of an organization that wants the destruction of our children and our country as we have known it for the past 200 years. Teachers are part parcel of what’s killing this country And their unions need to be disbanded and restructured. Wouldn’t it be wonderful?
Halfwits are abundant yet are allowed to participate in our world. As long as we give them full citizen status we will continue to allow ourselves to be abused. Since 1950, Lyndon Johnson and Biden are the two worst presidents. Both communists.
The only thing that Trump is guilty of he came to Washington and exposed what was going on in the Washington how people come into office and leave so rich they are close to Billionaire’s shows what is going on it is not just Biden selling his seat but others as well follow the money. The big reason they also hate Trump he did not take his salary he gave it to a good cause. The amount of corruption is so sad we deserve better up in Washington and Biden is not the answer he is part of the Washington problem.
Oh, you mean that was a serious article (the one from the ASPCA or whatever)? I thought that some group was trying to imitate the Babylon Bee or be a writer for SNL, didn’t think that anyone would actually believe that drivel. One of my favorite stories about President Trump is when Obozo said that jobs weren’t coming back to America and that it would take a magic wand…turns out that President Trump evidently had (and hopefully still has) a magic wand because life under a real leader was made better for all Americans, especially the middle-class.
My comments for today: MAGA = Make America Good Again & RINO = Responsible Individual w/ Noble Objectives. Republican party had better recognize the importance of RINO s & quit bashing them when they do not agree on subjects. It does not make sense to drive your own members over to the other party & that is what is happening in certain areas of USA.
Donald Trump represents what all politicians should represent, freedom, security for the nation, but not security for the individual. My security is my own business. Less intrusion by the government. Support for individuals making their own choices. I could go on with this list but the picture is clear. Trump stands for everything the communist liberals hate and they will stop at nothing to smear him.
I think George Bernard Shaw summed it up best when he said; “Poor people, abject people, dirty people, ill-fed people, ill-clothed people poison us, morally and physically: they kill the happiness of society, they force us to to do away with our own liberties and organize unnatural cruelties for fear they should rise up against us and drag us down into the abyss.”
This why the elite left hate Donald Trump so much. He is the threat as they see it that can drag them into the abyss. For once, I hope the left is finally right about something.
If people young or old cannot tell they are being manipulated and brain-washing attempted, they are doomed. We all have to distinguish truth and fiction. Trashing President Trump is not going to work. Crediting President Biden with accomplishing so much by pushing through funding with borrowed money has to be seen for what it is.
Money,money,money for the democRAT stooges that are making billions off of climate,war,weird beings,ev corruption,biden and his familys total corruption and the RAPE of AMERICA. NOT NUFF SAID,more to come.
The Useful Idiots will lap this up.
SCIENTISTS? LOL
Experts, LOL, I don’t believe a word that comes from these obviously r*** TDS sufferers. DJT is the best President of modern times! Period, no discussion needed. FJB MAGA
What a Joke another example of America values declining. Trump one of the best , Biden the worst.
I refuse to share garbage like this. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good article. This is just more mental illness on display and too many idiots who would agree with it if they read it.
The establishment is sending a message to anyone not of their political class that they will bankrupt you financially and destroy you personally if you dare the challenge and disrupt their socialist goals.
The Public Education system in this country has been growingly corrupted for decades to undermine out beliefs in freedom, liberty and individual rights. For young students, what the teachers/professors purport as truth must be truth.
So several generations later our public schools and colleges, corporations, legal firms, Congress, and all governments have a majority of those decades-long indoctrinated minds running things. Is it any wonder then why/how our nation is in the present chaotic and politically-abrasive climate?
Exactly, what is the American Political Science Association and who comprises it? What are their parameters for evaluation of our past and present Presidents? An answer to these questions would tell me more about the weight of their judgments. Too many want to hide in anonymity when they accuse others.
expert / (x=unknown , spurt= water under pressure). unknown drip under pressure
THE WASHINGTON STATE VOTERS GUIDE SAYS IT ALL WHEN YOU READ WHAT THE REAL AND FAKE PRESIDENTS SAY IN THEIR STATEMENTS
I am considered a “baby boomer,” in my 70’s and am old enough to know better. It is up to our generation to warn the generations that follow not to believe this leftist nonsense. I always believed that if you do not succeed as a businessman, then you become a teacher. Well, I was on both sides of the desk; an employee and an employer. Then I became a teacher at the middle and high school level. I saw what some “teachers” tried to fill our young minds with. It was sad. I had the great experience of serving in the military and THEN attending college. Even in the 70’s, those professors were trying to fill young minds with socialist propaganda. I knew piss from rain after my stint with Uncle Sam. So it is up to us to make sure the upcoming generations know the truth.
The scary part about this is that some people are ignorant enough to believe this garbage. God help this country
Take all the Commies and the press and shake them together and you would be lucky to find one that would meet the standards Ronald Reagan set.
We all need a reminder that this is just a poll & should be viewed about the same as the polls on AMAC board. Poll questions can be slanted to make the voters lean towards a conclusion that the poll hopes/wants to see.
Haters who become activated for lying and cheating merely show how small they are. So called experts prove how little expertise they have. How do they face themselves in the mirror or feel ok in their old age?
I can declare myself an “expert”…what area do you want me to be an “expert” in? Truly is that simple.