Our American neighbors love these rankings evaluating the performance of their presidents. Back in July 2021, I shared a classification conducted by historians. These put him at 41e Rank.
In December 2020, I shared with you these historians' concerns about the archives of the Trump presidency.
This time I tell you what 125 specialists in American politics think about the performance of the 45th president.
Worst of all
For their 2024 ranking, scientists Brandon Rottinghaus (University of Houston) and Justin S. Vaughn (Coastal Carolina University) consulted numerous experts, especially those from the American Political Science Association.
These experts submit their work for peer review. They are qualified and respected researchers.
In the table below we see Trump in last place and a good margin separates him from James Buchanan, the incompetent president who led the country just before the Civil War. His inaction and even indifference before the Civil War justify that he is usually found in the back row.
However, there have also been numerous opportunists, dishonest or poorly qualified men in the American presidency. That Trump is at the bottom of the list, well after the sulphurous William Harding (who died in office in 1923), is telling.
The only category in the report where the 45th president tops the list is the category of presidents who have divided the population the most. You will notice that the distance to the second row is anything but trivial.
Like all rankings of this kind, they are good for sparking discussion and checking methodology, but among all these exercises there is one constant: Donald Trump never does well. However, many Republicans and voters want to give him the keys to the White House a second time.
If you ask about the current president's rank, Joe Biden is 14th in overall performance, but his term is not yet up.
Which president should you add to Mount Rushmore?
Out of curiosity about the classification, we also asked the experts about the hypothetical question of an addition to the four presidents whose faces were carved in stone (Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt).
It was Franklin Delano Roosevelt who won by a wide margin and was the only president to be elected four times. The person who helped his fellow citizens survive the crisis and the Second World War left a great legacy that is increasingly being attacked at the social level.
The pundits' second choice will undoubtedly have his Republican opponents roaring. Barack Obama, the first black president in his country's history, was a model of respectability and fulfilled his role as “comforter” excellently. However, let's still give ourselves some time and perspective to properly assess his performance.