In another indication of the partisanship of modern academia, a recent survey of scholars on the American presidency, conducted at two American universities and subsequently published, is drawing attention for its questionable and controversial results.
The 2024 Presidential Greatness Project expert poll, led by Brandon Rottinghaus of the University of Houston and Justin S. Vaughn of Coastal Carolina University, surveyed experts from the American Political Science Association as well as scholars who had published recently peer-reviewed academic research on the US presidency.
The poll has current President Joe Biden as the 14th greatest president in US history. His predecessor, President Donald J. Trump, ranks last.
Biden ranked ahead of Woodrow Wilson, Ronald Reagan and Ulysses S. Grant. Former President Barack Obama came in seventh, up eight points from last year's poll.
Trump earned the lowest ranking in the poll, 45, behind James Buchanan at 44th, Andrew Johnson at 43rd, Franklin Pierce at 42nd and William Henry Harrison at 41st.
Abraham Lincoln was selected by scholars as the best president of the United States.
The survey also ranked respondents' ideological and party differences, but respondents said it did not “tend to make a big difference overall.”
However, there was a clear split between Obama and Biden's parties, with Democrats ranking them 6th and 13th on average, while Republicans ranked them 15th and 30th, respectively.
The presidential rankings are notable for their lack of an objective measure of the quality of life for Americans under a given president, and appear to rank according to how well a president's ideological disposition matches that of typically left-leaning political pundits.
The Biden presidency and the Trump presidency represent an important political test for scholars' ability to evaluate elected leaders on objective merit.
Donald Trump's economy, until the moment state governors began to lock down under the Covid pandemic, was one of the best in modern history.
As Atlantic Scholar Derek Thompson summarized in August 2019:
Jobs have grown for 106 consecutive months, the longest streak in history. At 121 months, this is the longest bull market in US history.
The unemployment rate has been at or below 4% for 16 consecutive months, the longest such streak in 50 years. Inequality remains a crucial issue, but wages are now growing faster among the lowest-wage industries, thanks to state-by-state increases in the minimum wage and the effects of low unemployment. The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index, which peaked at 112 in 1999, has been above 90 for more than four years, the first time since the 1990s.
Latino unemployment has fallen to an all-time low. Black unemployment has also fallen to an all-time low, and as Bloomberg investor and columnist Conor Sen points out, the black teen unemployment rate, which peaked at 48.9 per percent in 2010, has fallen to another historic low in 2019.
The United States also stayed out of foreign wars, which were few and far between under Donald Trump's watch. Trump's presidency negotiated peace agreements in the Middle East and successfully promoted deterrence through a “peace through strength” approach.
Additionally, the 45th president secured the southern border, averting the human catastrophe and widespread national disruption of a full-blown border crisis.
Biden's presidency has seen a massive increase in inflation, soaring energy prices, rampant spending laden with waste and corruption, reckless manipulation and foreign interventionism, and a border crisis that has exploded out of control
Biden's presidency has been one of the most chaotic and controversial in American history.
The Justice Department under his charge has politically prosecuted a former president, raising important questions about the agency's corrupt weaponry. The Biden family has been fully exposed for having participated in multiple foreign influence peddling schemes with the aid and cooperation of Joe Biden. His administration has pursued unconstitutional censorship and surveillance of the American people.
It has been a disaster for the rule of law and for the social contract with the federal government as stipulated in the US Constitution.
The quality of life for the vast majority of Americans was much better under the Trump presidency than it was under the Biden presidency. Trump's presidency gets zero credit from scholars for this, while Joe Biden gets the most credit for simply being a Democratic president.
The academy is broken. This presidential poll is another example of how modern scholars are completely out of touch with the interests of the American people.
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