Fox News reported on some new presidential rankings, which purportedly show Barack Obama as the #6 president in U.S. history and Donald Trump dead last, and MAGA was not happy.

Fox News on Sunday posted an article about the new rankings by the Presidential Greatness Project, which Fox describes as “a group of self-styled experts.” It states that Abraham “Lincoln topped the list of presidents in the 2024 Presidential Greatness Project expert survey for the third time, following his top spot in the rankings in the 2015 and 2018 versions of the survey.”

“Rounding out the top five in the rankings were Franklin Delano Roosevelt at number two, George Washington at three, Theodore Roosevelt at four, and Thomas Jefferson at five,” according to the report. “Trump was ranked in last place in the survey, being ranked worse than James Buchanan at 44, Andrew Johnson at 43, Franklin Pierce at 42, and William Henry Harrison at 41.”

The report states that Obama and Joe Biden “ranked an average of 6th and 13th, respectively, among Democrat respondents, and 15th and 30th by Republicans.”

      • @AA5B@lemmy.world
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        141 year ago

        Benedict Arnold got in a position to be traitor by being a war hero. Even as a traitor , he followed his conscience.

        Trump got in his position by being a real estate grifter, playing shell games with New York City real estate, hiding income to take multiple properties through bankruptcy while having a positive income, not paying contractors and employees, etc. Out of vanity he paid to host his own “reality” show then somehow stumbled into connecting with half the population through outrage and misdirection who nevertheless elected him president. Somehow this narcissistic incompetent bombastic sleazy salesman commanded enough popular support for the Republican Party to worship at his feet, be afraid to contradict his words. Somehow this treasonous buffoon spouts sexist garbage worse than what got Clinton impeached but that’s ok, supports our Cold War enemy and current yet people are ok with it, reduces government services while enriching himself and his family, incites an attempt to circumvent the election but people still want to choose him, actually says he will act as a dictator yet there’s still support, damaged the ability of our government to function but that’s cool, started trade wars out of spite or impulse yet no one objects, then there’s the matter of hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths by contradicting his own public health advisors on how to handle an epidemic

        • @DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
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          1 year ago

          He lost almost all his battles, picked a fight with every fellow officer around him, and committed treason because they wouldn’t let him openly be a war profiteer, everyone else having the good sense to hide their corruption. His naked ambition, greed, and open jealousy are simple historical fact.

          There’s a fair enough point that losing battles and winning the war is just how the Revolution was, so he might well deserve more credit for military competence than his record implies, but Arnold did more than “make a mistake” by trying to sell West Point to the British.

          Also, just fyi:

          After defecting to the British he burned the city of New London to the ground and executed the garrison of Fort Grinswold after they surrendered.

      • Guy Ingonito
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        61 year ago

        Wasn’t he actually very patriotic? He just hated the French that bad.

          • Kitty Jynx
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            31 year ago

            I took to calling a well done steak with ketchup “Presidential”.

            • @Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              21 year ago

              Well done steak is understandable for older folks raised in a tiny town. My mom eats it well done because they didn’t even have fridges. Better make sure it’s well cooked so you don’t get sick. Some people cook it beyond well done where it’s getting into charcoal territory, that plus ketchup is what I call ala trump.

              • Schadrach
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                1 year ago

                This doesn’t describe me but I prefer my steaks well done. The thing is, it’s harder to do a well done steak right than most other levels of done-ness because there’s less leeway (basically there’s a wide spread where something is medium rare, but a fine line between well done and shoe leather). Usually the trick is to stop cooking it shortly before you think it’s actually done and then let it rest covered to finish from the residual heat.

                The ketchup thing is just gross though. Mix a bit of red wine, worcestershire, soy sauce, garlic, onion and store-bought steak sauce and cook it a bit to let the wine reduce, let everything mix and thicken it a bit.

      • @frezik@midwest.social
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        201 year ago

        The Revolution managed to succeed anyway. We’re still not sure our democracy (flawed as it is) can survive Trump.

      • Sure, he was a traitor for a period, and did some pretty horrible things during that time (such as the invasion of Quebec) but he did end up restoring his original loyalties eventually.

    • @Eldritch@lemmy.world
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      31 year ago

      Not even remotely. Without massive help from the Republican party, he would have gotten nothing accomplished. Despite being the second coming of Reagan. Even Reagan was far worse than Trump. The collective efforts of the Bush family over the last 100 years dwarf and are also part of Reagan’s legacy.

      Don’t get me wrong. Trump is awful. The Republican party is the problem however. They could stop him at a moment’s notice and kick him out. But they refuse to simply because their monster got away from them. And he’s currently got control.

      • Schadrach
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        11 year ago

        The Republican party is the problem however. They could stop him at a moment’s notice and kick him out.

        So, we have a two party system because FPTP voting always collapses into one given enough time. But there’s no requirement that those two parties be “Democrats” and “Republicans”, especially not as you know them now.

        The GOP is worried that Trump’s cult is large enough that if they tried to boot him out directly that it would cause a massive party split of the sort that leads to a decade or so having three parties (and Democrats winning a lot because the right wing vote is split) until either the GOP or MAGA comes out on top and absorbs the other - and they aren’t sure MAGA wouldn’t win that in the end.

        It’s better for the GOP long term if they let him tucker himself out or ideally get criminally convicted of things that make him ineligible under 14A Sec 3 in the hopes they can fold much of the cult back into their numbers but keep them politically active. If he gets barred under 14A Sec 3 then the GOP can get cultists to vote for them under claims that they’ll fix that, and then just not bother to.

        • @Eldritch@lemmy.world
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          21 year ago

          That’s cynical thinking and it’s untrue. He can do a lot of damage in the interim. It would be worse than 20 to 30 years in the wilderness. Especially seeing as a Democratic party isn’t a solid cohesive group itself. It’s already a coalition party. And if there were less pressure to force a lot of us together, we’d split into other parties ourselves and pursue goals that actually align with our beliefs. For a lot of people including myself. Democrats simply represent a slower, slightly more humane slide into fascism.

          We’re literally staring down the barrel at the end of democracy. As they try to play chicken with the lead addled losers they’ve engineered. Thinking to themselves “hey, maybe if we keep our heads down and keep enabling them we can be in charge of whatever is left someday” That shit isn’t rational, or reasonable. Especially considering how many Democrats would sorely love to work with them again if they just kicked the greasy toad to the side of the road.

      • @eran_morad@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You’ve put the cart before the horse. It’s trump who controls the republicans. It’s the republicans who need him, not the other way around. It’s he who has co-opted them. And, no, Reagan, evil though he was, did not damage the Republic like Trump has. Bush, the insipid fool that he was, hasn’t attempted to bring down the Republic. Trump very nearly succeeded in doing that. In destroying America. And he very well might still achieve it.

        • @Eldritch@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Nope. Literally it isn’t. They could kick him to the curb at any point. If he’s controlling them, why did he do largely what they wanted in office. Yes they throw red meat to the morons too. But make no mistake as to who’s in control. It’s still the same wealthy people who were before.

          All Trump has done is give the permission to openly be themselves. They’re still the same crazies they were before he got in office.

    • elgordio
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      41 year ago

      Trump increased the average felony charges per president to 2.

      Trump: 96
      All other previous presidents combined: 0

  • @OpenStars@startrek.website
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    31 year ago

    I wonder what Trump plans to do about it, other than whinge. Get reelected by abandoning Fox News and using tRuTh sOcIaL instead?

  • Syo
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    1 year ago

    Two things that make Trump the worst and arguably traitor to the US. Just so you know where I stand.

    1. He literally try to overturn an election and remain king.

    2. He piled on $8,400,000,000,000 to national debt. $2.5T came from his stupid tax cut law, which were only off set in the billions of increased tariffs, and about $2.3 from discretionary spending increase, plain old Republicans in charge and spending out the wazzu. Saving the last one $3.6T for COVID relief and laws, which everyone and their grandma pointed out the potential for fraud and abuse, but no guard rails were put in place and DOJ is merely chasing back millions in peanuts only because some fraudster was too stupid to keep their mouths shut.

    Circumventing the Constitution and exacerbating the wealth inequality, were real acts of degrading the US, and at best just not giving a damn about the American people. Compared to all the other crap he did that were more performative, while below the office if the President, these two things have long term effect of weakening the county that I love. He’s the worst President and the modern Republicans are only in for themselves.

  • Hairyblue
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    1171 year ago

    Who didn’t see that coming-Trump is the worst president.

    Remember when Trump asked Russia to help him win the election. Or when Trump thought light brought into the body would cure covid. Or when Trump believed the murderer Putin over our own government. Or…well I could go on, but Trump worked for that last spot on the list. He deserves it.

    • @vexikron@lemmy.zip
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      31 year ago

      Well uh definitely no likely Trump voters and likely about half of ‘independents’, so something like 60 ish percent of American voters?

      You must either be European or otherwise blissfully ignorant of American society.

    • @Wodge@lemmy.world
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      541 year ago

      I’d hazard a guess that it’s less to do with his conduct as president, rather more of what he actually did in office. I honestly can’t think of anything his administration “achieved” aside from massive tax cuts for the rich. Obama had the ACA, Biden has his massive economic recovery and job creation, Trump has nothing of value.

      • @Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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        151 year ago

        . I honestly can’t think of anything his administration “achieved” aside from massive tax cuts for the rich.

        Does fucking up the covid response and breaking the brains of all Americans count as achievements?

      • @Dippy@lemmy.world
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        71 year ago

        Usually when I try to think of it all I can remember is space force. Still a stupid name, and I can’t believe they couldn’t come up with something better.

        Not sure if that’s achieved though, but was prolly a good thing to have a dedicated group to it then funneling through the Air Force

        • @AA5B@lemmy.world
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          21 year ago

          I still have a hard time taking them seriously, with the way it was rolled out. I know it’s probably a good idea, given how critical space technology is, and that it will just keep getting more and more critical, but wow did they make it sound ridiculous at first. It’s hard to get past that first inpression

          • @Dippy@lemmy.world
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            21 year ago

            Agreed. Add to it Steve Carell’s show (although wasn’t great) after definitely didn’t help its credibility.

        • @WarmSoda@lemm.ee
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          81 year ago

          The Space Force was a long time coming. Trump didn’t come up with the idea for an entire new branch of the armed forces and have it created while he was in office.

          • @Dippy@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            From wiki

            The first discussion of a U.S. Space Force occurred under President Dwight Eisenhower’s administration in 1958 and it was nearly established in 1982 by President Ronald Reagan as part of the Strategic Defense Initiative. The 2001 Space Commission argued for the creation of a Space Corps around 2007–2011, but due to the September 11 attacks and war on terror any plans were put on hold. In 2017, Representatives Jim Cooper and Mike Rogers’ proposal for a Space Corps passed the House but failed in the Senate. In 2019, the House and Senate resolved their differences to pass the United States Space Force Act. It was signed into law by President Donald Trump, establishing the U.S. Space Force as the first new independent military service since the Army Air Forces were reorganized as the U.S. Air Force in 1947.[9]

            If you want to credit it to Eisenhower sure, but still technically it was established under trump so that’s the best I have for remembering what he did in office.

    • @teamevil@lemmy.world
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      31 year ago

      Remember Hurricane Sharpie‽ That alone should be a good indicator that he’s nothing but trash on his best day.

        • Bizzle
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          31 year ago

          They should have ranked his 1st and 2nd terms individually smdh

      • ares35
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        11 year ago

        dinglebutt would have been lower, but there were only that many eligible names this go-around.

    • IHeartBadCode
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      21 year ago
      1. Van Buren

      That’s a lot higher than I’d put the guy who so “skillfully” handled the panic of 1837.

    • anon6789
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      Presidental history isn’t my strongest area, but I’d bump up Eisenhauer before Truman.

      I feel the jump after #5 is a pretty sizeable one.

      I’m trying to justify moving down GHWB and Jackson, but looking at who comes in after them, it’s hard to come up with anything to put them over either of them.

      Looking at the list objectively, it’s pretty amazing the combined list of terrible things we can list off that all these people did. The tops 5 included. But I feel those are the only ones I can say what they did was so monumental that the country was better off after their terms and I wonder if we would ever get a leader like any of them again.

      Still sad to see the amount of slavery and war crimes in the top 5 though.

      • @Rapidcreek@lemmy.world
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        161 year ago

        Historians create the list, so sometimes it is about the history these Presidents lived through. Reagan is seen as an element in the fall of the Soviet Union, and thus the recreation of many countries and world order.

      • BoofStroke
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        31 year ago

        Yeah. Most of what is wrong now can be traced to Reagan.

      • @Salix@sh.itjust.works
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        I’ve met many people in real life who seem to believe Reagon is great due to his “very successful” Reaganomics. I don’t know if they actually knew what Reaganomics really was or the results of it.

      • @assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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        This should really worry Republicans. Apparently this came from surveying people. If Reagan is 16 , and Obama is 7, and Trump is absolutely last, it says a whole fucking lot about the electorate.

        Edit: I’m mistaken, it’s political science folks. So probably not as worrying to them.

      • @NewNewAccount@lemmy.world
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        71 year ago

        Puts him at about average. Reagan represents a brand of conservatism that many disagree with but that doesn’t inherently make him a bad president.

      • @frezik@midwest.social
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        51 year ago

        He may be the best human being in the office. He micromanaged his staff–he required personal signing off on the White House tennis court usage–and never figured out the sausage making process with Congress. His actual accomplishments were limited.

    • partial_accumen
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      131 year ago

      45. Trump

      I’m glad to see Trump acknowledge and celebrate his place at the bottom of the list.

    • @Leg@lemmy.world
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      21 year ago

      The cool thing about a propagandized population is it creates something akin to a hivemind people. All you really have to do is determine whether or not X person has fallen victim to a certain flavor of propaganda, and it’s a decent indicator of whether or not that person believes several other falsehoods and behaves in accordance with actions laid out by the source of the propaganda. MAGA is a solid example of a propagandized people who behave and believe in very predictable ways: They skew alt-right, believe Trump is good for the country, range from racially apathetic to completely racist, champion capitalism and billionaires, are unable to be swayed by new information that runs counter to their established narrative, are aggressively white and Christian, and they generally align with Republican politicians across the board, as long as those politicians are in the same realm of insanity that Trump inhabits. MAGA is a philosophy born and raised by bad faith propaganda.

  • @yesman@lemmy.world
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    861 year ago

    Raw Story is garbage. Not because it’s partizan, but because it’s lazy.

    MAGA freaks out…” is 3 people responding to a fox news tweet identified by their twitter handle, another who’s not even identified that way, and some other rando who doesn’t agree. That’s it, that’s the story.

    IDK what kind of sweatshop the reporters working for that outlet are laboring under, but there is nothing in this “article” that couldn’t be hammered out in 10 min on a smartphone.

    Just because it’s lefty garbage, doesn’t mean it’s not garbage.

    • @Pratai@lemmy.cafe
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      91 year ago

      Manufactured outrage is the new thing though. Without it- I’m pretty sure lemmy would be a ghost town.

      • @AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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        Ummm… It’s not new. Noam Chompsky may have gone off the deep end here in the last few years, but he had a point when he wrote that book in 1988, about events that happened between ≈1960 till ≈1980. This is a well known political strategy that has been used by multiple countries since 1898 when William Randolph Hearst declared, “You furnish the pictures, I’ll furnish the war.”

        The only real “new” part is that we now have the ability to network so inefficiently that we constantly form echo chambers, emboldening the fringe elements, allowing them to connect to each other extremely efficiently, and maybe allowing the people that are supposed to be watching, to actually watch. I suspect the last part is severely corrupted though.

    • @Flumpkin@slrpnk.net
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      Step 1: Put out outrageous conspiracy theories or policies on twitter
      Step 2: Wait for crazies to comment and create a high engagement shitstorm
      Step 3: Now you can reference those outrageous things on mainstream media

      Step 4: Profit
      Step 5: Armageddon

      • @arc@lemm.ee
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        21 year ago

        That is basically the schtick that every tabloid and every partisan site puts out. Visit the Daily Mail (actuall don’t) and every other story is some garbage from social media that they’ve decided to turn into click bait.

      • @Pratai@lemmy.cafe
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        81 year ago

        And so it is on lemmy as well. Don’t believe me? Check out Hexbear or .ml or lemmygrad. Same rage, different flavor.

        • @corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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          21 year ago

          so it is on lemmy as well

          Painting an entire federation with the actions of its worst is fun. It’s like how all americans are Ted Bundy.

          • @Pratai@lemmy.cafe
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            11 year ago

            Isn’t that the same thing as saying ACAB?

            Painting all of a thing the same color because of A portion of a thing is never a great idea, but here it’s implied I’m not talking about everyone that uses it. Just the loudest part and the part that had the authority to remove those they disagree with.

            Which is pretty much the same as cops.

    • there is nothing in this “article” that couldn’t be hammered out in 10 min on a smartphone.

      Bonus points if this article was published while on the can.

      Sad thing is: it’s generating clicks regardless of how crap the article is, because that title is just so bait-y. :(

  • Diotima
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    1 year ago

    These results are interesting, though the article does note that the overall results seem to map along party lines for mote contemporary presdients (with notable exceptions, like Clinton.) In case anyone wonders, the polling pool was:

    “…current and recent members of the Presidents & Executive Politics Section of the American Political Science Association … as well as scholars who had recently published peer-reviewed academic research in key related scholarly journals or academic presses.”

    So, not a general survey in case anyone wonders.

    Edit: I do wonder how balanced this survey was, though… if Obama was 6th and 15h and Biden was 13th among Democrats and 30th among Republicans, and nonetheless 14th overall, it does suggest that the poll was heavily skewed toward Democratic respondents. Nothing wrong with that, just food for thought.

    • @ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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      21 year ago

      There’s a lot that don’t really make sense other than a heavier democrat bias. Bush Sr being well above Jr also doesn’t really make sense. There also seems to be a very heavy recency bias, Clinton should probably be the highest rated president from the last 30 years and likely not in the top 10.

    • @mipadaitu@lemmy.world
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      111 year ago

      Wait, so you’re saying the scholars… the people who actually study things and know what they are talking about… skew towards a favorable view of democratic policies??? That’s weird, must be a conspiracy.

      • Diotima
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        11 year ago

        Not as such. I’m saying exactly what I said… that there’s a strong democratic skew in this survey, which is not immediately apparent in the story. That is valuable information for anyone wanting to understand the results… not so much for someone looking to “hur hur” over the performance of the other.