Any reader familiar with my blog and Twitter/X feed knows I have never supported the man politically, in fact I left the GOP as soon as he clinched his first nomination. I have supported both impeachments against him. I've opposed his fiscal record adding nearly $8T to the debt. He mishandled the pandemic crisis and started trade wars. His foreign policy was a convoluted mess, between bullying allies to indulging autocracies. Trump has had little regard for individual rights, e.g., publicly condemning released AWOL serviceman Bergdahl facing a military trial, calling Snowden a spy who should be executed and targeting Apple for not providing a government backdoor to device security. He wanted McConnell to abolish the filibuster to jam his pet legislation through a narrowly GOP-controlled Senate. He bashed corporations for investing in overseas operations. He tried to divert military spending for funding his border wall when he couldn't get it through Congress. He vetoed defense spending over renaming Southern military bases. He vetoed a Congressional resolution against involvement with Saudi Arabia's intervention in Yemen. He rejected Constitutional restrictions He sought to interfere with the Russiagate investigation. He was obsessed with Twitter/X, He pressed the Fed to ease monetary policy.
This doesn't mean all things Trump were bad. Business tax rates had been globally noncompetitive and structured worldwide versus terrirorial. We saw a slowdown in the growth of federal regulation.
But is he the worst? Let me provide the context for the essay. A key podcaster whose videos I often embed in my daily posis is Brion McClanahan, whose signature books include a compilation of 9 Presidents who screwed up America; he has several podcast episodes on Presidents and/or their ranking. He has been especially panning lately this latest "expert" ranking, which includes a ranking of Trump at the bottom and Biden in the teens, this recent episode (referencing Trump Derangement Syndrome) I think particularly he particularly singles out this 2021 essay after J6 as a sample TDS historian ranking Trump dead last.
My approach/analysis is somewhat different from McClanahan, although I completely agree that a President should be based on fidelity to the Constitution and his strictly enumerated role, with a core responsibility being conducting foreign policy. I have not reviewed all the Presidents in detail for revelant criteria but, based on my own reading, independent of Brion, have particularly admired Calvin Coolidge and Grover Cleveland, in large part, based on fiscal conservatism and political reform vs. corruption, Cleveland was also anti-imperialist and for sound money. (Note I have som reservations, e.g., Coolidge's part in immigration restrictions.) Neither of them has been popular with the "experts". On the other hand, Lincoln and FDR tend to be float near or at the top of ratings. Lincoln was a disaster on a number of grounds, including primary responsibility for the deaths of over a million Americans, violations of the Bill of Rights, an unconstitutional income tax, greenbacks, and flipping the principles of federalism. FDR not only violated the 2-term limit set by Washington, but his disastrous economic policies prolonged the Depression, his shakedown of SCOTUS led to Footnote 4, resulting in Big Government, and he manipulated us into WWII
I would probably restrict though my own rankings to the last century and more specifically my lifetime. Probably the worst (including Trump) was LBJ, especially his unconscionable expansion of the Vietnam War and his failed unsustainable domestic initiatives of the War on Poverty and the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid.
Three Presidens were nearly or in fact impeached: Nixon, Clinton and Trump (twice), all for putting themselves above the Constitution and the law. Nixon's resignation preemptied his impeachment. The first 3 impeachment efforts had subsequent electoral consequenes; Trump after 2016 lost the House and in 2020 lost the Senate and Whie House. Nixon did wind down our involvement in Vietnam and opened the door to China but created the EPA, instituted ineffectual wage/price controls, and decoupled gold from the greenback, arguably igniting inflation over the following decade. Clinton began his Presidency with a tax hike and a failed Hillarycare initiative, losing the House for the first time in 4 decades. He reinvented himself , agreeing to welfare and financial deregulation reform. With a GOP Congress, he managed to balance the budget fot the first time in decades. However, he got involved in Eastern Europe and he failed to answer the rise of Al Qaeda
Four Presidents failed to win reelection: Ford, Carter, GHW Bush, and Trump. I thought Ford did an awesome job using vetoes to cope with a liberal Congress, but I deeply disagreed with his Nixon pardon. Carter did some good things like deregulate trucking and the airlines but he expanded the Cabinet, the economy was mired in stagflatiom, and he struggled to deal with the Iran hostage crisis. But I also credit Carter with appointing Volvker who broke the back of inflation with high interest rates, probably at the cost of his own reelection. Former VP Bush unfortunately got us involved in the first Gulf War; he did lead a coalition against Iraq, although it didn't seem a security threat against the US. However, it was a recession and Bush's ill-fated bargain dealing away his no-new-taxes pledge that cost him reelection.
Reagan's tax cuts and low inflation triggered a nearly 2-decade economic boom including a 90's Internet expansion. The Soviet empire collapsed. There were issues, of course; Reagan suffered massive deficits and he failed to shrink the general government. His meddling with Nicaragua was scandalous. You could argue, however, his conservative paradigm has set the stage to the present era.
George W. Bush rose to the challenge of the 9/11 attacks and a small tax cut from Clinton's high rattes. But he got us bogged into 2 wars and nationbuilding after running a campaign against Clinton's nationbuilding. He expanded senior entitlements without paying for them. His response to 2008's economic tsunami was not like Coolidge's to the post-WW1 depression. He nearly doubled the national debt from balanced budgets.
Obama nearly doubled the national debt and he had a historically slow recovery to the Great Recession. His overreach on the abomination of ObamaCare cost him the House and eventually the Senate. But his expansion of the imperial Presidency through executive orders really got away from the vision of the Founders.
I won't go much into Biden here.Just like Obama and Trump, he has expanded the Imperial Presidency. The economy has staggered under reignited inflation, sparked by massive spending and bad Fed policy. His border policy has failed. He'll come close to Trump's massive debt.
So where does Trump rank? Not in the top half of my lifetime. His tax cuts weren't permanent, his diplomacy mediocre, his imperial presidency unacceptable. But in my book, LBJ was even worse.
