Is Donald Trump the worst president of the century?
Executive summary
Donald J. Trump is widely rated poorly by professional presidential historians in multiple contemporary scholar surveys, placing him near the bottom of modern presidential rankings [1] [2], but public opinion and some measures of political influence tell a more mixed story—leaving the claim that he is definitively “the worst president of the century” unsupported by a single, uncontested metric [3] [4].
1. Historians’ verdicts: low rankings but not unanimous language of “worst”
Multiple academic and media-compiled surveys show Trump clustered near the bottom of presidential rankings compiled by historians and political scientists: C‑SPAN and related scholar polls place modern presidents like Trump closer to the lower end of leadership lists [5] [2], and one project specifically reported Trump as ranking last in a recent scholar survey [1]; these expert rankings typically weigh leadership, accomplishments, crisis management and character using methods documented by Siena and C‑SPAN [6] [5].
2. What those rankings measure — and what they omit
Historian surveys use multi‑category scoring systems (leadership, crisis management, appointments, character) and different panels, and they average subjective judgments rather than produce an objective “scorecard” of every presidential action [7] [5]; because methodologies differ and some surveys exclude the most recent presidents or give equal weight to disparate categories, low historical rankings reflect expert judgment rather than a provable, single-axis failure.
3. Public opinion tells a different, partisan story
Contemporary polls of the public paint a contrasting portrait: some surveys show Trump as one of the more favorably viewed 21st‑century presidents among certain voter segments, with a Quantus Insights poll finding Trump ranked second in favorability for the century behind Barack Obama among registered voters [3]; that popularity among a sizable base complicates any blanket moral or political condemnation based solely on historian rankings.
4. Policy outcomes and economic measures are mixed and contested
Objective measures such as GDP growth and other economic indicators vary across the century and can change depending on the interval chosen; data aggregators note that private‑sector growth and GDP trends in the 21st century have been uneven and that growth under Trump compared with his contemporaries is disputed when accounting for the pandemic year and differing baselines [4]; thus claims that Trump was unequivocally the worst on economic grounds are not settled by the sources provided.
5. Alternative viewpoints and implicit agendas in the sources
Scholar surveys reflect the judgments of historians and political scientists whose perspectives can cluster by political orientation and scholarly focus, an effect documented across multiple ranking efforts [7] [6], while media articles and polling firms cater to different audiences and framing incentives—scholar polls emphasize historical legacy, news outlets amplify contemporary controversy, and partisan or advocacy polling highlights popularity metrics [5] [3]; recognizing those implicit agendas matters when interpreting competing claims about “worst” status.
6. Bottom line: not provable as an absolute, but strongly supported as a low historical standing
Based on available historian surveys and contemporary reporting, the best-supported empirical claim is that Trump ranks near the bottom of modern presidential evaluations among professional historians and many scholarly polls [1] [2]; however, because public opinion polls, differing methodologies, and contested economic assessments offer contradictory or mitigating evidence [3] [4], it is not defensible from the provided reporting to assert with absolute certainty that he is the single “worst president of the century” as a fact rather than a judged conclusion.