Lowest ranked us president
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Executive summary
Historians and aggregated polls most commonly place James Buchanan at the very bottom of presidential rankings, while recent scholar and media surveys have put Donald Trump among the newest entrants into the “worst” tier — illustrating that who is called the “lowest ranked” depends on the metric and voters used [1] [2] [3]. Rankings vary by methodology: long-term historical assessments favor Buchanan, whereas contemporary expert surveys and media compilations often place recent presidents, notably Trump, near the bottom of modern lists [4] [5] [6].
1. James Buchanan: the historian’s choice for worst president
Professional historians and long-running academic compilations consistently single out James Buchanan as the worst U.S. president because his actions (and inactions) are judged to have helped precipitate the Civil War and failed to halt the slide toward secession — a judgment reflected in multiple scholarly rankings and in media summaries of those polls, including U.S. News’s “10 Worst Presidents” which places Buchanan first on its worst list [1] [4]. Scholarly surveys aggregated over time place Buchanan, along with Andrew Johnson, in the bottom tier of historical rankings, reinforcing a consensus among historians that Buchanan’s performance on the most existential crisis of his era marks him as uniquely calamitous in the long sweep of American history [2] [4].
2. Donald Trump and the modern-era low ranks
Contemporary historian and scholar surveys — particularly those done since Trump’s presidency — have frequently put Donald Trump near or at the bottom among modern presidents, with some high-profile academic compilations and media accounts reporting him as the lowest-ranked post-19th‑century chief executive on leadership criteria like moral authority, administrative skill, and crisis management [5] [3]. C-SPAN and other expert surveys show Trump debuting near the bottom in leadership polls, a reflection both of measured performance in categories scholars use and of the unusual political and constitutional controversies that defined his term [6] [5].
3. Methodology is decisive: historians vs. aggregated polls vs. public opinion
Which president is “lowest ranked” depends on who’s doing the ranking and how they weight attributes: multi-decade historian surveys emphasize long-run consequences and place pre‑Civil War failures like Buchanan at the bottom, while contemporary expert surveys and media aggregates that include more recent figures can elevate modern presidents’ rankings downward because of recency bias and different category weights [7] [2] [4]. Public-facing lists (e.g., U.S. News, Guardian summaries of scholar polls) often present hybrid results that average different polls and therefore can produce different “last-place” names depending on timing and the specific surveys combined [1] [3].
4. Why scholars single out Buchanan: context and consequences
The core rationale historians give for naming Buchanan the worst centers on his failure to use the presidency to check Southern secessionist momentum and his accommodation of pro‑slavery forces at the cost of national unity — judgments tied directly to the immense historical consequence of his presidency rather than to short-term unpopularity or scandal [4] [1]. That focus on existential, systemic failure explains why presidents who presided over major scandals or unpopularity but who avoided national collapse rank higher in long-term scholarly assessments [7].
5. Why recent surveys put Trump low — and what that doesn’t necessarily mean
Surveys since 2018 and especially those conducted while Trump was recent or still in office give extreme weight to categories like moral authority, crisis leadership, and relationship with institutions, which pushed him to the bottom on many contemporary expert lists; media reporting has amplified those findings, sometimes presenting Trump as “the worst” in headline form even when historical consensus remains focused on Buchanan and Andrew Johnson [5] [3] [2]. This divergence underscores that a low ranking in modern expert polls signals a severe judgment by scholars about recent performance and institutional impact, but it is not identical to a cross‑century consensus that includes long-run consequences.
6. Bottom line
If the criterion is long-term historical consequence as used by academic historians, James Buchanan is widely regarded as the lowest‑ranked U.S. president; if the criterion is contemporary expert judgment about recent leadership, Donald Trump often occupies the lowest positions in the post‑19th‑century field — and different polls or aggregations can yield different answers depending on methodology and timing [1] [4] [5] [2]. Reporting that ignores those methodological differences risks conflating two distinct debates: who was worst over the long sweep of American history, and who ranks lowest in recent expert evaluations of leadership and conduct.