The question is, should the latest ranking of Presidents be used by voters for the 2024 election cycle, because 2 of those ranked are running for President for another term? The answer is, it’s up to the individual voters, especially those who seek more information in making an intelligent decision on who to vote for. Does veracity and trustworthiness play a part in a determination of choices? History will judge ex-President Trump and President Joe Biden using finer points of evidence as they become more available. We all must use those truths that have been presented so far.
In February 2024 the academic historians of the United States released their ranking of all 46 U.S. Presidents. Their criteria were a scholarly ranking using leadership qualities, successes, and failures while in office.
President Joe Biden ranked 14th, and ex-President Donald Trump ranked 46th. (remember, there are only 46 total!) Those scholars doing the ranking were not political. For example, Republicans Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan are often ranked in the top 5 for accomplishments.
Fourteenth ranked President Joe Biden, so far in his tenure as President, has added 15 million new jobs to the U.S. annual payroll while maintaining the lowest unemployment rate (3.8%) in the past 50 years. He has passed gun legislations which require more registration, infrastructure bills, semi-conductor and chip legislation, meanwhile he cut the rate of deficit spending by half over his predecessor. President Biden does not try to expand powers not in the U.S. Constitution. He has no proven wrongdoing in his 50 years of public service. Rumors, innuendo, exaggeration and lies by radio pundits, TV pundits and opposition members do not count. Also, public polls over popularity are not part of the ranking of Presidents.
Ex-President Donald Trump, in his 4-year term, set a record for adding to the national debt (7.8 trillion dollars). He set records while in office concerning turnover of staff and political appointees. He passed a major tax relief for the already rich in America that added over a trillion dollars to the national debt. He withdrew from the climate change Paris Accords. He separated children from their immigrant parents at the Mexican border. He frequently attempted to override the powers of the President granted by the U.S. Constitution. He was impeached twice. His failure to relinquish power to properly elected President Joe Biden, led to a costly insurrection January 6, 2021, as a mob of several thousand invaded the Capitol Building, causing death, destruction and mayhem, which resulted in eventual prison sentences of almost 500 rioters, so far.
In 2019 while President, Donald Trump had to pay a $2 million fine to the State of New York for abuse of his family foundation, which then had to be dissolved. He now has four lawsuits pending, one of which is an alleged porn star payment of $130,000 which was made just a week before the 2016 election, is now in trial. There are three additional lawsuits that contain 91 felony charges all of which are now pending trial.
President Joe Biden has inflationary problems which constitute only half of what the E. U. countries are going through. His staffing and appointees are successful despite attempts at proving some form of incompetence. The attempt by his opponents to impeach him seem empty of merit.
The question is, should the latest ranking of Presidents be used in the 2024 election cycle because 2 of those ranked are running for President for another term? The answer is, it’s up to the individual voters, especially those who seek more information in making an intelligent decision on who to vote for.
Does veracity and trustworthiness play a part in a determination of choices? Well if so, ex-President Donald Trump has literally been shown by fact checking to lie thousands of times in the past 7 years. Meanwhile, Joe Biden’s ability to be truthful goes unchallenged.
History will judge ex-President Trump and President Joe Biden using finer points of evidence as they become more available. We all must just use those truths that have been presented so far.
God bless America.
Opening Image Photo Credits: The White House, Wikipedia.org, Pete Souza, Amazon, Library of Congress
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