https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/12/politics/trump-president-rankings/index.html Historians will likely rank Trump as one of the worst presidents Analysis by Harry Enten, CNN (CNN) Poll of the week: A new Gallup poll puts President Donald Trump's approval rating at 38%. His disapproval rating stands at 57%. The average poll similarly shows Trump's approval rating hovering around 40%, while his disapproval rating is above 55%. What's the point: Trump's approval rating isn't getting any better. In the polls, he is continuing to lose to former Vice President Joe Biden by double-digits. Trump could win a second term, but there is no clear path to doing so. If Trump does go on to lose in November, he doesn't just need to worry about losing to Biden. Trump needs to worry about the fact that the history books are probably going to put him down as a below average president, if not one of the worst. While I have my problems with historical rankings of presidents as an exercise (e.g. the graders tend to be far more liberal than the population at large), they are a good guide into understanding how history remembers presidents. The presidents viewed at the top of the lists (George Washington and Abraham Lincoln historically) or near the top (Ronald Reagan) tend to be thought of fondly. Meanwhile, those at or near the bottom of the list (such as James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson) are generally thought of as failures as president. The biggest factor separating those who rate highly and those who don't is whether they win a second term in office. Take a look at an average ranking by experts in the 2018 American Political Science Association poll and 2018 Siena College poll. The average ranking for presidents who win a second term is 14th. That's well above average given we've had 44 presidents. None ranked lower than 32nd (George W. Bush). The best was the top spot overall (Washington). The average for presidents who did not win a second term is 30th. That's well below average. None of the presidents who didn't have a second term ranked higher than 13th (John Kennedy, who was assassinated). The worst was last overall (Buchanan). Just on this basis alone, you'd think that Trump would probably go down as below average if he lost in November. We wouldn't know quite where he'd land, but it'd be a pretty good bet that he wouldn't finish in the top half. I'd bet Trump would dip even lower given where the historians already have him. The average of the APSA and Siena polls put Trump at 43rd, which ties him for last with Buchanan. At the time the APSA poll was published, I urged caution since it was one poll done early in Trump's presidency. Now, we have the Siena poll as well. Additionally, more voters by far said Trump was the worst president since World War II in a 2018 Quinnipiac University poll. (Few ranked him as the best, which is very different from a similar poll taken during Obama's second term.) Importantly, these early rankings are generally predictive of later rankings in a look back at presidents since Franklin Roosevelt (the first modern presidential ranking was completed three years after he last held office). Since 1948, the final historian rankings of a president during their time in office (or the first after they leave office) has differed from their current ranking by just four spots. The median difference has been a mere two spots. The presidents who tend to improve the most (such as Dwight Eisenhower) are ones who get that second term. Now, there is obviously some chance Trump could be ranked higher than at the end of 2018. I tend to doubt it, though, because his standing among the public is not any better now than it was then. All told, historians at the end of his first term are likely going to view Trump quite negatively. His only real chance of seeing improvement is to earn that second term, which seems to be something that is becoming less likely by the day.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/04/economy/august-jobs-report-trump-jobs-record/index.html Trump's job losses are the worst of any American president on record By Chris Isidore, CNN Business Updated 10:24 AM ET, Fri September 4, 2020 New York (CNN Business)President Donald Trump is heading into the general election with the worst jobs numbers of anypresident, based on records that go back to World War II. That's not going to change in the two months between now and Election Day, no matter how the economy does. The US economy is down 4.7million jobs since January 2017 when Trump took office, according to the Labor Department. The August jobs report released Friday showed employers added back about 1.4 million jobs, bringing the unemployment rate to 8.4%. That is still well short of what would be needed to give Trump a positive jobs record by November 3. The only other President in the last 80 years to own an overall loss in jobs between his inauguration and the following Election Day was George W. Bush in 2004. That was because of the so-called "jobless recovery" after the recession sparked by the dot-com bust. But the loss of 605,000 jobs through September of 2004 was a fraction of the job losses that happened under the Trump administration. To be sure, the bulk of the job losses in the Trump economy were precipitated by the shutdown orders associated with the worst pandemic in 100 years. "I would say Covid-19 is one hell of an extenuating circumstance," said Greg Valliere, chief US policy strategist for AGF Investments. But there are many who question whether the Trump administration's handling of the pandemic is responsible for deeper economic damage than would have taken place had the White House taken a more active role in fighting coronavirus. And even with millions being called back to work in recent months, there were more were 13.6 million people looking for work and unable to find one in the most recent reading. There is only one more jobs report — for September — that will be released before Election Day, and the Labor Department will start counting the jobs that make up that report next week. Even if Congress pushes through another Covid-19 financial stimulus package soon, it won't wipe out all of the job losses that have occurred during Trump's term. Trump's modest jobs record before the pandemic President Trump has frequently boasted about his pre-pandemic jobs record. And he has promised that once the pandemic is over, the job gains will return. But data show that his administration's job gainsbefore the pandemic were only average compared with predecessors. There were 6.8 million jobs added between the inauguration and February of this year, a 5% gain from when Trump took office. Measured by percentage, that's only the 11th best record out of the last 20 presidential terms. (Percentage gain is the best way to take into account the population growth over the last 80 years.) The best percentage gain was in the period between 1941 and 1944, when the end of the Great Depression and the nation's entry into World War II resulted in a 21% gain in jobs during President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third term. Effect of job losses on past votes This doesn't necessarily mean that Trump will be joining the ranks of unemployed. The direction of the economy can be far more important than the raw numbers, said Valliere. That could be good news for Trump since in the last four months employers have brought back 10.6 million workers who were temporarily laid off earlier in the year. "The direction in unemployment in all likelihood will be in Trump's favor," he said earlier this week. "If we get more than a million jobs added back on Friday and unemployment drops below 10%, you know he's going to brag about numbers like that." Trump is betting on an economic mirage George W. Bush, the only president with a record of job losses leading up to the election, was nonetheless reelected in 2004. He was helped by the economy adding 1.5 million jobs between January and September of that year. By contrast, even a good overall jobs record can be hurt by job losses leading up to the election. Jimmy Carter had one of the best job creation records between his inaugural and September of 1980 — 9.5 million jobs added, a gain of nearly 12%. But throughout 1980, job losses mounted as employers cut nearly 800,000 jobs between March and September. That, along with high inflation and the Iran hostage crisis, led to his defeat. 'Problems on the horizon' The job rebound appears to be slowing, as many of the jobs that were easy to bring back are already back, said Mark Zandi, chief economist with Moody's Analytics. The 1.4 million jobs added in August was down from the 1.7 million added in July, as the CNN Business Recovery Dashboard shows. Many of the millions of people who are out of work may be losing faith that they will be getting their jobs back. The10.6million people who returned to the jobs were mostly working in restaurants, hotels and retailers, noted Zandi. "That will only carry the job recovery so far," he said. "There is evidence that things are slowing. And there are problems on the horizon." Airlines are about to start cutting jobs. Local and state governments are running out of money. The damage is still accumulating, Zandi argued. So what does that mean for Trump's re-election chances? "I think people are still making up their minds," said Zandi. He said that's why the August and September jobs reports matter. "Do they view it as glass half full glass half empty?" he asked.
https://www.ibtimes.com/trump-worst-president-us-history-political-scientists-claim-2765338 Trump Is Worst President In US History, Political Scientists Claim By Arthur Villasanta 02/18/19 AT 8:20 PM Donald Trump is rated the worst president in American history by a group of 170 political science scholars. Being ranked 44th and last among U.S. presidents classified Trump as a failure, according to the survey’s parameters. On the other hand, this group selected Abraham Lincoln as the best among all presidents in the history of the American Republic since 1776. Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, took eighth place, and was also the highest ranked among the five living presidents. Obama was in 18th place during the last survey four years ago. Among the three other living presidents, Bill Clinton ranked 13th, Jimmy Carter, 26th and George W. Bush, 30th. The ranking of presidents by order of greatness was determined by members of the Presidents & Executive Politics section of the American Political Science Association. These scholars completed an online survey between December 2017 and January 2018.
Did Trump ask for Covid? Did Obama have to deal with Covid? Before Covid, Obama was the beneficiary of many more stimulus programs than Trump and even then the US suffered through the worst post WWII recovery under Obama. What the US economic performance before Covid under trump? We were at near full capacity. Didn’t Trump close down US borders with China and Biden called it Xenophobic? Now Biden wants the US to shut down again? What do you think happens to our economy if the US shuts down again? Better yet, do you think the media would blame Trump for the ensuing recession? No matter how you slice it, no US President would have done a meaningfully better job at containing Covid, just as we’ve seen with most world leaders. This is not even taking into account the US has one of the most mobile and diverse population of the world.
No matter how you slice it,The US has the most Covid cases and most Covid deaths.That is fact and that is Trumps legacy.
Time to look for a third opinion. This time from a more Leftist media source: 13 Things Trump Got Right Nobody does nothing as president, not even someone who watches television for five or six hours a day. DECEMBER 18, 2020 In his single term as president, George H. W. Bush negotiated the peaceful reunification of Germany. He liberated Kuwait while losing few American lives. He signed legislation to end acid rain. He did a budget deal that reduced federal deficits, enacted the Americans With Disabilities Act, and successfully resolved the collapse of the savings-and-loan industry. Jimmy Carter, in his one term, deregulated passenger aviation. He updated the regulation of rail freight, shipping, and trucking, laying the foundation for America’s modern delivery system. He negotiated the Camp David Accords, ending belligerency between Egypt and Israel. He avoided a major crisis in Central America with his Panama Canal Treaty. William Howard Taft also achieved much in his one term as president. It was his Department of Justice that busted the Standard Oil monopoly. Taft forcefully advocated a central bank for the United States, although that project was not completed until the year after he lost the presidency to Woodrow Wilson. Taft urged free trade with Canada and negotiated the treaty that ended a century of rancorous North American waterway disputes. To say the least, Donald Trump is not a president in the league of Bush, Carter, or even Taft. Few presidents have left office with so little accomplished, impeached and disgraced. Trump took a lot of credit for the economic growth of his first three years, but the economy was already growing strongly when he took office. Pick a measure, almost any measure, and the trajectory of his first three years was identical to that of Barack Obama’s final three years: unemployment, manufacturing, wages, you name it. And whereas Obama passed a successful economy to Trump, Trump bequeaths a wreck to his successor. The Trump tax cut promised to accelerate long-term growth by stimulating business investment. That promise was broken; business investment did not rise. The Trump tax cut imposed indefinite trillion-dollar deficits upon the United States even before the pandemic crisis, while conferring little, if any, benefit on economic output. Trump’s trade policy was an utter fiasco, and his much ballyhooed U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement simply inserted more automobile protectionism into the old NAFTA, without addressing the big North American trade issues of the 21st century, especially the needs of the digital economy and cross-border shipping. Trump did appoint a lot of judges, but that was a partisan achievement, not a national one: a zero-sum win for conservative Americans, not a legacy for the nation as a whole. Yet nobody does nothing as president, not even someone who watches television for five or six hours a day. There were achievements in the Trump years, and even if they hardly begin to compare to Jimmy Carter’s, they are still worth noting as this presidency comes to an end. I have below tallied a baker’s dozen of accomplishments that a majority of Americans, Democrats as well as Republicans, can reckon as successes of the Trump era. STRICTER REGULATION OF VAPING Vaping technology can help adult smokers quit, but it can also lure teenagers into addiction. In January 2020, Trump signed regulations restricting the use of fruit and mint flavorings in vaping cartridges. This was not as bold an action as anti-tobacco groups sought, but it was not nothing, either. Trump almost immediately regretted his benign action. Two weeks later, he complained on the phone to Health Secretary Alex Azar, “I should never have done that fucking vaping thing.” But the policy remains, despite Trump’s change of heart. DRAMATIC REDUCTIONS IN THE BURNING OF COAL Coal is the most environmentally dangerous of all fuels. In 2016, as a candidate, Trump vowed that the U.S. would soon burn more of it. Instead, U.S. coal consumption declined in every year of his presidency. In 2019, the U.S. burned 586 million tons of coal—a reduction of almost 50 percent from the 2007 peak, and a drop of almost 15 percent over 2018. This was not a result Trump wanted. A harder-working president might even have thwarted it. But in this one crucial respect, Trump’s legendary laziness has left the world a cleaner and greener place. NORMALIZATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST President Trump moved the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and proposed a peace plan that substituted economic development for immediate Palestinian statehood. Traditional experts feared that Trump’s policies would ignite regional conflict. Instead, if anything, the region has calmed. First the United Arab Emirates, then Bahrain and Sudan, and most recently Morocco have opened diplomatic relations with Israel. It’s now possible to fly directfrom Tel Aviv to Dubai, overflying Saudi Arabia. Trump also brought long-delayed justice to Iran’s General Qassem Soleimani, author of so many acts of terrorism. Again, experts feared that the killing of Soleimani would trigger the direst consequences. Instead, the Iranian regime itself halted the cycle of retaliation after its own reckless mistake brought down a civilian airliner over Tehran airport, killing all 176 passengers and crew. Iranian authorities first lied about their responsibility; when the truth could be concealed no longer, outrage among the Iranian people shook the mullah regime. Trump broke every rule in the diplomatic book. He accepted payments to himself and his family from the same parties he was negotiating with—not only single millions at his hotels, but the multiple millions in financing that his son-in-law’s family received from the Qataris to retrieve a bad investment in a New York City office building. Trump showed blatant favoritism to the Israelis over other negotiating parties. He repeatedly surprised all involved with abrupt changes in U.S. policy: supporting the Kurds, betraying the Kurds; appeasing Turkey, sanctioning Turkey; provoking Iran, sanctioning Iran; withdrawing U.S. forces from the region, recommitting U.S. forces to the region. And this one time, his seemingly aimless and herky-jerky approach worked, at least in the immediate term. Maybe Trump’s vagaries frightened Israelis and Gulf Arabs into getting along better. Maybe normalization would have happened even without him—it started before him, after all. Whatever the cause, he leaves office with this particular conflict closer to resolution than when he entered office. SAFEGUARDING 5G NETWORKS FROM CHINESE CONTROL Trump’s trade policy lacked rhyme or reason. He provoked futile, consumer-harming conflicts with partners like Canada and Germany. But Trump’s campaign to build 5G networks on Western rather than Chinese technology was powered by abundant reason: to secure communications in democratic countries from Chinese surveillance, and even Chinese sabotage. For once, Trump’s motives were not narrowly nationalistic; the main alternative suppliers to China’s Huawei are Sweden’s Ericsson and Finland’s Nokia. In 2018, Australia banned Huawei from its 5G networks. In June 2020, Canada and Singapore announced that they would rely on non-Chinese technology. The United Kingdom followed in July—and even ordered the removal of Huawei components where they had already been installed. France barred Huawei that same month. In September, Germany tightenedits review of the security risks posed by Chinese technology. 5G is a rare case in which Trump’s abrasive methods yielded results that might not have been achieved by a more emollient administration. Score one for him, and it’s an important one. APPOINTMENT OF JEROME POWELL AS FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIR Janet Yellen’s term as chair of the Federal Reserve expired in February 2018. Trump refused to reappoint her, reportedly because he thought she was too short for the job. Jerome Powell, Trump’s appointee, apparently met the president’s aesthetic requirements. Powell also proved a superb appointment just in time for the pandemic-caused economic crisis of 2020. The Senate was stingy with cash relief to the economy. Monetary policy had to do most of the lifting—and Powell was equal to the lift. Trump raved and ranted against Powell for not flooding the economy with liquidity in 2019, when the economy’s main problem was Trump’s own tariffs. But Powell stepped up in 2020 with a policy that was both bold and—unusual for any Trump appointee—internationally coordinated. As so often happened, Trump later tried to sabotage his own good deed by adding extremists, misfits, and weirdos to the Federal Reserve board. Points to the Republican senators who blocked those nominees, enhancing the clout of this rare wise Trump appointment. DESTRUCTION OF THE ISIS CALIPHATE IN EASTERN SYRIA AND NORTHERN IRAQ The Obama administration launched an international coalition to destroy the redoubt of the Islamic State in August 2014. The anti-ISIS campaign scored victory after victory in 2015 and 2016. ISIS lost control of its last oil field in October 2016, destroying its economic basis. That same month, coalition forces launched an offensive to retake Mosul, the last Iraqi city in ISIS hands, as well as the symbolically important Syrian town of Dabiq. Trump continued the anti-ISIS campaign in 2017 and 2018, and it remained successful, culminating in a U.S. raid that killed the ISIS commander Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in October 2019. ISIS survives as an inspiration for terror attacks, but the Obama-Trump operation put an end to ISIS’s attempt to found a territorial state, and destroyed its conventional military forces. SPEEDING GENERIC DRUG APPROVAL In 2016, the Food and Drug Administration approved 73 new generic medications. That figure rose year by year through the Trump administration, reaching 107 in 2019. That same year, Congress passed new legislation that will bring more generics to market even faster in the future. The Creates Act will allow generic drug makers to sue drug developers that withhold information needed to manufacture generics in a timely way once patent protection expires. Pharmaceutical companies did heroic work in 2020 by bringing coronavirus vaccines to market fast, but predatory pricing has shadowed the industry for many years. Faster approval of generics is only a step toward a solution. But a step it is, so kudos for that. TIGHTENING ASYLUM RULES In the 21st century, asylum seeking has expanded dramatically. If asylum seekers can set foot in the U.S., they gain residency and work rights, pending the slow adjudication of their asylum claims. A system of rules written to protect people fleeing state persecution now enables people to migrate by citing spousal abuse or gang violence in their country of origin. In mid-2020, the Trump administration revised the asylum rules to return them to their original purpose. Asylum seekers who spent more than two weeks in any country en route to the United States will have to file their claim in that country. Fear of crime will no longer be deemed persecution, for asylum purposes. Claims deemed frivolous can be closed. These changes go into effect in January 2021. They have upset many in the asylum-advocacy community. They may also save the Biden administration from a migration surge as COVID-19 abates—protecting it from another of those summertime rushes to the border that did so much damage to the Obama administration politically in 2014 and 2016. NEARLY DOUBLING THE STANDARD TAX DEDUCTION The 2017 tax bill failed to deliver an investment boom, but it did lighten the tax load of many low-income earners, as well as simplify their life. Before the tax bill, the standard deduction for taxpayers was $6,350 for single people, $9,350 for heads of household, and $12,700 for married couples. (There was also a personal exemption of $4,050.) Beyond that protected amount, low-income taxpayers could deduct additional amounts—if they kept proper records. The tax law swept away that need for record-keeping by lower-wage workers. And it nearly doubled the standard deduction: For income earned in 2020, single people pay no income tax on their first $12,400, heads of household on their first $18,650, and married couples on their first $24,800. While most of the benefits of the 2017 bill were collected by the richest, this measure did a real service not only to the working poor, but to many middle-income families, who can deduct more while reporting less. RESTORING DUE PROCESS ON CAMPUS In 2011, the Obama administration issued new guidance to universities to guard against sexual harassment and sexual abuse. Many universities interpreted this guidance as a command to do away with due-process protections in sexual-assault cases. Many accused students lost such basic rights as knowing the charges against them. Universities often saved money by appointing the same official to investigate accusations, determine guilt, and apply punishment. Emily Yoffe reported for The Atlantic in 2017 on the extreme unfairness universities often inflicted after the 2011 guidance. Courts agreed. Students were soon filing and winning lawsuits against universities for denying their due-process rights—by one scholar’s count, about 100 cases a year by decade’s end. The Trump Education Department has rescinded the 2011 guidance and reaffirmed that sexual-misconduct accusations on campus must be dealt with using the same due-process rules that apply everywhere else in American society. A SPACE FORCE At the start of the nuclear era, the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force each demanded its own nuclear role. The resulting triplication not only wasted money, but nearly toppled the world into catastrophe. The Army’s nuclear ambitions saddled the U.S. with thousands of short-range nuclear weapons that invited war planners to imagine a battlefield role for Hiroshima-style warheads. The Air Force sustained its strategic bomber force for decades after it was rendered obsolete by intercontinental missiles. The balance between land-based and sea-based missiles was driven as much by Navy–Air Force rivalry as by military rationality. To satisfy the nuclear ambitions of the three services, the U.S. built too many warheads—risking the health of workers at nuclear facilities and creating a dangerous disposal problem once the Cold War ended. In retrospect, the country would have done better to create a single Nuclear Force, while the Air Force, Army, Marines, and Navy continued in their conventional combat roles. That insight seems to have led the Department of Defense to create a new Space Force for national-security operations above the atmosphere. Trump’s childish enthusiasm for a deadly new toy has tended to discredit what seems like a good new idea. CRIMINAL-JUSTICE REFORM Of the 2.1 million incarcerated people in the United States, fewer than 10 percent are held in the federal prison system. Yet federal prisons play a disproportionately large role in prison policy. They set trends that states follow, and suggest standards for states to emulate. The Trump administration’s First Step prison-reform proposals were cautious, but humane. Mandatory minimum sentences will be reduced for certain drug offenses. Prisoners will more easily qualify for early release, and be closer to their home. Women in prison will also receive sanitary products free of cost—helping to end the economic exploitation of prisoners, who are often overcharged for basic necessities. The most important benefit of the First Step program is that it offers political cover to states to embark on their own reforms. If the supposedly “tough on crime” Trump administration can endorse lighter sentences and free tampons, so can conservative state politicians. CIVIC PARTICIPATION The United States has historically been characterized by lower levels of political participation than other advanced democracies. Trump fixed that! Throughout 2020, he made clear his determination to hold on to power unless repudiated by a massive popular margin. He had won the presidency in 2016 despite losing the national popular vote by nearly 3 million ballots. Plainly an even bigger margin would be required to force him out. The anti-Trump majority of the electorate absorbed that message and acted on it. Never in U.S. history has such a high proportion of the adult population cast a ballot. Nearly two-thirds of eligible voters—66.2 percent—turned out in 2020. The last year to come close was 1908, when 65.7 percent of those eligible voted. But in 1908, women were not eligible to vote; men qualified to vote at age 21, rather than age 18. And in much of the country, Black people were effectively ineligible, too. The 66 percent of 1908 was achieved when a U.S. population of 88.7 million cast 14.9 million votes. The 66 percent of 2020 was achieved by a population of 331 million casting 158 million votes. A president who sought to subvert U.S. democracy instead inspired unprecedented numbers of Americans to participate in that democracy, in order to save it from him. This was an achievement Donald Trump did not intend and surely did not want. But it was his achievement, even so. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/12/the-things-trump-got-right/617424/