Donald Trump posted a presidential tier list to Truth Social last week placing himself in a category called "greatest" — a category that, in the original 1948 document he apparently adapted it from, did not exist. Historians who actually study this for a living responded by ranking him dead last, below the guy who failed to prevent the Civil War. Ten point nine two out of a hundred.
A Tier List Only One Person Could Have Made
The post, which The Guardian reports Trump shared last Thursday, separates American presidents into six categories ranging from "greatest" to "failures." Trump stands alone at the top. Lincoln, Washington, and FDR — the men who ended slavery, founded the republic, and defeated Nazi Germany — are merely "great." Good effort, fellas. Almost.
The image appears to have been adapted from a 1948 Life magazine article by historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. The original had no "greatest" category. Someone created that specifically to have somewhere to put Donald Trump. Someone did that. With their hands. On purpose.
The "failures" column got some creative edits too. Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter, and Joe Biden have all been added by hand. Bill Clinton, a man Trump has spent roughly a decade publicly vilifying, was generously bumped up to "average." Make of that what you will.
What the Actual Experts Think
The most recent Presidential Greatness Project survey, which polled 154 academics, ranked Trump dead last. Below James Buchanan, who is historically blamed for sitting on his hands while the country slid toward civil war. Lincoln scored an average of 93.87 out of 100. Trump scored 10.92.
Justin Vaughn, a political science professor at Coastal Carolina University and co-creator of the Presidential Greatness Project, was diplomatic about it. "It's not consistent with the findings of the surveys we've conducted," he told The Guardian. "It's also not consistent with other surveys that have been conducted over the last several years." Which is one way to describe a 10.92.
Trump fared slightly better in a 2022 Siena University poll of 141 presidential scholars, where he clawed his way up to third-to-last. He beat Andrew Johnson, who spent his presidency actively undermining the rights of formerly enslaved people after Lincoln's assassination, and Buchanan, the Civil War fumbler. That's the peer group. That's the company.
Ranked Last in Intelligence and Integrity — By Republicans Too
The Siena study also broke presidents down by specific categories. "Background," "executive ability," "leadership ability" — that kind of thing. Trump finished 45th out of 45 in two categories: integrity and intelligence. Last place. In a competition that included men who owned other men.
Here is the part that should be stapled to every MAGA hat in America: the Republican and conservative respondents in Vaughn's survey agreed. "When you look at the statistics of the Republican respondents versus the Democratic respondents, the Republicans also view Trump very poorly," Vaughn told The Guardian. This isn't a partisan disagreement. This is a professional consensus that crosses ideological lines. The historians who vote Republican also think he's a disaster. That takes something.
Barbara Perry, a presidential studies professor at the University of Virginia, was equally unsparing. "In no universe of scholars, I believe, would Donald Trump be in the 'great' category, the 'greatest' category, 'near great' category," she told The Guardian. She cited January 6th, the stolen election lie, and what she described as racism and bias against anyone outside Trump's preferred demographic as factors that will shape his historical legacy. Not kindly.
The White House Has Thoughts
The White House, to its credit, did not try to defend the tier list on the merits. Spokesperson Davis Ingle told The Guardian that Trump "is solely focused on fighting every day to deliver the strong, safe, and prosperous country that we all deserve," and that he "will undoubtedly go down as the most successful and consequential president in modern American history."
"Undoubtedly" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. The doubt is, in fact, considerable. It has been quantified. It is 10.92 out of 100.
Perry did allow, as The Guardian notes, that presidential rankings shift over time as tenures get reassessed. Americans tend to develop a "golden glow" about former presidents, she said. So there is a version of the future where Trump's numbers improve. There is also a version where historians continue to have access to the public record of his two terms. Both versions exist. One seems more likely.
The Dingo Take
A man who was impeached twice, convicted of 34 felonies, and incited a mob to storm the Capitol looked at the sweep of American history and decided the correct take was: yeah, I'm the best one. Better than Lincoln. Better than Washington. Better than FDR, who ran the country through the Depression and a World War simultaneously. Trump built a custom category for himself in a 78-year-old magazine graphic and posted it to a social media platform he owns because he got banned from all the regular ones. This is the guy who thinks he's greater than Abraham Lincoln.
The funniest and most damning detail in all of this isn't the 10.92. It's that the "greatest" tier didn't exist until someone made it. It had to be invented. The existing vocabulary of presidential achievement — great, near great, average — was insufficient to capture what Trump believes about himself, so a new word had to be coined and a new box had to be drawn. That is not the behavior of a confident man. That is the behavior of someone who needs the validation so badly they will forge the document providing it.
Historians will spend decades sorting through this presidency. They will weigh the tariffs and the pardons and the executive orders and the court-packing and January 6th and all the rest of it. Their conclusions are already pretty clear. A 10.92 is not a rounding error. That is a verdict.
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