An efficacy ranking (measuring standing in the world, the welfare of citizens, the success of strategy) and what changes when democratic norms are weighed alongside.
By Brent Peugh · June 2026
The method, and its limits
One rubric is applied to every presidency, producing a ranking; that ranking is then re-run with a fourth axis, democratic norms, layered on. The list is ordered by the efficacy ranking so the norms axis remains a visible, declared overlay rather than a value judgment folded in silently. Three limits bound everything that follows.
The data problem. The rubric draws on quantified, contemporary evidence: international confidence polling, distributional budget analysis, real-time approval. None of that exists for most presidents, so for earlier eras each axis is adapted to its closest period-appropriate form. Confidence is highest for the modern era and lowest for the nineteenth century.
The anachronism problem. Standing in the world is nearly meaningless before the United States became a world power around 1898; for the early republic it is reframed as diplomatic credibility and relative position.
The “which citizens” problem. For most of this history, enslaved people, Native nations, women, and disenfranchised minorities were excluded from full citizenship. This rubric applies the citizen-welfare axis to all people under American authority, not only the enfranchised, the single largest source of divergence from prosperity-for-the-included readings, stated plainly so it can be contested.
Two presidencies are not scored: William Henry Harrison (31 days) and James A. Garfield (six months, most of it incapacitated). Grover Cleveland is counted once; the two Trump terms are treated as one record.
The four axes
Standing in the world.Did the country’s credibility, alliances, and relative position strengthen or weaken? Confidence in its leadership, alliance health, whether partners align or hedge.
Material effects on citizens.Did ordinary people’s welfare improve, and for whom? Prosperity and its distribution, the consequences of major legislation, crisis response, scored net of harm to any excluded group.
Strategic efficacy.Did major choices achieve their aims and serve long-term interest? Wars won or avoided well, durable alliances and doctrines, stated objectives met, long-term blowback.
Democratic norms.The overlay axis. Drawn from the comparative-democracy literature: mutual toleration and institutional forbearance, alongside the dimensions used by V-Dem and Freedom House. It scores the peaceful transfer of power (weighted heaviest), institutional forbearance, mutual toleration, civil liberties and dissent, rule of law, and the franchise.
The first three axes deliberately omit conduct toward the democratic system itself. The omission has one especially visible effect: it rescues Richard Nixon, letting his foreign policy float him to the middle of the table. The fourth axis exists to test how much that exclusion was concealing. Applied by one standard, it docks figures across both parties and the whole timeline (Adams for the Alien and Sedition Acts, Lincoln for the habeas corpus suspension, Wilson for the Espionage Act and resegregation, Roosevelt for court-packing and internment, Nixon for Watergate, Reagan for Iran-Contra, the younger Bush for surveillance and torture) and rewards franchise expansion, lifting Grant for defending Black suffrage and Johnson for the Voting Rights Act. Washington is its anchor, having invented the peaceful transfer of power and relinquished that power voluntarily.
How to read it
Each president carries two ranks. The large figure is the efficacy rank; beneath each name a line gives the rank once democratic norms are added, and the places moved between them.
Firm tiers, soft ordinals. The tiers are robust; the top five and bottom three are stable across almost any framework. Within-tier ordinals are judgment calls and should be read as soft.
The displacement caveat. Most one- and two-place moves are not verdicts. When a major norm-violator like Nixon falls seventeen places, everyone he passes rises a notch without having changed on the merits. Only the large moves (Nixon, Wilson, Reagan, Grant) carry a genuine norms signal.
The bottom is a near-tie. The nominal order of the worst three reflects a consequence-magnitude weighting: a lost union, a betrayed Reconstruction. A norm-centrality weighting, privileging the peaceful transfer of power, would invert the bottom three. Both are defensible; the choice is the reader’s, and it is the single most consequential value judgment here.
The ranking at a glance
Rank
President
With norms
Change
1
Abraham Lincoln
1
—
2
Franklin D. Roosevelt
3
↓ 1
3
George Washington
2
↑ 1
4
Harry S. Truman
4
—
5
Theodore Roosevelt
5
—
6
James K. Polk
8
↓ 2
7
Thomas Jefferson
9
↓ 2
8
Dwight D. Eisenhower
6
↑ 2
9
George H. W. Bush
7
↑ 2
10
James Monroe
10
—
11
Barack Obama
11
—
12
Bill Clinton
13
↓ 1
13
John F. Kennedy
14
↓ 1
14
Ronald Reagan
19
↓ 5
15
William McKinley
18
↓ 3
16
Lyndon B. Johnson
15
↑ 1
17
Ulysses S. Grant
12
↑ 5
18
Joe Biden
16
↑ 2
19
John Adams
20
↓ 1
20
James Madison
17
↑ 3
21
Woodrow Wilson
30
↓ 9
22
Richard Nixon
39
↓ 17
23
Jimmy Carter
21
↑ 2
24
Chester A. Arthur
22
↑ 2
25
William Howard Taft
23
↑ 2
26
Grover Cleveland
24
↑ 2
27
Calvin Coolidge
25
↑ 2
28
John Quincy Adams
26
↑ 2
29
Benjamin Harrison
27
↑ 2
30
Gerald Ford
28
↑ 2
31
Martin Van Buren
29
↑ 2
32
Rutherford B. Hayes
31
↑ 1
33
George W. Bush
32
↑ 1
34
Andrew Jackson
33
↑ 1
35
Herbert Hoover
34
↑ 1
36
Warren G. Harding
35
↑ 1
37
John Tyler
36
↑ 1
38
Millard Fillmore
37
↑ 1
39
Zachary Taylor
38
↑ 1
40
Donald Trump
41
↓ 1
41
Franklin Pierce
40
↑ 1
42
Andrew Johnson
42
—
43
James Buchanan
43
—
Change is measured against the efficacy rubric. Claret marks movement that cost standing once democratic norms were weighed. Most small moves are displacement.
The profiles
Tier I: high efficacy across all three axes
116th1861–1865
Won the war, widened citizenship, and survived the test of norms; first on both lists.
Abraham Lincoln
Efficacy 1 · with norms 1 · no change
Won an existential civil war and kept Britain and France from recognizing the Confederacy, strategic and diplomatic efficacy of the highest order, while emancipation marks the single largest expansion of who counted as a citizen in American history. He suspended habeas corpus1 and shut down opposition presses, real violations, but they were bounded by genuine war, met institutional friction he did not fully defy, and served to preserve the democratic union itself. The norms axis docks his methods and credits their end; he holds the top of both lists.
232nd1933–1945
A near-complete sweep of the efficacy axes; the norms axis docks him one place for his methods.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Efficacy 2 · with norms 3 · ↓ 1 place
Built the modern safety net, led the alliance that won the Second World War, and designed the postwar economic order, a near-complete sweep of the efficacy axes. Japanese internment is a grave citizen-axis stain, and on democratic norms the court-packing attempt2, internment’s collapse of due process, and the breaking of the two-term tradition all register. He slips one place when norms enter, held in the top tier only because he operated within elections and accepted the institutional checks that defeated him.
31st1789–1797
Invented the office and the peaceful transfer of power; the slaveholding record is the limit on a foundational presidency.
George Washington
Efficacy 3 · with norms 2 · ↑ 1 place
Established the new state’s credibility, kept a fragile republic out of Europe’s wars through deliberate neutrality, and built governing precedent from nothing. As a slaveholder3 his citizen-axis score is constrained, the central limit on an otherwise foundational record. He is the anchor of the democratic-norms axis, having invented the peaceful transfer of power and the two-term tradition and relinquished power voluntarily, which lifts him above Roosevelt once norms are weighed.
433rd1945–1953
Built the postwar order of the Marshall Plan, NATO, and containment, at the cost of a stalemate in Korea.
Harry S. Truman
Efficacy 4 · with norms 4 · no change
The Marshall Plan and NATO are arguably the most consequential constructive world-standing work any president has done, and containment won the Cold War’s long game. Desegregating the military and a partial Fair Deal give him a solid citizen record; The Korean War was a costly stalemate. Clean on democratic norms, he holds at fourth on both lists.
526th1901–1909
Made the country a great power and delivered real domestic gains; his methods could be coercive.
Theodore Roosevelt
Efficacy 5 · with norms 5 · no change
Made the United States a great power, won a Nobel Peace Prize for mediating the Russo-Japanese War, and delivered real domestic gains in trust-busting, food safety, and conservation. His methods could be coercive, the Panama acquisition4 above all, but the strategic results were durable. Norms-neutral; fifth on both lists.
Tier II: high, with one soft axis or a heavy cost
611th1845–1849
Met every objective in a single term; his conquests cost him on the citizen axis, not the others.
James K. Polk
Efficacy 6 · with norms 8 · ↓ 2 places
The purest case the rubric produces: he achieved every stated objective in a single term, adding the Southwest and the Pacific coast and settling Oregon, strategic efficacy rivaling anyone’s. The Mexican War was arguably a war of aggression that expanded slavery’s domain, and the citizen axis scores that cost heavily. Domestically norms-neutral, he slips only when norms are taken into consideration.
73rd1801–1809
Doubled the country with the Louisiana Purchase; a slaveholder with a genuinely mixed record on norms.
Thomas Jefferson
Efficacy 7 · with norms 9 · ↓ 2 places
The Louisiana Purchase doubled the country with the stroke of a pen, the defining strategic windfall of the early republic, though the Embargo Act was a self-inflicted wound and he governed as a slaveholder. On norms his record is mixed: he let the Sedition Act5 lapse, a genuine positive, but pressed politically motivated prosecutions of his own. He drifts down two spots as steadier hands rise.
834th1953–1961
Restraint that reads as competence; the covert coups seeded decades of blowback.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Efficacy 8 · with norms 6 · ↑ 2 places
Ended the Korean War, avoided any major wars, and built the interstate system, governing with a restraint that reads as competence. The covert coups, Iran in 19536 above all, looked efficient at the time but seeded decades of blowback, the main long-term stain. Clean enough on norms, including sending troops to enforce desegregation at Little Rock, that he rises two places with the fourth axis.
941st1989–1993
Navigated the end of the Cold War with rare deftness; a recession weighs on the citizen axis.
George H. W. Bush
Efficacy 9 · with norms 7 · ↑ 2 places
Managed the end of the Cold War and German reunification with a deftness that looks better every year, and the Gulf War is a textbook case of limited aims achieved and not exceeded. A recession and the broken tax pledge weigh on the citizen axis. Sound on democratic norms, he rises two spots.
105th1817–1825
A durable strategic framework and real national consolidation; competent and unflashy.
James Monroe
Efficacy 10 · with norms 10 · no change
The Monroe Doctrine was a durable strategic framework, and the Era of Good Feelings delivered genuine national consolidation alongside the acquisition of Florida. A competent, unflashy efficacy record. Norms-neutral; tenth on both lists.
1144th2009–2017
Restored standing and expanded healthcare coverage; Libya and the Syria red line are the strategic demerits.
Barack Obama
Efficacy 11 · with norms 11 · no change
Restored international favorability after a low point, expanded health coverage to millions, and steadied the wreckage of the 2008 financial crisis. The Libya aftermath and the unenforced Syria red line are real strategic demerits, and the recovery was uneven. He respected institutions and the transfer of power; norms leave him unchanged.
Tier III: net positive, genuinely mixed
1242nd1993–2001
1990s prosperity and surpluses; effective in the Balkans, absent in Rwanda, impeached for perjury.
Bill Clinton
Efficacy 12 · with norms 13 · ↓ 1 place
Presided over 1990s prosperity and budget surpluses, with a foreign policy record that turned effective in the Balkans after a slow start and failed entirely in Rwanda. Welfare reform and NAFTA remain contested on the citizen axis. Impeachment for perjury is a modest rule-of-law demerit, and he slips one place.
1335th1961–1963
The missile crisis alone earns the tier, set against the Bay of Pigs and the first steps into Vietnam.
John F. Kennedy
Efficacy 13 · with norms 14 · ↓ 1 place
Managed the Cuban Missile Crisis about as well as the moment allowed, which alone earns the tier, against the Bay of Pigs failure and the first steps into Vietnam. A thin legislative record cut short, though he set up the Civil Rights Act. Norms-clean; the slip is displacement.
1440th1981–1989
Restored confidence and cut arms; Iran-Contra, and the widest partisan spread on the list.
Ronald Reagan
Efficacy 14 · with norms 19 · ↓ 5 places
Restored national and international confidence and negotiated real arms reductions, though how much he won the Cold War versus how much the Soviet system collapsed on its own is genuinely contested, as is a citizen record of growth alongside widening inequality, exploding deficits, and the neglected AIDS crisis. He carries the widest confidence interval on the list. Iran-Contra7, circumventing Congress and the law, is a substantive norms demerit, and he falls five places, the largest drop outside the very bottom.
1525th1897–1901
Made the country an imperial power; the Philippine suppression is the citizen-axis cost.
William McKinley
Efficacy 15 · with norms 18 · ↓ 3 places
The Spanish-American War made the United States an imperial power and met its stated aims, and the economy was strong. The brutal suppression of the Philippine insurgency is the cost the citizen axis records. He slips a few places, mostly displaced by those with stronger norms, with the imperial governance of conquered peoples as a mild demerit of its own.
1636th1963–1969
The strongest pro-welfare record after Roosevelt, cancelled out at the strategic axis by Vietnam.
Lyndon B. Johnson
Efficacy 16 · with norms 15 · ↑ 1 place
The mirror image of Polk: the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, Medicare, and Medicaid form the strongest pro-citizen-welfare record after Roosevelt, set against Vietnam, a near-bottom strategic failure on its own terms. The two axes nearly cancel, which is why he sits mid-table. On norms the Voting Rights Act8 is a major franchise expansion that outweighs the Gulf of Tonkin manipulation, nudging him up.
1718th1869–1877
Quiet foreign competence and the era’s enfranchisement defender; the largest constructive move on the list.
Ulysses S. Grant
Efficacy 17 · with norms 12 · ↑ 5 places
A foreign policy of quiet competence and a domestic record long buried under the era’s corruption scandals, now substantially rehabilitated. The reason is exactly what the norms axis rewards: he used federal power to enforce Reconstruction and crush the first Klan9, defending Black citizens’ right to vote against organized terror. That franchise protection lifts him five places, the largest constructive move on the list.
1846th2021–2025
Rallied the alliance behind Ukraine against an inflation surge and a deadly Afghan exit; an early read.
Joe Biden
Efficacy 18 · with norms 16 · ↑ 2 places
Rallied the Western alliance behind Ukraine and passed major industrial legislation, against an inflation surge that was the defining citizen-welfare negative and a chaotic, deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan. An early and revisable read, like all of the recent entries. He respected institutions and the peaceful transfer of power, and rises two places.
192nd1797–1801
Strategic restraint that cost him reelection; Alien and Sedition against the first peaceful transfer of power.
John Adams
Efficacy 19 · with norms 20 · ↓ 1 place
Kept the Quasi-War with France limited when war would have been popular, a piece of strategic restraint that probably cost him reelection. The Alien and Sedition Acts10, which criminalized criticism of the government, are a serious norms violation, offset on the same axis by his peaceful surrender of power to Jefferson in 1801, the first transfer of power to an opposing party. The two roughly net out, and he drifts a place.
204th1809–1817
A weak war executive whose stalemate read as victory; quiet credit for tolerating wartime dissent.
James Madison
Efficacy 20 · with norms 17 · ↑ 3 places
The War of 1812 was managed so poorly that the capital burned, but the stalemate that followed read as a victory and lifted national confidence; the constitutional architect proved a weaker war executive. On norms he earns quiet credit for relative tolerance of wartime dissent, and rises three places, partly on that, partly as Reagan and McKinley fall past him.
Tier IV: mixed to middling
2128th1913–1921
Built lasting institutions, then lost his own League of Nations; resegregation is where the norms axis bites hardest.
Woodrow Wilson
Efficacy 21 · with norms 30 · ↓ 9 places
Built lasting institutions in the Federal Reserve and progressive reform and articulated a world order, then failed to bring his own country into the League of Nations he designed, the defining strategic failure of his presidency. The Espionage and Sedition Acts, the jailing of dissenters including Eugene Debs, and above all the resegregation of the federal government11 make this the case where the norms axis bites hardest outside the basement. He falls nine places.
2237th1969–1974
China and détente float him on efficacy; Watergate sinks him seventeen places once norms enter.
Richard Nixon
Efficacy 22 · with norms 39 · ↓ 17 places
The opening of China and détente with the Soviet Union are top-tier strategic achievements, and the efficacy rubric, bracketing everything else12, floats him to the middle of the table. The democratic-norms axis is what that bracketing was hiding: Watergate was the weaponization of federal agencies, an enemies list, obstruction of justice, and the criminal subversion of an election. He falls seventeen places, the single largest move on the list, kept off the very bottom only by a foreign-policy floor the others down there never had.
2339th1977–1981
A first-rank peace at Camp David against stagflation and the hostage crisis; clean on norms.
Jimmy Carter
Efficacy 23 · with norms 21 · ↑ 2 places
Camp David produced an Egypt-Israel peace that has held for more than four decades, a diplomatic achievement of the first rank, against a domestic record sunk by stagflation and a foreign one defined for the public by the Iran hostage crisis. Human rights as an organizing principle was real if inconsistently applied. Clean on norms; rises two places.
2421st1881–1885
An unexpected reformer who signed civil-service merit into law; a narrow achievement, a thin record.
Chester A. Arthur
Efficacy 24 · with norms 22 · ↑ 2 places
A machine politician who became, in office, an unexpected reformer and signed the Pendleton Act establishing the merit-based civil service, a genuine if narrow achievement atop a thin record. Norms-neutral; the rise is displacement.
2527th1909–1913
More trust-busting than his predecessor by the numbers, undone by political maladroitness.
William Howard Taft
Efficacy 25 · with norms 23 · ↑ 2 places
Pursued more antitrust actions by the numbers than the trust-buster who preceded him, but proved politically maladroit and split his own party, costing it the presidency. A capable administrator and an inept politician. Norms-clean; displacement rise.
2622nd & 24th1885–18891893–1897
Honest in a corrupt era; the Panic of 1893 and the Pullman break define the record.
Grover Cleveland
Efficacy 26 · with norms 24 · ↑ 2 places
Honest and disciplined in a corrupt era, with a record defined by the Panic of 1893 and the violent federal break of the Pullman strike. Principled vetoes and gold-standard orthodoxy cut both ways. Norms-neutral.
2730th1923–1929
1920s prosperity and laissez-faire restraint, prudence or passivity depending on the reader.
Calvin Coolidge
Efficacy 27 · with norms 25 · ↑ 2 places
Presided over 1920s prosperity with a laissez-faire restraint that reads as prudence or passivity depending on the reader, with the 1929 Crash following close on his exit. A quiet, contained presidency. Norms-neutral.
286th1825–1829
A great diplomat whose presidency was gridlocked from its disputed start; the skills did not transfer.
John Quincy Adams
Efficacy 28 · with norms 26 · ↑ 2 places
One of the great American diplomats, whose own presidency was gridlocked from its disputed start and produced little of the national improvement he envisioned. The diplomatic skills did not transfer to the office. Norms-clean.
2923rd1889–1893
One durable achievement, the Sherman Antitrust Act, inside an otherwise forgettable term.
Benjamin Harrison
Efficacy 29 · with norms 27 · ↑ 2 places
Signed the Sherman Antitrust Act, the foundation of a century of competition law, inside an otherwise forgettable single term. Norms-neutral.
Tier V: low efficacy or significant harm
3038th1974–1977
Steadied the system after Watergate; the Nixon pardon was statesmanlike and costly.
Gerald Ford
Efficacy 30 · with norms 28 · ↑ 2 places
Stabilized the system after Watergate and signed the Helsinki Accords, against stagflation and a Nixon pardon that may have been statesmanlike but was certainly costly. An accidental president who steadied the ship, a narrow norms positive for restoring institutional normalcy. Rises two places.
318th1837–1841
A skilled party-builder and weak crisis manager; the Panic of 1837 and Indian removal define him.
Martin Van Buren
Efficacy 31 · with norms 29 · ↑ 2 places
The Panic of 1837 defined his single term on the citizen axis, and he carried forward the Indian-removal policy he had helped engineer. A skilled party-builder and a weak crisis manager. Removal weighs on the citizen axis; the norms shift is displacement.
3219th1877–1881
Civil-service reform atop the bargain that ended Reconstruction and abandoned Black Southerners.
Rutherford B. Hayes
Efficacy 32 · with norms 31 · ↑ 1 place
Clean-government instincts and civil-service reform sit atop the bargain that won him the office: the Compromise of 187713, which ended Reconstruction and abandoned Black Southerners to the rise of Jim Crow, the citizen-axis catastrophe that defines the presidency. On norms the franchise contraction it enabled is a real demerit, and his rise is only displacement.
3343rd2001–2009
Iraq failed on its own terms and 2008 broke out on his watch; PEPFAR is the large counterweight.
George W. Bush
Efficacy 33 · with norms 32 · ↑ 1 place
Iraq is a strategic failure on its own stated terms (the weapons did not exist and the region destabilized), and the 2008 financial crisis broke out on his watch; PEPFAR, which has saved millions of lives abroad, is a large and genuine counterweight. A consequential, mostly negative-efficacy presidency, contested at the margins. The warrantless-surveillance program, the use of torture14, and expansive executive claims are norms demerits that offset his displacement, leaving him near-flat.
347th1829–1837
Real strategic strength beside the Trail of Tears; a deliberate demotion from the older consensus.
Andrew Jackson
Efficacy 34 · with norms 33 · ↑ 1 place
Real strategic strengths (he paid off the national debt and faced down nullification to preserve the union) sit beside the Trail of Tears15, which the citizen axis, applied to all people under American authority, scores among the gravest harms any president authorized. This is a deliberate demotion from the older consensus; rejecting the citizen-axis premise would move him up a full tier. His defiance of the Supreme Court reinforces the low placement on norms.
3531st1929–1933
An able administrator overwhelmed by the Depression; Smoot-Hawley deepened the downturn.
Herbert Hoover
Efficacy 35 · with norms 34 · ↑ 1 place
An able administrator overwhelmed by the Depression, whose response was inadequate and whose Smoot-Hawley tariff deepened the global downturn, an efficacy failure more than a failure of intent. His humanitarian-relief work before the presidency was the better part of the man. Norms-neutral.
3629th1921–1923
Teapot Dome made the administration a byword for corruption; the economy was middling-to-decent.
Warren G. Harding
Efficacy 36 · with norms 35 · ↑ 1 place
Teapot Dome made his administration a byword for corruption, though the economy was middling-to-decent and he formally closed out the First World War. The scandals were his appointees’ more than his own, which is its own kind of indictment. Norms-neutral on the franchise and transfer questions.
3710th1841–1845
Accomplished almost nothing, then sat in the Confederate Congress; the late treason colors it all.
John Tyler
Efficacy 37 · with norms 36 · ↑ 1 place
Accomplished almost nothing, was expelled from his own party, and governed as a man without a faction; then, decades later, sat in the Confederate Congress, breaking with the union he had once led. The late treason colors the whole record. The norms shift is displacement; the secessionist turn is the deeper stain history records.
Tier VI: the basement
3813th1850–1853
Signed and enforced the Fugitive Slave Act; an active citizen-axis harm.
Millard Fillmore
Efficacy 38 · with norms 37 · ↑ 1 place
Signed and enforced the Fugitive Slave Act16 as part of the Compromise of 1850, conscripting the federal government into returning escaped people to bondage, an active citizen-axis harm, not a passive one. Whatever stability the Compromise bought was bought at that price. The norms shift is displacement.
3912th1849–1850
The lowest-confidence placement on the list; ranked for absence, not for active harm.
Zachary Taylor
Efficacy 39 · with norms 38 · ↑ 1 place
The lowest-confidence placement on the list: he died sixteen months in with a thin record, ranked here for absence of achievement more than active harm, with a firm Unionist stance in the 1850 crisis as a genuine if small positive. Had he lived, the placement might move substantially. Effectively unscored on norms.
4045th & 47th2017–20212025–
Negative across the efficacy axes; the rejection of a certified election result drops him to the bottom on norms.
Donald Trump
Efficacy 40 · with norms 41 · ↓ 1 place
On the efficacy axes the verdict is negative across the board: international standing fell sharply, with allies hedging and rivals gaining; the signature domestic legislation and the tariffs together leave the bottom eighty percent of households worse off on average; and the strategic scorecard is mixed at best, a Gaza ceasefire against a self-inflicted exposure to Chinese rare-earth leverage and an Iran war whose core nuclear aim went unmet at high cost. The democratic-norms axis is where the placement turns: the rejection of the certified 2020 election result17, the events surrounding that transfer of power, and the second-term pardons of those convicted in connection with January 6th represent the most direct presidential stress on the peaceful-transfer of power norm in the modern era. Adding that axis drops him into the bottom near-tie; the second term is unfinished and the read revisable, but on the most foundational norm the score is as low as the table goes.
4114th1853–1857
Kansas-Nebraska accelerated the slide to war; bad policy, not subversion, edges him just above Trump.
Franklin Pierce
Efficacy 41 · with norms 40 · ↑ 1 place
The Kansas-Nebraska Act18 reopened the slavery question across the territories and accelerated the country’s slide toward war, a strategic catastrophe whose consequences arrived within a decade. A pliable instrument of the era’s worst forces. His norms profile is bad policy rather than direct subversion of process, which is why, with the norms axis added, he edges just above Trump.
4217th1865–1869
Sabotaged Reconstruction and defied Congress to impeachment; at the bottom of both lists.
Andrew Johnson
Efficacy 42 · with norms 42 · no change
Actively sabotaged Reconstruction, opposed Black enfranchisement, and defied Congress to the point of impeachment19, his choices helping to shape a century of injustice, a near-total failure across the citizen and strategic axes alike. The Alaska purchase, executed by his Secretary of State, is the lone credit. The combination of franchise contraction and open institutional defiance keeps him at the bottom on both lists.
4315th1857–1861
Did nothing as the union dissolved; the cleanest “worst” on nearly every framework.
James Buchanan
Efficacy 43 · with norms 43 · no change
The cleanest “worst” on every framework: he did effectively nothing as the union dissolved around him, treating the gravest crisis in the republic’s history as beyond his authority to address. Total strategic and leadership failure, with the consequences that followed. His norms failure is one of abdication20 rather than active subversion, the distinction that, under a consequence-weighted reading, still leaves him last.
The bottom of the table
Adding the norms axis does its heaviest work at the very bottom, collapsing the gap the efficacy-only ranking preserved between Trump and the historical nadir. On the four-axis composite, Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, and Trump form a near-tie for last, and the order turns on a weighting the data cannot settle. Weight the magnitude of consequence (a lost union, a betrayed Reconstruction) and Buchanan and Johnson are worst, their failures reshaping the nation for a century; this is the weighting the nominal order reflects, placing Trump third from the bottom. Weight instead the centrality of the norms violated (the peaceful transfer of power as the foundational democratic norm) and the rejection of a certified election result places Trump last, with Buchanan and Johnson just above.
On confidence
The top five and bottom three are stable across nearly any framework. Intra-tier ordinals everywhere, and any placement in the post-2000 cluster where outcomes have not matured, are the lowest-confidence calls. The most contested placements are Jackson (does the citizen axis count non-enfranchised lives?), Nixon (is bracketing Watergate legitimate at all?), Reagan (the widest partisan spread), and the bottom three (which turns on the weighting above). Read one- and two-place moves as relative repositioning, not verdicts; the signal is in the large moves. The two rankings agree at the extremes and diverge in the middle in traceable ways, the signature of a rubric doing real work rather than ratifying a prior.
Method note: contemporary figures (George W. Bush, Obama, Biden, Trump) draw on international confidence polling, distributional budget analysis, and approval data current to mid-2026, and their placements are explicitly provisional. The democratic-norms axis is applied by a single cross-partisan standard; it docks revered figures and rewards franchise expansion regardless of party.