It depends on how things are 50 years from now. If Trump turns out to be a blip and we get back on the progressive path we’d been on as a nation since FDR, then Obama will be mentioned more. If it turns out that we’re at the beginning of an age of American fascism then Trump will be mentioned more, by far.
Trump, no contest, especially if he manages to split the Republican party. He himself and his administration were uniquely awful. Trump did so many things that were absolutely unprecedented, including inciting an insurrection, that he will remain an important figure in history, if mainly as a bad example.
Obama was ground-breaking, and an inspiring figure, but unfortunately wasn’t able to accomplish much tangible besides Obamacare due to Republican obstructionism in Congress. Politically he was a pretty ordinary president.
Kennedy was similarly ground-breaking and inspiring, but didn’t achieve that much in his three years in office. LBJ was the one who moved his agenda forward.
And Harding is probably the most discussed president between Wilson and FDR, just because of the corruption of his administration (which was clean compared to Trump’s). Definitely more so than Coolidge. And the Grant administration is the most discussed between Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, also because of the rampant corruption.
Trump, no contest. If you’re a teacher, he pushed the limits so many times that you can ask the students, “Now do you suppose he was impeached for soliciting help from a foreign nation?” and “Do you think he provided a peaceful transition of power?” and “By the definition of treason, should he have gone to prison or worse?”
With Obama: “Is it really appropriate for POTUS to wear a tan suit?” And “Ketchup on a hot dog after the age of 8…a ‘gateway condiment?’”
Trump, natch. Bear in mind how famous Watergate still is, with scandals even being named “-gate”. Well, Trump did at least 10 things worse than Watergate and I think I’m being generous with that count.
But as well as all the reasons given, there’s a couple more:
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Trump is the ultimate symbol of where misinformation and ignorance leads. And as we’ve seen with MT-G and Fox et al, that’s much bigger than Trump. Whether Trump is ever superseded by an even more deplorable figure (and I pray to Moloch that never happens), his place in history as the first of his kind is assured.
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I don’t think we’re even done with the scandals yet. The swamp got so thick, with so few people of integrity left in there, that no doubt there will continue to be a trickle of scandals for the next few years at least, and historians will continue to have fun picking it apart after that.
The history books are written by the victors so it will be decided by whomever wins control of the govt long term. If the Christians take control and write the history then it will be Trump.
Even without Christian control it will likely be Trump just because he is more interesting.
Right. Trump and members of his family and administration were somewhat protected while he was in office. The Dominion and Smartmatic lawsuits are just an opening salvo. Scandals will emerge that will make the Whiskey Ring and Teapot Dome look like cheating at whist. Legal cases are going to be swirling around Trump, his businesses, and his associates for the foreseeable future.
Certainly, the history books will say that Obama was the first black president. But what more is there to say about that? “Obama was the first black president” takes six words to say.
Meanwhile, “Trump was a terrible president” is only five words, but there are entire volumes to be written about the details.
Trump. Obama was a good, maybe very good, and perhaps even great, President. But there have been plenty of good and very good Presidents, and even a handful of great Presidents. There haven’t been any Presidents who did as much harm, and took the country as close to ruin, as Trump. No one has the same level of incompetence, corruption, dishonesty, laziness, grift, etc. Maybe a few Presidents come close in one or two of those areas, but no one approaches even the same ballpark in all those qualities at the same time.
Trump is the worst President in history, and I don’t think it’s close. Hundreds of thousands of American deaths can be laid directly at his feet. We came closer to a coup than ever before. Trump will be long studied and discussed, for decades and more.
I don’t know if History books in schools will mention both. High School American History books don’t spend much time on Presidents, and skip most of them completely - in favor of bigger issues - i.e. the Depression is more important that Hoover, and smaller people - The Triangle Shirtwaist fire is more important to the establishment of better working conditions than the reluctant administrations who passed workers rights law - and are strange when they do. Thomas Jefferson gets a sentence as President (about the Louisiana Purchase) in my kids’ high school History book. The vast majority of Presidents don’t get that much. You get a little more in APUSH.
(And whomever asked, Buchanan was usually considered the worst President by Historians, although others get mentioned. Harding was corrupt as anything. Fillmore. Andrew Johnson. Pierce. Yes, people who read American political History can usually answer that question. High School students - depends on the high schooler. My youngest could have rattled off that list without a problem - but they are now a U.S. History major.
And it takes, what, one sentence to point that out?
Hoover and Buchanan were bad in much quieter, more passive, less flamboyant ways than Trump. Between No-drama Obama and a man who kept finding new ways to stir up shit, I think it’s Trump who’ll get way more pages in the history books.
But, people do like the extremes to act as icons. Somebody gets to define the top and somebody else the bottom. From Washington down to Trump.
Buchanan and Hoover may not have been good at the job, but they governed. Trump never got that far. Trump is in a class by himself, like Caligula.
History requires context. Obama showed that Americans were willing to elect a President of mixed race. They did it twice. That’s liberal…so how the hell did we elect Trump? Pendulum effect? Now that all the Trump drama took place, we chose to vote him out and we’re back to liberals…and we have the first female Vice-President. Will Trump run in 2024?
That’s the most terrifying part. How might they portray QAnon, the Proud Boys, those who stormed the Capitol, BLM, etc.?
Coby Burren was reading his textbook, sitting in geography class at Pearland High School near Houston, when he noticed a troubling caption. The 15-year-old quickly took a picture with his phone and sent it to his mother.
Next to a map of the United States describing “patterns of immigration,” it read that the Atlantic slave trade brought “millions of workers from Africa to the southern United States to work on agricultural plantations.”
“We was real hard workers wasn’t we,” Coby texted, adding a sarcastic emoji.
Yes. But I feel that is about what Obama will be remembered for.
Be honest. What do you remember about the presidencies of Millard Fillmore or Martin Van Buren or Benjamin Harrison? Some presidents don’t even get that one sentence.
I feel Trump fits in that group. Trump’s personality flaws, massive as they are, will fade from memory as the decades pass.
What will be remembered about the presidencies of these men was that there was a crisis (secession, depression, pandemic) and they proved to be incapable of handling it.
But American don’t like to wallow in our failures. We remember that a president failed and then we ignore them beyond that. We don’t like to talk about the specifics of the failure. We like to remember the presidents who succeeded and talk about them.
On a side note, it occurs to me that Buchanan was followed by Lincoln and Hoover was followed by Roosevelt. Will the pattern repeat? Will Biden be recognized as one of our great presidents?
Again I tend to disagree. I feel the defining characteristic of Buchanan, Hoover, and Trump was their inability to govern - specifically to competently address a major crisis that occurred during their presidencies.
I distinguish them from presidents like Lyndon Johnson or George W. Bush who actively created the major problems that defined their presidencies. Leading the country into a bad war is not something a good president does. But it is still leadership. Nobody can say that Vietnam and Iraq were things that just happened; they were situations that Johnson and Bush took an active hand in making happen. It’s malignant competence rather than incompetence.
I wonder how many people in thread are People of Color? Because as a POC (and not even a black person), I say Obama and its not even close. Not only is Obama held up as an example of where we can end up, but we hold him up to our children. I doubt that will get lessened and he’ll be even more lionized as time goes on. And any future black President will name drop Obama.
And as history books focus more on the history of America dealing with it’s racism, Obama will be a massive part of that (granted the Trump backlash is a big part of that as well, but history books tend to not like get that deep into things).
Trump will be remembered, but like Hoover and Buchanan. Those whose terribleness is merely a part of history. Well unless Trumpism wins out in the end…
I’m mixed race, and a big supporter of Obama both as president and subsequently in his ambassador / public speaker / activist roles.
I still think Trump will likely be referenced more in 50 years time. As I say, historians will never finish picking apart the corruption. And imagine the movies that you could make about Trump – it’s basically house of cards turned to 11*; the only problem will be that people may find some parts too fantastical and absurd to believe.
First black president sure is an important milestone, but we’ll probably have a few more inspiring stories to come in the next 50 years – first female president, first openly gay, first openly atheist etc. At least one or two of these.
* Well, I’ve only seen the British house of cards, I don’t know how crazy the American one gets
I am a POC, and I think Trump will get far more attention. People love gazing at a train wreck and how total the carnage is. You think historians had fun dissecting Nixon and Watergate? Trump has given them a thousand times as much scandal fodder to oooh and aaaah over.
If you’re looking for parallels to Trump among US presidents, I don’t think Buchanan and Hoover are nearly as close as Andrew Johnson (chiefly famous for being impeached) and maybe Harding and Grant (whose administrations were plagued by corruption—though, unlike Trump, they weren’t the instigators of the corruption).
Are we assuming “the history books” are written by Americans? What if it’s someone outside America, writing the (world) history of the early 21st century.
And American history does include some infamous failures (Joe McCarthy, Jefferson Davis).
Trump. Obama’s being the first black president will seem more and more of little consequence as time goes on. Eventually, his being the first black president will be a trivia question and little more. By contrast, Trump’s daily breaking of mores, norms and laws will supply ENDLESS possibilities for discussion and debate, especially if he has broke ground for someone even worse in the future. Disastrous rule is always more interesting and worthy of dissection than a competent but unexciting stewardship.
If all Trump had done was to mismanage the covid crisis, he might be placed in the category of Buchanan and Hoover. But his attempt to subvert an election that he lost is completely unprecedented in US history. It’s this that puts him in a class by himself.
Other bad presidents usually failed in one major respect - lack of leadership in a crisis, inability to control corruption, or subversion of the norms of governance like Nixon. Trump is way off the scale in the number of ways he failed - lack of leadership, personal corruption, flouting of norms, and actual sedition. He’s like five different failed presidencies rolled into one.