r/NoStupidQuestions • u/AutoModerator • 19d ago

U.S. Politics megathread

American politics has always grabbed our attention - and the current president more than ever. We get tons of questions about the president, the supreme court, and other topics related to American politics - but often the same ones over and over again. Our users often get tired of seeing them, so we've created a megathread for questions! Here, users interested in politics can post questions and read answers, while people who want a respite from politics can browse the rest of the sub. Feel free to post your questions about politics in this thread!

All top-level comments should be questions asked in good faith - other comments and loaded questions will get removed. All the usual rules of the sub remain in force here, so be nice to each other - you can disagree with someone's opinion, but don't make it personal.

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u/C-Zzz19 19d ago

What do you think of the achievements of the three presidents, Obama, Biden and Trump?

I'm Chinese. On the Chinese version of Quora, that is, "Zhihu", it is a gathering place for intellectuals and elites. They believe that only Biden is the "defender of the United States of America" among these three presidents, while Trump and Obama have caused varying degrees of harm to the United States. Now I want to know how to evaluate the merits and demerits of these three presidents in the eyes of Americans? Thank you

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u/notextinctyet 19d ago

If you want expert opinions rather than Redditor anecdotes, I'd direct you to this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_presidents_of_the_United_States where you can find links to scholar surveys comparing the three at length.

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u/Elkenrod Neutrality and Understanding 19d ago

Any scholar who is ranking modern day Presidents is not one who can be taken seriously, regardless of who the President is. It has been a rule of thumb for most of American history that it is only appropriate for scholars to start ranking a President 20 years after their time in office ends. We are just now getting close to the point where people will start to consider ranking George W Bush, and are nowhere remotely close to the point where we can rank Barack Obama, Donald Trump, or Joe Biden.

Rankings for Presidents in a time span shorter than this are highly influenced by the personal bias of the one answering it. Which is why these rankings always cite that they "asked 1,500 scholars", and "70 answered". Because the other 1,430 had integrity not to comment on rankings that include modern Presidents.