I did a little deeper digging. (Don't worry; it was fun.) There's a
link in the article to the rankings themselves.
Here are some numbers:
* Conservatives and liberals agree on 7 of the top 10, 18 of the top 20, and all of the bottom 7, in some order.
* 32 of the 45 (remember, Grover Cleveland counts twice as both the 22nd and 24th President) were ranked within 3 spots of each other, from conservatives to liberals.
* More recent Presidents had the biggest disparity in ranking from one group to the next. In reverse order, with the difference in parentheses: Biden (17), Trump (just 2), Obama (7), GW Bush (14), Clinton (just 2, but w/ conservatives ranking him better!), GHW Bush (11), Reagan (12), Carter (just 1, w/ both in the top 20!), Ford (just 3), Nixon (6), LBJ (5).
* From LBJ, you have to skip the four before him back to Hoover, and right before him, Coolidge, to get a difference greater than 3 (6 each).
* From Coolidge -- the 30th President -- you have to go all the way back to Garfield -- the 20th President -- to find the next difference higher than three (9).
* Of the first 19 Presidents, only Grant at #18 was higher than 4 (6), and only Van Buren at #8 and Jackson at #7 were as high as that.
A few observations, then...
* It would be easy to conclude that we're living in more polarized times than any time in US history at least since the Civil War. I tend to agree, but not because of these numbers. I'm guessing it's more due to how things settle over time. Like, 50 years from now, those same discrepancies probably will have shrunk some. GW Bush has already risen from last place among liberals at the time he left office to 32nd. I suspect he might climb another spot or 3, and he may drop a few from 18th for conservatives. Truman went from pretty unpopular at the time he left office to top 10. Wilson has dropped from the top 10 to 15th or 16th and I suspect he will continue to drop sharply. Neither Eisenhower nor LBJ were anywhere near the top 10 when I was a kid.
* Y'all are speaking from emotion and recency bias when you claim Biden is the worst
ever ever ever by far, and that Obama is the next worst
ever ever ever by far. Conservative scholars --
scholars, mind you, not message board keyboard warriors and social media blowhards -- rank Biden 30th, 13 spots above where they themselves rank Trump. (I'm not sure where
I would rank Biden, but I suspect it would be closer to 30th than the 13th liberals have him at in this study.)
* You can disagree with any or all of these rankings. I certainly disagree with many. You're a hypocrite and an idiot to question the integrity of the people participating and compiling them...
when all you do is trot out your spoon-fed rightwing talking points about mainstream media and socialist educators. Show your receipts or shut up or just keep announcing your idiocy to the world as is. If this were a proverbial d***-measuring contest, they just lay their junk out on the table while you cover your crotches in shame and back away claiming you're bigger. Show. Your. Work. (Proverbially).