Critical Analysis

Find answers to the following questions using the visual above, any links below, and your knowledge of American government and politics:

1. According to C-SPAN’s 2021 Presidential survey, who were the top 5 best presidents in American history?

2. Which president's ranking are you most surprised about (you can get the whole list here)?

3. Which president's rankings changed the most over the past 21 years?

4. What leadership characteristics do you think the top five presidents share and what characteristics do you think the five bottom ranked most ratchet presidents share (you can get the whole list here)?

5. What characteristics do you think C-SPAN used the following characteristic to rank the presidents: Public Persuasion, Crisis Leadership, Economic Management, Moral Authority, International Relations, Administrative Skills, Relations with Congress, Vision / Setting an Agenda, Pursued Equal Justice For All, Performance Within Context of Times. Which of those do you think is the most important characteristic in a president?

6. The participants C-SPAN asked to rank the presidents were mostly historians, academics, journalists, and writers. Explain how different this list would have been if instead of asking experts to rank the presidents, C-SPAN asked random Americans to offer their rankings.

7. How many presidents do you think the average American can even name? Okay, how many can you name, hot-shot? And who do you think were the best five presidents ever?

8. In the 2021 C-SPAN presidential rankings, Barack Obama made the top ten list for the first time. How do you think Donald Trump and Joe Biden will be judged by history and ranked by the historians?

9. James Madison was the father of the Constitution and one heck of a lady's man, but he was only ranked as the 16th best president ever. What characteristics that could make someone an elegant thinker and writer might not help them be a good president?

10. Some people would argue that you can’t really judge history until it is long past. Six of the top ten ranked best presidents from the C-SPAN list are from the last 100 years. Do you think the C-SPAN list has a bias towards current times, and how could a historian be sure they weren’t biased towards their own time period?

Learning Extension

You can jump all around C-SPAN's interactive presidential ranking page and learn a ton about the presidents!

Action Extension

Rank your top ten most lit presidents and share your rankings in class or online. Be prepared to explain why you ranked these individuals at the tip top.