Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States on January 20 2025. At that point he will become the first US president since Grover Cleveland – 130 years ago – to serve two non-consecutive terms, having lost the White House only to regain it four years later. In securing four more years in the Oval Office, Trump now has the opportunity to not just be a controversial figure, but to become a historically consequential president as well.
The eminent historian, H.W. Brands, argues that there have only been three great US presidents: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), an opinion with which scholarly opinion polls typically agree.
All three presidents had something in common: dealing with epochal issues and crises. Washington had to win the war of independence and ensure that the United States was established and on a firm footing at home and abroad. Lincoln had to win the civil war and address the nation’s original sin of slavery. FDR was faced with saving the capitalist system following the Great Depression and had to defeat fascism in the second world war.
