Benjamin Harrison’s Non-Presidential Life:Many times, a president makes as much, if not more, of an impact outside of the White House than inside. In other cases, presidents have unremarkable public lives outside of the Oval Office. In this category, your job is to evaluate how much of an impact on America (positive, negative, or neutral) a president had both prior to and after assuming the presidency. Be sure to describe the president’s background, career, and accomplishments when evaluating their non-presidential contributions.

Grade Grover Cleveland’s Domestic Policy:Domestic policies include all legislation and political agendas relating to internal American politics. This area includes issues relating to America’s social welfare, identity politics and minority rights, personal freedoms and responsibilities, healthcare, public safety, public order, environmental issues and the management of natural resources, infrastructure, and energy. This is a large, sweeping category and one that should be given considerable attention while grading your presidential report card

Grade Warren G. Harding’s Legislative Success, Appointments, and the Executive Office of the President:In this area you will evaluate a president’s management of the executive office of the president (White House staff, advisors, aides, cabinet members, and federal agencies), the president’s level of success in terms of convincing congress to pass the president’s legislative agenda, and the quality of the president’s federal appointments (judicial and otherwise). While every president has an agenda, not every president is able to successfully guide their agenda items through congress; your job is to determine how well a president does that. This category considers the ability of presidents to surround themselves with quality people and their ability to assign judgeships and federal positions effectively.

Grade James Garfield’s Legislative Success, Appointments, and the Executive Office of the President:In this area you will evaluate a president’s management of the executive office of the president (White House staff, advisors, aides, cabinet members, and federal agencies), the president’s level of success in terms of convincing congress to pass the president’s legislative agenda, and the quality of the president’s federal appointments (judicial and otherwise). While every president has an agenda, not every president is able to successfully guide their agenda items through congress; your job is to determine how well a president does that. This category considers the ability of presidents to surround themselves with quality people and their ability to assign judgeships and federal positions effectively.

Grover Cleveland’s Overall Grade As President:After you have evaluated the president in each category, you will be asked to assign an overall grade. In the feedback for this category, you will need to justify which qualities and categories you found to be the defining aspect or aspects of the presidency. This is not an exercise to just average out the total grades from the other categories; instead, you need to provide greater weight to categories that helped define that particular person’s presidency. While this is a subjective exercise, you do need to give answers that are justifiable, both in the grade that you assign and in terms of what you prioritize for the overall grade. Make sure to provide lots of evidence to support your decision.

Benjamin Harrison’s Economic Policy:Economics relate to the president’s handling and management of the country’s economy, labor relations, taxes and tariffs, domestic and foreign trade, business regulations, protections for workers, the American standard of living, and the federal budget (government expenditures and deficits). When examining a president’s handling of the economy, consider the economic situation inherited by the president (for example, consider if the economy and economic issues improve or decline during the person’s presidential tenure). Try to evaluate how the president responds to the economic situation of the era – does this person effectively address economic problems like inflation or unemployment during economic crises? – Does this person manage the economy well during an economic boom? Keep the context in mind as you assign this grade.

Grade James Garfield’s Domestic Policy:Domestic policies include all legislation and political agendas relating to internal American politics. This area includes issues relating to America’s social welfare, identity politics and minority rights, personal freedoms and responsibilities, healthcare, public safety, public order, environmental issues and the management of natural resources, infrastructure, and energy. This is a large, sweeping category and one that should be given considerable attention while grading your presidential report card

During the 1960s, Chicano activists Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta founded organizations that eventually merged to become the [BLANK-1]. This group fought for increased labor rights for farm workers and fused the causes of Chicano and Filipino activist groups who had been protesting the subpar working conditions of California farmers. A hunger strike, grape boycott, and march to the state capital lent national attention to the issue.

In [BLANK-1], Robert and Helen Lynd’s 1929 sociological study of Muncie, Indiana, the husband-and-wife team concluded that new leisure activities, forms of entertainment, and America’s increased emphases on consumption had taken its toll on America’s democracy. These authors determined that the American public was largely uninformed and uninterested in political matters, preferring entertainment and consumer comforts to politics as a public focus. Democracy (requiring an informed public to succeed) was being undermined by American apathy and stupidity.

Repeating a litany of lies and distortions by the sitting President of the United States, Donald Trump, on January 6, 2021 thousands of right-wing protestors stormed the U.S. Capitol Building in an attempt to [BLANK-1] and prevent the certification of the 2020 election which had seen Joseph Biden defeat the incumbent Trump. Without any evidence, Trump had claimed widespread election fraud and earlier that morning had urged his followers to “fight like hell. If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” His supporters then invaded the Capitol Building (the first invasion of the building since the British had sacked Washington D.C. during the War of 1812 more than 200 years before), attacked the Capitol Police and D.C. Metropolitan Police, and called for the execution of Vice-President Mike Pence (who had agreed to authenticate the results of the free-and-fair election and refused to abide by a fake electors conspiracy put forward by Trump). 150 police officers were injured, one officer was killed by repeated beatings with a fire extinguisher, another suffered a heart attack from being shocked by his own stun gun, and one Capitol invader was shot and killed by police while attempting to break into the House chamber. Donald Trump would be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors against the United States around a month later, but fell short of being removed from office by the Senate.