DUBLIN — A long holiday weekend in Ireland proved to be less of an escape and more of a reminder of the omnipresence of the 45th president. The front page of the Sunday Independent featured a column by conservative writer and media personality Brendan O’Connor that began, “Ireland 2021. The country has been laid waste to after Donald Trump caused nuclear Armageddon.”

Other anti-Trump broadsides in the Sunday Independent had headlines such as “World still has reasons to be fearful.” Such is the nervous attitude of a leading right-of-center newspaper in a land that Trump has not yet insulted and which Republicans consider America’s sixth most loyal ally.

Of course, in Trump’s internal mythology, Europeans secretly respect his tough-guy bluster and at home, his administration is humming like “a fine-tuned machine.” Who cares about a national security adviser who was out like Flynn, a fast-spreading Russia scandal, an inept and inhumane executive order on immigration, a White House that cannot find recruits for sub-Cabinet jobs and a presidential approval rating below 45 percent?

It’s huge

So, in honor of Presidents Day, here’s a question: How does President Trump measure to the worst former presidents?

Until now, Warren G. Harding has been considered by historians to be the most disastrous president since the Civil War era. And Harding, who died in office in 1923, more than earned his reputation for failing dismally to measure up to presidential laggards like Herbert Hoover, George W. Bush and Richard Nixon.