Not only did John Adams just serve one term, he wasn’t all that disliked.
In a reverse Willy Loman situation, Adams was disliked, but not overly disliked.
His son, John Quincy Adams, was probably more disliked because he got to become president with a minority in BOTH the popular and electoral votes.
John Tyler was one of my first thoughts as well. He was called “The man without a party” and made decisions that caused his entire cabinet to resign in one fell swoop. Granted it wasn’t exactly HIS cabinet, but the point remains. If he isn’t the most hated, then he definitely is among the top, and especially among his colleagues.
If you could quantify the amount of hatred on a hate-o-meter, it would show that Nixon accumulated the most hatred of any president. Both in the number of people who hated him, and the intensity of the hatred they felt for him.
Personally, I think this thread should have moved to IMHO, because there isn’t really a way to give it a factual answer.
Walloon probably came closest by looking up Gallup poll popularity (with Carter “winning” at 31%), but that poll only goes back so far; you can’t get the “least popular president of all time” that way and besides, “least popular” is not the same as “most hated”.
Or you could go by the president elected with the lowest vote. As noted above, that’s J.Q. Adams, elected as a compromise candidate when neither of the two major candidates received a majority. But was he “hated”?
In my own humble opinion, if you are going for the president that was the most hated at the time of his election, you’d have to go with Abraham Lincoln. Speaking strictly on the basis of the time and place, his election caused the southern states to secede from the country. You don’t get any more hated than that.
Mind you, this is just judging from the actions of the time. Don’t think for a minute that this colors my opinion of Lincoln, who is rated one of America’s greatest presidents for a good many reasons.
This is a valid point. I’m too young to remember Carter’s presidency (I was four years old when it ended) but from what I’ve heard it seems that he was unpopular, but few people had any active dislike for the guy. Clinton, OTOH, had enough support to get himself re-elected, but was intensely hated by a large segment of the population. Same with Dubya; he has his supporters (we’ll see if it’s enought to get him re-elected) but he also has alot of people who really, really hate him.
I dunno I think Lincoln would give him a good run for the money. I also suspect that Clinton and G W Bush could give him a run.
Lacking an actual hate-o-meter, how would you really judge? And why do you think (or what evidence do you have) that Nixon is actually hated more than anyone else?
(Jefferson probably gets a pass on the number who hated him, simply because there were not that many people in the country at the time, but he is right up there for intensity.)