# Trump vs. Clinton: worst choice for President ever? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [March 11, 2016, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692 "2016-03-11T21:28:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/21 "2016-03-12T00:09:29Z")
> [@LonghornDave](#): > > It’s essentially a situation where four unelectable people are up against each other. Something of a logic paradox, eh? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/22 "2016-03-12T00:12:07Z")
The resistible force meets the movable object? ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/23 "2016-03-12T00:18:25Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > Carter vs. Ford couldn’t have excited a lot of people. Not true. That was the first election I voted in as well as the first one in the wake of Vietnam and Nixon/Watergate. I recall lots of excitement. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/24 "2016-03-12T02:07:01Z")
> [@A\_Dodgy\_Dude](#): > > [li]No grasp of real-world economics[/li] Others touched on how the “failure of foreign policies” is not a good point or that it can be argued. Here I have to point at what the experts said about what Trump is proposing: > **[Trump trade plans could cause global recession: Experts](https://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/10/trump-trade-plans-could-cause-global-recession-experts.html)** > > Even those saying GOP front-runner Donald Trump has rightly diagnosed a problem with U.S. trade policies are wary of his prescriptions. > [@](#): > > Trump trade plans could cause global recession: Experts > [@](#): > > “If you take (Trump’s) position as real, that we would do this, then it would take the world down the road that we saw in the 1930s that we saw with the Smoot–Hawley Tariff,” Freund said. “The world would definitely fall into a recession.” > > That 1930 act significantly raised tariffs on goods coming into the United States, and “economists still agree that Smoot-Hawley and the ensuing tariff wars were highly counterproductive and contributed to the depth and length of the global Depression,” then-Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said in 2013. > [@](#): > > “His proposals aren’t viable, they’re not practical, and they’re hypocritical — to be honest,” she said, referring to his call for Nabisco to bring Oreo production back from Mexico, while many of his own clothing lines are produced offshore. “There’s no question that we have a terrible disadvantage right now because our trade policies have failed, but obviously he’s talking about policies that would be outside of all our current trade agreements and trade rules.” Clinton has also talked about tariffs, but in more modest terms and targeted to issues like exchange manipulation, and other issues were the International Trade Commission is very likely to agree with the USA against China. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/25 "2016-03-12T02:28:09Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Breaking news: Conservate Republicans un-enthused about having to vote for Hillary! It’s a shocker! > > You don’t wanna have to vote for Hillary? How about you nominate someone other than Trump or Cruz? Fucking hell. Couldn’t agree more. John Kaisch is not a nut ball. As a left leaning moderate, I might have voted for him over Clinton. But noooo. The GOP is putting up seriously delusional people as their front runners. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/26 "2016-03-12T02:31:54Z")
**Worst choice ever?** Not even close. Off the top of my head 1920 - Harding vs. Cox. 1924 and 1928 weren’t a lot better, but Coolidge and even Hoover were better than Harding. 1972 Nixon vs. McGovern I won’t even go into the 19th Century, but I do note that in 1836 Van Buren beat W. H. Harrison, while in 1840 Harrison beat Van Buren; and in 1888 B. Harrison defeated Cleveland for re-election, then in 1892 the voters said “I guess Cleveland was okay after all,” ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/27 "2016-03-12T04:10:41Z")
President Al Smith in 1928 would have been the cat’s pajamas. He could have averted the Great Depression with his huge infrastructure project of building a tunnel from Washington, DC, to the Vatican! ---
**Author:** ![Lorne\_Armstrong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@Lorne\_Armstrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lorne_Armstrong)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/28 "2016-03-12T06:49:46Z")
Cruz versus Sanders would be worse. A lot worse. An ultra-conservative lunatic versus a actual socialist lunatic. That’s fucking scary as hell. Both men could do a tremendous amount of damage, far more than Trump or Hillary. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/29 "2016-03-12T10:31:25Z")
IMHO, neither major-party nominee in any election from 1968 to 1988 was as good relative to their time as Clinton is now. Ditto major independent candidates (Wallace 1968, Anderson 1980). We really did go through quite a stretch where a lot of us had to hold our noses and vote for the lesser of evils. Certainly on the Dem side, Humphrey (damn you, Sirhan Sirhan), McGovern, Carter twice, Mondale, and Dukakis were all kinda disappointing IMHO. But at least from the Dem side, from 1992 forward that hasn’t been the case, IMHO. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have been good Presidents and were people you could vote for, rather than just vote against the other guy. I personally feel the same way about Al Gore, who damn well \*should \*have been President, and John Kerry, who wasn’t a great _candidate_ in the sense that he wasn’t particularly good at the job of _running_ for President, but would have IMHO made a fine President if elected. I’d have to let Republicans weigh in on which candidates they voted for with enthusiasm, and which ones they held their nose and voted for largely to keep the Democratic candidate out of the White House. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/30 "2016-03-12T11:32:52Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > She has a better grasp than any high-profile Pub has had since Nixon. Even Ford – while his intellect has been somewhat unfairly underestimated by the public, due to his klutz-image – was an idiot about economics, with an 18th-Century view. WIN! (grin) ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/31 "2016-03-12T11:58:28Z")
1872 had Grant vs Greeley. A failed president that had alienated many in his own paper versus a newspaper publisher. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/32 "2016-03-12T12:23:12Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > **Worst choice ever?** > > Not even close. Off the top of my head > > 1920 - Harding vs. Cox. 1924 and 1928 weren’t a lot better, but Coolidge and even Hoover were better than Harding. Cox? After growing up on the farm, a schoolteacher-turned-newspaperman gets elected and re-elected to Congress, and then starts in on a third term as Ohio’s governor before running for President? That’s a damn Jimmy Stewart movie! ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/33 "2016-03-12T12:42:59Z")
> [@A\_Dodgy\_Dude](#): > > I know historians are all-but-unanimous in naming Buchanan as the worst President ever but don’t I remember reading that he also had what was probably the best resume of any Presidential nominee? I thought historians’ consensus was Harding was the worst president. ---
**Author:** ![Batfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Batfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Batfish)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/34 "2016-03-12T13:30:40Z")
Clinton is polling unfavorable 53%(-12), Trump 62%(-29). Have we ever had a choice like that? ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/35 "2016-03-12T13:51:29Z")
> [@Batfish](#): > > Clinton is polling unfavorable 53%(-12), Trump 62%(-29). > > Have we ever had a choice like that? And your source is? Trump is dreadful. Ms Clinton may not be The Most Liberal but I’ll be glad to see her President. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/36 "2016-03-12T14:19:13Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > I thought historians’ consensus was Harding was the worst president. I doubt there’s a real consensus, but there’s a solid argument available that he was the worst \*person \*ever to be President. The worst \*Presidency \*could be Buchanan’s or GWB’s, possibly Grant’s or Hoover’s, or, yes, Harding’s. Pity the choice is so difficult. ---
**Author:** ![Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/do_not_taunt/32/2968_2.png) [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/37 "2016-03-12T17:09:30Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > I doubt there’s a real consensus, but there’s a solid argument available that he was the worst \*person \*ever to be President. The worst \*Presidency \*could be Buchanan’s or GWB’s, possibly Grant’s or Hoover’s, or, yes, Harding’s. Pity the choice is so difficult. Wikipedia has a pretty good [summary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States) of this. Generally, yeah, it’s Buchanan or Harding at the bottom. Hoover doesn’t generally get a whole lot of the blame for the Great Depression (and no credit for dealing with the crisis effectively, of course), and Grant is undergoing a bit of an improvement in historical reputation. I imagine GWB will continue to drift towards the bottom of the list as time passes. The guy I think is consistently overrated is Jackson. Historians tend to place a lot of value (presumably) on him ushering in the era of popular democracy, and _severely_ underweight his enthusiastic approval of genocide and the danger he put us in as a Constitutional republic by refusing to comply with SCOTUS rulings. ---
**Author:** ![Batfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Batfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Batfish)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/38 "2016-03-12T18:38:39Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > And your source is? Trump is dreadful. Ms Clinton may not be The Most Liberal but I’ll be glad to see her President. [Huffington Post](http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster#favorability-ratings) I appreciate that you have a preference between the two, as do I. But the OP’s question was if we’re facing a particularly crappy choice given that these two will be the eventual nominees. I thought that beyond opinions we might actually be able to apply some metric to the question. So, to restate my question, since favorable/unfavorable polls have been around, have we ever had two nominees with such high unfavorables? ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/39 "2016-03-12T18:59:22Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > I doubt there’s a real consensus, but there’s a solid argument available that he was the worst \*person \*ever to be President. The worst \*Presidency \*could be Buchanan’s or GWB’s, possibly Grant’s or Hoover’s, or, yes, Harding’s. Pity the choice is so difficult. If we want to be pedantic and technical, one could make the case that the worst President was William Henry Harrison, who is usually disqualified because he died a month after taking office. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/40 "2016-03-12T20:29:28Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > I thought historians’ consensus was Harding was the worst president. How dare you malign the first black U.S. President! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692.md?page=3)