# Trump Worst American President According to New York Times Poll of Experts **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 20, 2018, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-worst-american-president-according-to-new-york-times-poll-of-experts/809167 "2018-02-20T03:42:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2018, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-worst-american-president-according-to-new-york-times-poll-of-experts/809167/61 "2018-02-22T20:05:51Z")
W dissed Trump. That automatically erases everything and he’s now one of the bestest Republican presidents ever!! ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2018, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-worst-american-president-according-to-new-york-times-poll-of-experts/809167/62 "2018-02-22T20:16:15Z")
W is the best Republican president of the 21st century. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2018, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-worst-american-president-according-to-new-york-times-poll-of-experts/809167/63 "2018-02-22T22:40:12Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > LBJ was responsible for a lot of good, but also responsible for deep evil. Obama, mostly not having a congressional majority, wasn’t able to accomplish what Johnson did. But he also didn’t do the evil that Johnson did. Oh, definitely, which I why I consider it unfair to just describe him in negative terms. Even Vietnam itself, I could picture the pervasive fear that communism had to be contained or else bad stuff would happen. We can chuckle at this _now_, with the benefit of decades of hindsight. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-worst-american-president-according-to-new-york-times-poll-of-experts/809167/64 "2018-02-23T02:03:36Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > Please explain why you consider Bush the Lesser to be a “basically decent man.” He is an addictive personality and empty suit maneuvered by fucking assholes, which doesn’t make him “decent” by any stretch of the imagination. He’s a goddamn DUPE. Yes, but being stupid enough to be a dupe for the likes of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and the other PNAC ideologues is not inconsistent with being basically decent. Bush was an idiot who was also a decent man who loved his country. Trump is a totally self-serving conman completely bereft of any morality whatsoever, not to mention a pathological narcissist and habitual liar. He’d happily throw the whole country under the bus for ten bucks and ten minutes of personal glory. > [@Colibri](#): > > LBJ was responsible for a lot of good, but also responsible for deep evil. Obama, mostly not having a congressional majority, wasn’t able to accomplish what Johnson did. But he also didn’t do the evil that Johnson did. The Vietnam war was deeply evil, but also hard to pin the blame for it on any one individual, although since Johnson presided over the worst of the escalations and authorized them, history holds him accountable. I tend to see it the way that Robert McNamara recounts it in the powerful film _The Fog of War_, which comes across to me like an old man’s confessional and quest for absolution. They were all being deceived by military commanders, by established US foreign policy dogma, and by the fog of delusion that clouds all such major conflicts. Meanwhile Johnson pushed through the Civil Rights Act with extraordinary determination, and signed Medicare into law. Maybe I’m not saying anything much different than you are, but I hesitate to blame Johnson for Vietnam. The Vietnam escalations occurred because of the circumstances of the day. It’s true that a stronger or more insightful president might have acted differently. McNamara believed that Kennedy would have. But that’s not a condemnation of Johnson’s morality or honorable intentions. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-worst-american-president-according-to-new-york-times-poll-of-experts/809167/65 "2018-02-23T02:17:07Z")
Of course, it’s also easy to believe that Kennedy would have done differently, when Kennedy wasn’t around any more at the time. Would he actually have? We can’t know. ---
**Author:** ![Bookkeeper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bookkeeper/32/281_2.png) [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-worst-american-president-according-to-new-york-times-poll-of-experts/809167/66 "2018-02-23T17:17:34Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > I’ve always pegged the guy as a sleazeball con-man for as far back as I can remember. A guy who would never pass up the opportunity to fuck you over for his own personal gain. > I thought everyone knew this and had no idea there were people out there who actually admired this slime much less enough of them to vote for him for president. Apparently I was wrong. > I’d like to think his true colors are showing and people wise up enough to cut his tenure short. > But I’ll probably be wrong again and he’ll get second term by bullshitting everyone once more. I suspect a lot of his base admire him for that, because that’s exactly how they would behave if \*they \*were as rich and famous as Trump! ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-worst-american-president-according-to-new-york-times-poll-of-experts/809167/67 "2018-02-23T19:18:11Z")
I can’t remember where I read it, but Trump supporters elected a president that behaves the way they think black people behave. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2018, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-worst-american-president-according-to-new-york-times-poll-of-experts/809167/68 "2018-02-25T16:21:00Z")
> [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > The rehabilitation of George W. Bush is weird. He actually did a lot of the bad stuff people are merely afraid Trump will do. Yeah. Same with Obama. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2018, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-worst-american-president-according-to-new-york-times-poll-of-experts/809167/69 "2018-02-25T16:32:35Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Yeah. Same with Obama. We all know how much you hate being part of a society. Unless you benefit without cost to you. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-worst-american-president-according-to-new-york-times-poll-of-experts/809167.md?page=3)