I saw a list elsewhere and it got me thinking. I will try to avoid recency bias. My bottom 5 are:
Andrew Jackson
Donald Trump
James Buchanan
Andrew Johnson
And at this point, I find myself unsure of who to put in the bottom 5. Because I know very little about some of our 1800s presidents, I will be a bit lazy and just put:
George W. Bush
Am I wrong? What is your bottom 5?
I think you can fairly give Trump two of the five spots.
Nixon, Trump, W, Buchanan, Wilson
I admit there is a large gap between him and anyone else, but 1 slot is all he gets.
Trump is clearly the worst. No other sitting President has actively attempted to commit sedition.
After him I’d put W and McKinley, who both lied in order to start major wars for the benefit of their financial backers.
Those are the three I’m sure of, there are a lot of potential candidates for the other two spots.
Seems like Buchanan has to be on the list, since his term was immediately followed by a civil war which he did nothing to prevent. Honestly the couple immediately before Buchanan were just as useless, though.
Shout out to John Tyler, the only President to commit open treason, by supporting the Confederacy. At least he was an ex-President at the time.
Warren Harding was pretty worthless. He spent his whole Presidency drinking and playing poker, ignoring the corruption all around him. He also bought into the 1920s GOP voodoo economics which led to the Depression, though he wasn’t around by the time the shit hit the fan.
I respectfully disagree. Since he’s both presidents 45 and 47, he will have two administrations to be ranked. I firmly believe that he will occupy the two bottom spots, with 47 beating out 45 for the title.
ETA: But, if you want a different person, how away William Henry Harrison? He died a month into his term, and usually gets ranked very low because of it.
Before Lincoln, the office was a weak position, so I can’t fault the various weaklings who filled it (except Buchanan, who had Jackson and Polk’s examples, but let the Union fall apart). Harding was a grafter late to the party that Arthur and others had enjoyed. It’s the real damage-doers who belong at the bottom.
Agree totally. Harrison and Garfield shouldn’t be considered. Harding was ineffective but the damage was done elsewhere. Buchanan, by contrast, wasn’t merely ineffective but deliberately allowed what became the civil war to be someone else’s problem. Hoover failed at the second most serious crisis up to that time, which is ineffectiveness squared.
Rutherford Hayes wasn’t awful as a president, but the compromise that got him elected was ending Reconstruction, creating a century of Jim Crow. Nixon, among his multitude of faults, implemented the Southern Strategy, killing the civil rights era and funneling power to the bigot class. Reagan rode that, empowering them while creating such a financial mess that his successor lost an election after having a 90% approval rating. We still live in Reagan’s America.
Bush II added a false war and burned two trillion dollars in the desert while also allowing the worst financial disaster since the Depression. He would be legend if it weren’t for Trump. Trump is it. The greatest worst that can ever be, because the only way to be worse than him would be to end America and leave the rankings to future historians.
1: T***p 47 (the only time I let him sully my keyboard with typing his complete name is for the death pool). Pardoned people who tried to overthrow the government, sent people to death camps. At least Hitler had the honesty to actually run death camps, this piece of shit outsourced it to El Salvador.
2: T***p 45 Would easily be the worst if not for his later self.
3: Jackson The only president who committed genocide.
4: George W Bush Yes, his work against AIDS was admirable, but imagine what shape the country would be in if he hadn’t started two needless wars, spent trillions, but still decided what we really needed was tax cuts for the elite.
5: Reagan Turned a blind eye to AIDS and instituted the notion that yes there is a free lunch and we’re going to eat it, ballooning the national debt.
#1 Trump 45:
Nations hostile to the USA actively tried to get him elected (why do you suppose that is?).
Trump tried to extort a country to get himself elected by refusing to help the country that is being attacked by the hostile country that helped him get elected.
The hostile country is still at war with the country that Trump extorted.
Insurection to attempt to overthrow the USA. That’s kinda a big deal.
All of the above adds up to treason. Don’t pick nits about what treason is.
#2 Trump 47.
Breaking laws left and right.
Hurting our own citizens with project 2025
Destroying the economy.
Shipping people that have a right to be here off to foreign hell-hole prisons
Lies after lies after lies.
Literal physical destruction of the White House.
Murder in the Carribean
Piracy
Destroying our relatiionships with, well the rest of the world. Jesus. Occupy Canada? Greenland?
The man is out of his mind, if he was ever ‘in’ it.
Oh, and the whole pediphile thing. If you’re inocent, let’s see those files. And please keep your hands off your daughters.
The ‘Big Beatiful Bill’ Bunch of bullshit to give money to himself and his buddies
Fucking over hundreds of thousands of Federal workers and their agency. And fucking over the people of the USA while he was at it.
Medicare going through the roof
Could go on and on many, many books will be written about him.
#3 Not even close. But Jackson is a contenter.
#4 Not even close
#5 Not even close
Devil’s advocate on Trump being counted for two (I don’t think he should): Are we also counting the second term of other presidents as a “second administration?” Like, could W occupy two slots too? I don’t think so. This is a poll for worst president, not worst administration or term. As corrupt as he is, Trump is still only one president. Everything he has done has only been done by one man.
I agree. Trump is one president. Total.
And even that is debatable.
Trump
George W. bush
Buchanan
Reagan
Jackson