Are there lists that put Trump in the middle of Worst Presidents lists, and not at either the top or the bottom of the list?
Note that the latest poll in that overview (as of this writing) was taken in 2024, so this year’s performance is not reflected in those ratings.
I hate to even.somewhat defend Dubya (who thoroughly deserves second place behind Trump) but this completely underestimates how inevitable and justified the war in Afghanistan was after 9/11. It was the most justified war the US has ever fought (perhaps behind the Pacific campaign of WW2) and was completely inevitable and almost universally supported (remember Bernie Sanders voted for the war in Afghanistan).
In retrospect of course the US should have put more effort into separating the Taliban and Al Qaidia, not doing so doomed the US to an unwinnable quagmire. But hindsight is 20/20 and it would have taken an incredible amount of foresight for a POTUS to spend time on that in late 2001, and it would have had no guarantee of success (it’s actually one of those situations where with retrospect it is the reverse of how it seems at the time. At the time it seems the US was negotiating from a position of utterly overwhelming strength and the Taliban had no cards to bargain with, but actually it was the US that needed a deal ultimately)
The biggest mistake was the invasion of Iraq, I was in Afghanistan when the talk of war in Iraq started and almost overnight there was a huge shift of resources away from Afghanistan towards Iraq, myself included.
Absolutely, definitely Iraq made Afghanistan more unwinnable, but even without iraq it’s difficult to see how Afghanistan would have worked out all that differently.
People do not like to have their country invaded. If you do that and try to install a democracy, the people will use their political power to dismantle anything you do. That is what happened in Afghanistan, Vietnam, and Germany.
Yes, and the world was behind us for Afghanistan. Dont confuse that war, with the needless invasion of Iraq- where basically no one else was with us.
Then maybe dont help train and plan a mass attack on the US?
For a millisecond or so there after 9/11, I found myself supporting George Warmonger.
We were justified in our anger. Most of the world agreed. Kuwait was an international campaign. In Afghanistan the US had a lot of support. Did we maybe go too far? That can be argued. But our cause and our anger was justified.
The invasion of Iraq? That made people either afraid of or disgusted with us. We had absolutely no reason to invade.
Moderating:
Off topic. Do not relitigate the reasons for invading Afghanistan and/or Iraq in this thread.
Polk levied a war debt on Mexico as part of the peace deal. In lieu of cash, he took the Gadsden Purchase. Ulysses S. Grant, a lieutenant during the war, said of it in his memoir: “For myself, I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation.” It was hardly the rosy real estate transaction you described.
Pierce came quite close to the same. And Pierce came from New Hampshire, which should have made being pro-union and/or anti-slavery a lot easier than for Tyler the Virginian.
Plus as president, Pierce presided over destruction of the Missouri Compromise and was pro-slave-catcher..
It is hard to keep the number to five.
I dont see that- in fact-
The U.S. government paid Mexico $15 million “in consideration of the extension acquired by the boundaries of the United States” and agreed to pay American citizens debts owed to them by the Mexican government. Other provisions included the protection of property and civil rights of Mexican nationals living within the new boundaries of the United States, the promise of the United States to police its boundaries, and compulsory arbitration of future disputes between the two countries.
The financially strapped government of Santa Anna agreed to sell the territory for $10 million[3] (equivalent to $270 million in 2024[4]). After the devastating loss of Mexican territory to the U.S. in the Mexican–American War (1846–48) and the continued unauthorized military expeditions in the zone led by William Carr Lane, New Mexico territorial governor and noted filibuster, some historians argue that Santa Anna may have calculated it was better to yield territory by treaty and receive payment rather than have the territory simply seized by the United States.[5]
But i will grant that last part. The possibility of us just taking it was obviously there.
That is pretty damn bad. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise was one of the things that angered Lincoln and made him run for president.
GenX, born 1973. I didn’t say Vietnam was one of the worst things the US ever did. But lying to get us into an absolutely catastrophic war that served no purpose and destroyed the lives of half a generation (not an actual %), cost a fortune, caused untold unrest and discontent at home- and more- is a pretty serious offense.
We now know that he lied about the Gulf of Tonkin to make it happen (Cough, WMD in Iraq) and I just can’t forgive doing that much damage over a lie, and for no good reason. Yes, I have the benefit of hindsight, but the domino theory? Really?
I’ll try. I used to read a ton about the presidents when I was a kid. From 1-5, 1 being the worst.
- Trump
- Dubya (if we are talking about the whole administration, and not just him personally, then the way he got into office counts for something)
- James Buchanan
- Andrew Jackson (can’t forgive him Trail of Tears, even if that is judging him by standards of another time.
- Ronald Reagan, for making the presidents’ religiosity an issue, getting electing partially on that issue, and then staying away from church “for safety,”
FWIW, I’m GenX, born 1967 (and I always thought 1977 was too late for gen X.
Trail of tears was Van Burens mess, caused by rampant corruption and racism. Not Jackson.
The Indian Removal Act was signed by Jackson, and he was responsible for the greater(?) parts of that tragedy.
Here’s my list:
1.Trump
Imagine a mile-high gulf. Then
- Buchanan. Although he was from my home state of Pennsylvania, one of the first to ban slavery, he was a thorough supporter of the south and opposed the Missouri compromise. In addition he allowed the federal forts in the south (except Sumter, for some reason, to be taken over by the South which supplied them with weaponry.
- Andrew J.
- Andrew J. It doesn’t matter which one is which.
- Wilson. This is hard. He segregated the federal government setting back civil rights for at least a generation.
There are a few I would like to defend. First off, yes Nixon was an awful excuse for a human being. My mother said he shouldn’t be allowed in public without ringing a bell and shouting “Unclean, unclean”. But he did eventually end the war, I think it was Nixon who brought in both the original medicare and also the EPA. And he recognized China. The Viet Nam war was awful, but there were four presidents to share the responsibilities: DDE, JFK, LBJ, and RMN. I suspect it was John Foster Dulles who convinced Ike that they had to send “advisors” to support the South Vietnamese. Then it escalated under JFK, more under LBJ, and eventually ended with Nixon. Not without a lot of lying all around.
As far as W, I think of him as basically a decent man, not very bright, too heavily influenced by his VEEP and cabinet. Kind of tragic, actually. Notice that Obama kept the wars going although he must have known they were a disaster. I don’t know that LBJ was really worse. No one wants to lose a war. Notice that ending the war in Afghanistan was one of the main charges against Biden, even though he was just following a decision made by his predecessor, who will ramain nameless.
I just want to add that I cannot see either Truman or Carter on such a list. They both had a bad hand and played it as well as they could. Truman was thrust into the presidency suddenly and had to make decisions quickly. I still recall the day he died–it is in fact one of my earliest clear memories. He also faced a congress very opposed to him. He had to choose between using the bomb and invading the home island of Japan and I don’t think I would have decided differently. (And by using it and seeing how horrible the results were, it may have staved off a nuclear war.) And Carter had to deal with the results of the oil crisis and the resultant stagflation. Also a traitorous Reagan who begged the Iranians not to release the hostages. (Was the Iran/Contra affair payback for that?)