# Who was or is "the Worst American"?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-or-is-the-worst-american/306110
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [May 30, 2005, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-or-is-the-worst-american/306110 "2005-05-30T17:20:33Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2005, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-or-is-the-worst-american/306110/21 "2005-05-30T20:10:57Z")
Already named: McCarthy, North, Reagan, Nixon, Kissenger, etc. And would Roy Cohn count as being named? For all the reasons **Sampiro** listed-a homophobic gay man and anti-semitic Jew. How much more evil can you get, to be such a goddamn hypocrite?
Woodrow Wilson was mentioned, but the poster neglected to mention his racist views.
How about: William Casey, head of the CIA who was behind the whole Iran-Contra deal. Unfortunately, he died of a brain tumor before he could be indicted. Damned bastard.
Rick Santorum-he’s a weaselly, conceited SOB who’d run over his own grandmother if it would get him ahead. He compares consentual sex between two adults of the same sex to “man on dog”, he told the victim of a devastating flood ON LIVE TV that since she didn’t have flood insurance, she didn’t deserve any help or sympathy, and he tries to portray himself a compassionate Christian.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2005, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-or-is-the-worst-american/306110/22 "2005-05-30T20:27:55Z")
So, \*\*Reagan \*\*was worse than **LBJ**? Given that the Reagan bashers here are pretty much the same group as the Bush bashers, how can \*\*LBJ \*\*not be nominated? His little experiment in Vietnam was worse for the country in almost any measureable way than the Iraq War.
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### Author:  [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2005, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-or-is-the-worst-american/306110/23 "2005-05-30T20:39:24Z")
> [@John Mace](#):
>
> So, \*\*Reagan \*\*was worse than **LBJ**? Given that the Reagan bashers here are pretty much the same group as the Bush bashers, how can \*\*LBJ \*\*not be nominated? His little experiment in Vietnam was worse for the country in almost any measureable way than the Iraq War.
Could it be that people are also thinking about economic/domestic policies? Because if we’re just looking at warfare, I agree with you.
I know that LBJ gets a lot of props from advocates of the poor and disenfranchised. The Great Society marked the beginning of bloated government, but it was an admirable effort to eradicate poverty. It took the New Deal to another level, reaching folks who had always been forgotten and neglected.
Reagan ignored poverty, at best. At worse, his policies exacerbated the misfortunate of millions of people.
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2005, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-or-is-the-worst-american/306110/24 "2005-05-30T20:42:30Z")
> [@John Mace](#):
>
> So, \*\*Reagan \*\*was worse than **LBJ**? Given that the Reagan bashers here are pretty much the same group as the Bush bashers, how can \*\*LBJ \*\*not be nominated? His little experiment in Vietnam was worse for the country in almost any measureable way than the Iraq War.
Hell, I’ll see your LBJ and raise you an RFK.
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### Author:  [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2005, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-or-is-the-worst-american/306110/25 "2005-05-30T20:46:28Z")
What exactly made RFK so harmful? I’m truly curious.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2005, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-or-is-the-worst-american/306110/26 "2005-05-30T20:49:52Z")
> [@monstro](#):
>
> Could it be that people are also thinking about economic/domestic policies? Because if we’re just looking at warfare, I agree with you.
>
> I know that LBJ gets a lot of props from advocates of the poor and disenfranchised. The Great Society marked the beginning of bloated government, but it was an admirable effort to eradicate poverty. It took the New Deal to another level, reaching folks who had always been forgotten and neglected.
>
> Reagan ignored poverty, at best. At worse, his policies exacerbated the misfortunate of millions of people.
How much poverty did LBJ’s Great Society programs eradicate? Exaclty how many “millions of people” had their misfortunes exacerbated by Reagan, and in exaclty how did that exacerbation take place? I’d like to see some actual numbers. I’m not stating outright that you’re wrong, I’m seriously curious on what facts you base your statements.
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### Author:  [@Menocchio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Menocchio)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2005, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-or-is-the-worst-american/306110/27 "2005-05-30T20:51:36Z")
It’s really hard to argue with Jackson. Other presidents (and their henchmen) have been racist, corrupt, destructive, or incompetent, but no one has been so blithely genocidal as Jackson.
I’d also like to nominate Aaron Burr. Crazy as a shithouse rat and robbed the nation of Hamilton, whom history has proven right in most paticulars.
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### Author:  [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2005, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-or-is-the-worst-american/306110/28 "2005-05-30T20:54:28Z")
> [@monstro](#):
>
> Could it be that people are also thinking about economic/domestic policies? Because if we’re just looking at warfare, I agree with you.
>
> I know that LBJ gets a lot of props from advocates of the poor and disenfranchised. The Great Society marked the beginning of bloated government, but it was an admirable effort to eradicate poverty. It took the New Deal to another level, reaching folks who had always been forgotten and neglected.
>
> Reagan ignored poverty, at best. At worse, his policies exacerbated the misfortunate of millions of people.
Absolutely correct in my case about the economic/domestic policies. As for LBJ, the War in Vietnam was a total disaster. However, the idea of the War on Poverty is IMO perhaps the greatest idea of the 20th century in the US. Of course, I think massive wealth redistribution from the wealthy to the poor is a Good Thing.
As for Reagan, I’d describe his adminsitration as the War on the Poor.
BTW, Reagan had nothing against bloated government. He just spent the money on the military, and ran up a huge debt.
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### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2005, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-or-is-the-worst-american/306110/29 "2005-05-30T21:02:04Z")
Speaking as an outsider,
Jefferson Davis in an absolute walk.
The likes of Rove, Wilson, Jackson et al. are pikers compared to Davis. He was a murdering son of a bitch who tried to destroy his country for the worst convceivable motives, and damn near succeeded. It is a testament to the inherent nobility and kindness of the United States that he wasn’t burned at the stake. He sure deserved it.
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2005, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-or-is-the-worst-american/306110/30 "2005-05-30T21:08:42Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#):
>
> What exactly made RFK so harmful? I’m truly curious.
Harmful may not be the right word, but just a total ruthless subhuman bastard of the first order who’d stop at nothing to get what he wanted politically. When even LBJ called somebody a “crooked little runt” you had to take notice. (“Those American pilots had better goddamned well be dead.” RFK upon learning that 4 Alabama National Guard pilots had been shot down during the Bay of Pigs; had they survived and been captured by Castro it would have embarassed his brother’s administration.)
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### Author:  [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2005, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-or-is-the-worst-american/306110/31 "2005-05-30T21:12:02Z")
> [@RickJay](#):
>
> The likes of Rove, Wilson, Jackson et al. are pikers compared to Davis. He was a murdering son of a bitch who tried to destroy his country for the worst convceivable motives, and damn near succeeded. It is a testament to the inherent nobility and kindness of the United States that he wasn’t burned at the stake. He sure deserved it.
As truly evil as I consider Reagan to be, I have to concede that if there is a hell, Jeff Davis must be in a lower level than Reagan. If for nothing else he failed to throw in the towel once he realized the war was lost, increasing the misery for the South.
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### Author:  [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2005, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-or-is-the-worst-american/306110/32 "2005-05-30T21:19:05Z")
As another outsider but a person who is very interested in history I’d throw my foreign voice against J. Davis as well. His leadership helped fire up a conflict that lead to untold suffering in the US.
Like every country I’m sure there are numerous bastards that history has forgotten but as a public figure Davis is hard to beat IMO.
That motherhumper McCarty gives him a run for his money though.
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### Author:  [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2005, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-or-is-the-worst-american/306110/33 "2005-05-30T21:26:29Z")
> [@John Mace](#):
>
> How much poverty did LBJ’s Great Society programs eradicate? Exaclty how many “millions of people” had their misfortunes exacerbated by Reagan, and in exaclty how did that exacerbation take place? I’d like to see some actual numbers. I’m not stating outright that you’re wrong, I’m seriously curious on what facts you base your statements.
To clarify, I’m not saying that the Great Society was largely successful at eradicating poverty, only that the effort was admirable and well-intentioned.
It has left an important legacy, though. Job Corps, subsidized housing, food and nutrition programs, Head Start, and Medicare/Medicaid are programs installed by the Great Society, and they have posivitely affected millions of people, including myself. We can only speculate how well off (or bad off) people would be without these programs.
As for the impact of Reaganomics on the poor, I found a fair article that describes some of the president’s policies affecting the poor:
> [@Amid Tributes](#):
>
> “I don’t think he was a bad guy, but I think he thought the private charity system could address homelessness. And he was wrong,” said Michael Stoops, co-founder in 1981 of the National Coalition for the Homeless in Washington, D.C., which he still helps direct. “He was a Robin Hood in reverse, who took from the poor and gave to the rich, and I think Americans have such short attention spans they forget this.”
>
> Reagan’s supporters don’t quite see it this way, of course, but his critics say the single most powerful thing Reagan did to create homelessness was to cut the budget for the Department of Housing and Urban Development by three-quarters, from $32.2 billion in 1981 to $7.5 billion by 1988. The department was the main governmental supporter of subsidized housing for the poor and, combined with the administration’s overhaul of tax codes to reduce incentives for private developers to create low-income homes, the nation took a hit to its stock of affordable housing from which it has yet to recover, they contend.
>
> During the same period, the average family income of the poorest fifth of the American population dropped by 6.1 percent, and rose 11.1 percent for the top fifth, according to “Sleepwalking Through History,” the best-selling assessment of the Reagan years by Haynes Johnson. The number of people living beneath the federal poverty line rose from 24.5 million in 1978 to 32.5 million in 1988.
>
> And the number of homeless people went from something so little it wasn’t even written about widely in the late 1970s to more than 2 million when Reagan left office.
My point is that while LBJ put poor folks in houses and put food in their bellies, Reagan really didn’t do any of those things and actually seemed not even to care. Maybe LBJ’s effort amounted to a drop in the bucket and maybe Reagan couldn’t have done anything even if he had wanted to, but I still think that LBJ should get props for _trying_.
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### Author:  [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2005, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-or-is-the-worst-american/306110/34 "2005-05-30T21:27:58Z")
Ooops
The [article](http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0610-03.htm).
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### Author:  [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2005, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-or-is-the-worst-american/306110/35 "2005-05-30T21:30:08Z")
Indian Hater Jackson by a country mile.
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2005, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-or-is-the-worst-american/306110/36 "2005-05-30T21:33:45Z")
> [@John Mace](#):
>
> How much poverty did LBJ’s Great Society programs eradicate? Exaclty how many “millions of people” had their misfortunes exacerbated by Reagan, and in exaclty how did that exacerbation take place? I’d like to see some actual numbers. I’m not stating outright that you’re wrong, I’m seriously curious on what facts you base your statements.
Anecdotal, but provable. My father died in 1982 when I was 15. My brother, who was 20 and in college at the time, drew Social Security until he graduated the month he turned 21 because he was grandfathered in, but my check stopped the month before I turned 18 (because I was born on the first of the month) strictly due to Reagan; had it not been for him I’d have been able to draw until I was 21. My mother drew SS on my behalf until the month before I turned 16; before Reagan she would have drawn until I was 18 (but, as any mother of a 16 or 17 year old will tell you, kids don’t cost anything when they’re that age).
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2005, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-or-is-the-worst-american/306110/37 "2005-05-30T21:37:07Z")
> [@Liberal](#):
>
> Indian Hater Jackson by a country mile.
I don’t dispute his hatred of Indians, but an irony is that he adopted a Creek Indian baby (Lincoia- or Lincoier, Linkoya, spelling varies) he had orphaned at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend and by all accounts loved the child. Lincoier died in adolescence and his funeral was one of the few times Jackson cried in public.
I’d still consign him to hell though. His hatred of the English was almost as pathological; as a judge he once hanged an English businessman in Tennessee for the crime of trespassing.
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### Author:  [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2005, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-or-is-the-worst-american/306110/38 "2005-05-30T22:01:17Z")
> [@Liberal](#):
>
> Indian Hater Jackson by a country mile.
**Lib** that has made me go back and read one of the most powerful OP’s I’ve ever read here.
> **[Fuck you, Andrew Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=136700)**
>
> On a cold and rainy October morning, your soldiers, under your direct order, and in defiance of the United States Supreme Court, dragged thousands of docile, frightened people, barefoot and weeping, from their homes at bayonet point, and packed them...
It’s still a great OP.
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2005, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-or-is-the-worst-american/306110/39 "2005-05-30T22:24:06Z")
> [@yojimbo](#):
>
> **Lib** that has made me go back and read one of the most powerful OP’s I’ve ever read here.
>
> [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=136700](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=136700)
>
> It’s still a great OP.
Except for all the factual errors that **spoke-** points out.
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### Author:  [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2005, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-or-is-the-worst-american/306110/40 "2005-05-30T22:48:58Z")
Oh dear. It wasn’t my intention to derail this fine thread.
Please can we just go back to the OP as this could be hijacked to hell and back.
Sorry to the OP of this thread.
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