Who's the worst president the US has ever had?

Does worst mean:

• least able to achieve their stated agenda, ie worst at their job. (Trump)
• worst vision for America, ie most evil (Reagan)
• worst overall impact to America, ie one you'd kill with a time machine (Bush Jr, but Trump might catch up in term 2)
• Worst for the world, ie the one I'd kill with a time machine (Washington)

Although I'm not American and don't know your history that well.

Ronald Reagan did more damage to this country than any president before or after him.

George W Bush Jr.

Yes I am handing him the worst president title, even over Trump.

Because, it was his mishandled War on Terror, that plunged the country into massive national debt. He crashed the housing market. He literally had waged a war on obese people, minorities and other things as distractions from his failure to capture Osama. He allowed American Surveillance with Patriot Act I and II. His cabinet were all crooks and he was just a dumb puppet.

He is essentially the ripple effect of everything we're dealing with today and Trump is merely the symptom of that.

Agree with most of the comments about jackson being the worst, but I'm surprised no one's mentioned Eisenhower and Hoover, who would easily go in the top ten.

While W. sucked in many ways, there is no way he is the worst. Off the top of my head I can easily think of four better contenders: Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan (both guilty of pro-slavery fuckery before the Civil War), Andrew Johnson (fought to let the Confederates off the hook after the war and opposed the 14th amendment), and Donald Trump (first president to be impeached twice, first to be convicted of a felony, and may be remembered by future historians as the spark that ignites the next Civil War).

It's tempting to pick someone recent, but the real answer is probably Andrew Jackson. He successfully engineered a genocide, trampled the Constitution and human rights, and was actively hostile to limits on Presidential power.

Reagan

I'd probably say someone like Andrew Jackson before even thinking about Trump being the worst. Jackson did a literal genocide with the Indian Removal Act

Andrew Jackson and it's not even close. Not to downplay the horrible crimes committed by many of our other presidents but I don't think anything rises to the level of the Trail of Tears.

Remove Jackson from the running and it's a more interesting conversation, however thinking about it reveals just how interconnected all of this stuff is. While the current genocide is occurring under Biden, we can't forget that the conditions that lead to Oct 7 were created under Trump. For that matter so were the conditions that lead to the escalation of the war in Ukraine.

I think the worst in my lifetime by a mile is Dubya, but while his wars were massive and consequential we can't forget that George Senior also killed scores of people in Iraq, and Clinton carried out the sanctions regime that killed scores more. Clinton was also the one who broke Labor's influence within the Democratic Party - but it was Obama who was swept into power on the promise of a working class revolution only to smother it in its crib.

But yeah my top two are Jackson and Dubya but beyond that I'm not sure there are a lot of crimes in the history of America's presidency.

George Washington. This thing should have been nipped in the bud.

Woodrow Wilson was so racist that he was quoted in an epigraph for "The Birth of a Nation." You know, the 1915 movie about how awesome the KKK was, which became the first true "blockbuster" film and which led to a huge resurgence in KKK activity. Not only that, but Woodrow Wilson also personally invited the filmmakers to screen the movie in the White House - the first movie ever screened in the White House, by the way. Honorable mention!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_a_Nation#/media/File:Wilson-quote-in-birth-of-a-nation.jpg

putting trump in the top 5 is lib shit

I don't care about others opinions on this one bit, for my money. When looking at how much long term damage they have done to the country, our global relations and to the world in general; it's Donald and it's not even a close contest.

lol trump is bad but not like Andrew Jackaon bad.

Probably

1. Andrew Jackson - Crimes against native people
2. Andrew Johnson - Fucked up reconstruction
3. Ronald Reagan - Trickle down economics
4. 45/47 🤮 - We all know why...
5. Richard Nixon - The Infamous Crook

Might have some memory gaps, but these are what I can remember from the top of my head.

andrew jackson (or johnson can never remember which) for the trail of tears. absolutely awful

Trump is definitely in the bottom quintile, but also anyone putting him in the bottom 5 is just recency bias.

I would hire nucular George every day for the next 4 years to get rid of the orange dipshit.

This question is too difficult, there are too many candidates...

How is it even close between Dubya and Trump like honestly Bush started the war on terror, killing and displacing millions.

I think I have Trump derangement syndrome but for Bush Jr. instead cause very few people make my blood boil just by seeing their face like that scum.

me if enough of you write in "EstraDoll" in 2028

The idiot son of an asshole

Wasn't it Nixon who sold the americans out? Or Truman?

If we’re talking strictly the neoliberal era would it be too out there to say 1. Bush Jr 2. Reagan 3. Biden? All time though probably Andrew Jackson

It's Reagan or Nixon, no contest. Bush pales in comparison

Plenty of choice. In my view, most presidents were rambling reeking right wingers in some way or other, save for FDR and Teddy Roosevelt, who were the two presidents I'd actually call capable and outspoken on civil rights (rather than just pragmatical like Lincoln). They did have their blemishes, but less than e.g. Andrew Jackson.

So many presidents were terrible for one people or another.

Andrew Jackson? Held hundreds of slaves and quite literally led an ethnic expulsion against Native Americans (the Trail of Tears).

Lincoln? Mostly good, but did not forbid slavery in the form of penal labour. If one were to abolish slavery, why not go the full mile?

Wilson? Rabid antisemite, pretty much.

Hoover? Might've tried to tackle the Great Depression -- but did so by allying with large coorporations, effectively being corrupt and choosing bribery.

Truman? Dropped nukes and set the stage for "we support any government that hates people being remotely leftist".

Nixon - corrupt and wanted to sidestep the rule of law, all for his own profit: to stay in power. Other than thaf, decent, but that's a big "other than that".

Reagan - enough said. Ultracapitalist, misleading, made the US economy far worse by accruing debt like there's no tomorrow, and shoving it onto the poor -- typical oligarch behaviour! Militaristic, power-hungry. And no, he did not end the Cold War: Gorbachov did.

JFK: socially pretty good, actually. But economically, the cutting of the top rates made the richest keep more money. At least it wasn't down below 50%, but still. Had that happened, I think the tax rates would've allowed wealth accumulation.

And so on.

So, in my view, it's hard to focus on who is the worse, and better to rather focus on what is the best. Ted would be my candidate. Not only social progress, but also economical, and in a way that favour the worker -- and he also was environmentally aware. That is a good president.

Going for the low hanging fruit, huh?

James K. Polk. He went into a bloody war for conquest with Mexico to conclude Manifest Destiny.

Reagan. Without a doubt Reagan.

No one said Buchanan.

The one that's presiding over a genocide and is currently trying to start WW3.

It's going to be wild to see what happens when the Republicans order troops to fire into crowds of American citizens.