Worst U.S. Presidents

do I even have to say it

For the record, Buchanan and Coolidge are far worse presidents than charter members of this club Grant and Harding, who can actually boast of several accomplishments.

U.S. Presidents - Great Presidents Edition
U.S. Presidents - Cold War and New Millennium Edition
U.S. Presidents - Gilded Age Edition

I omitted poor Franklin PIerce. Give him a break.

write in for andrew johnson

Harding and Grant were little more than corrupt and feckless, Buchanan had problems that only a Civil War could solve, Hoover had several redeeming qualities that separate him from run of the mill bad presidents, Nixon's a candidate for certain and so is Bush.

Oops, forgot old weaned on a pickle Coolidge but though a blinkered fool, he lacks the malice or shamelessness to be amongst the top.

Nixon created the EPA so that's... something.

Having just read the excellent Twayne series book on Buchanan, I learned just how pro-South Buchanan was; it wasn't mere diddling. The man actively encouraged the expansion of slavery, then said he was powerless to act when the South seceded. Until Nixon the president most worthy of impeachment.

can't go wrong w Harding/Coolidge/Hoover

sounds like Buchanan was awful as well

When you guys find out what Donald Trump's investigators have been digging up with regards to President Obama's malfeasance this won't prove very much of a contest.

Americans have conveniently misled themselves about the presidency of James Buchanan, preferring to classify him as indecisive and inactive. IN fact Buchanan's failing during the crisis over the Union was not inactivity, but rather his partiality for the South, a favoritism that bordered on disloyalty in an officer pledged to defend all the United States. He was that most dangerous of chief executives, a stubborn, mistaken ideologue whose principles held no room for compromise.

I remain not entirely unconvinced that conflict was inevitable.

It was inevitable, but Buchanan aided it.

Republicans took over Congress in '58, his own party split, he was pretty much powerless and inclined to use restraint, his army was a joke and a quarter of it was taken over by the Confederacy; he was less a real knave than a fool.

but I've just explained how that's wrong. I mean, I too thought he was a tool for years until, like, yesterday. His entire Cabinet was full of southerners. His best friends were southerners. He spent his public life advocating on behalf of the South and slavery.

Southerners were still then US citizens.

In good standing, I mean, with no taint of secession yet

whose population and income was declining.

To me he's just wishy-washy. He gently deplores slavery but complains that abolitionists have rid the South of any proponents of gradual abolition.

His entire cabinet was full of Southerners in his misguided attempt to keep the South loyal and peaceable (and because he was a Democrat).

Part of the problem really is the N/S divide and what it does to the Democratic party, esp as the South got more and more intransigent and the party became more and more regional.

But he didn't deplore slavery. If I hadn't returned the library book ten minutes ago, I'd quote the letters and speeches in which he praises slavery as an institution and public good.

I mean, by all means kick a Pres in the nuts whose term ends in secession and civil war but he lacks the creepiness of a Nixon nor has Nixon's frightening pretensions to be above the law.

I like his lazy eye.

This is not me speaking, but I thought the Carter administration was generally viewed as a dismal failure, outside of Camp David. Not just by Republicans, where Carter = Hoover as a scare word, but by Democrats too. They seem to prefer to give him as low a profile as possible at conventions.

Oddly enough, just read this from a The Nation article regarding the Koch Bros.

Koch glorifies Warren G. Harding and his successor Calvin Coolidge for producing “one of the most prosperous [eras] in U.S. history.” Koch explains that what made Harding great was his insistence on “cutting taxes, reducing the national debt and cutting the federal budget,” all policies that Congressional Republicans are proposing in today’s budget negotiations. What made Harding so great, in other words, is what made radical Republican candidates so great in November 2010.

Koch’s pick for worst president is Herbert Hoover, whom he accuses of undermining “economic freedom” and thus precipitating the Great Depression. “Under Hoover,” he writes, “federal spending roughly doubled and personal income tax rates jumped from 25 percent to 63 percent. He raised corporate taxes, too, and doubled the estate tax. Hoover also pressured business leaders to keep wages artificially high, contributing to massive unemployment.”

According to most historians, the Harding and Coolidge administrations’ free-market romp was one of the key factors that led to the Great Depression. Their time in office was marked by obscene corruption, racial violence, unionbusting, feudal wealth inequalities and, shortly thereafter, the total collapse of the American economy.

full story:
http://www.thenation.com/article/160062/big-brothers-thought-control-koch

I thought a bit about including Carter, clem. In the end I dismissed him as a mediocrity.

interesting how Hoover is being thrown to the wolves to distance Harding & Coolidge's proto-Tea Party economic platform from the Depression...

Buchanan - A lot like Hoover. Great diplomat in the worst possible place at the worst possible time. Had Fillmore been our 15th president or John Fremont, they'd be looked down upon just as harshly.

Grant - Could split hairs and say while he wasn't the worst president, he did have the worst presidential administration. Why Jackson and Eisenhower were able to serve adequate eight-year terms and not Grant is a little strange.

Harding - May be the first modern Republican. Pushed over the domino that led to the Great Depression and possibly WWII. At least he didn't finish his term.

Coolidge - This guy always reminded me of Bush Jr. The Indian headdress with the formal dress shoes. Thought the business of America was business and relegated farmers and factory workers as groups that would always suffer. Got out while the getting was good.

Hoover - The Libby Dole of the early 20th century. I see him more as a Jimmy Carter who was a good guy that got in way over his head.

Nixon - One of our most liberal presidents. Stained rep because he got caught. Never interred Japanese Americans or fired air traffic controllers. He was a war criminal, but not the worst.

Bush - I still can't believe this sniveling little daddy's boy got put into the Oval Office for two terms. At least one war entered on false pretenses. Complete botching of national security in letting 9/11 fly through the cracks and the aftermath of not getting anybody responsible. Also way in over his head. Was never a leader except for five minutes on a pile of rubble when anyone with a hardhat and a bullhorn could've been a hero that day. Petulantly stood by as an American city sank into the water. And don't let any of your Republican friends forget this: The economy went ass over backwards on HIS watch. The corporations all thrived on his deregulation and got their buy-outs with an act featuring his signature. I won't even get started on Guantanamo or the number of people he executed in Tejas.

Seriously, when I think about what man had the most disastrous effects on America, I think of George Walker Bush. At least I think he's aware of it.

and 9/11 might of been an inside job, so there's that

nixon is such a weird case, a completely miserably vicious paranoid creep, but at the same time dedicated to something like high ideals.

xp bzaaang

Never interred Japanese Americans

Terrible grave-digger, that Dick.

Ouch. No, that was more like Harry Truman.

Bush is gonna walk this isn't he? (I voted for him)

(in this poll, just to be clear...)

no william henry harrison?

LOL

'the pneumonia President'

but what a month it was

he should have died much earlier.

tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow

creeps in its petty, wait, actually, it's all over.

out, out, brief presidency!

Would have at least nominated reagan.

pfft that actor will never be able to lead a great nation

Rather disagree with most of Pleasant Plains' judgments, especially about John Fremont doing as bad a job as Buchanan, or that Harding "pushed over the domino" that led to the Great Depression. The Twenties as we know them didn't get started until the worldwide depression that started post-WWI faded in 1923, after which Warren G had left to the great cigar lounge in the sky.

Wilson was a far worse chief executive.

The wonder of Buchanan is that a man with his resume made so many terrible decisions. At least Fremont looked like an amateur in comparison!

I like that as a general, he freed slaves before he was supposed to, but something tells me that the Civil War would have started four years earlier, and with Fremont instead of Lincoln trying to hold things together.

J.D. otm on one of the president threads:

harding -- leaving aside the obvious corruption, he doesn't look too bad in this company. not only pardoned debs, but even invited him to the white house. my backhanded support for him is more due to annoyance with the lazy "harding, buchanan and grant were the worst presidents" routine trotted out by the kind of historians who laud wilson and truman.

U.S. Presidents - Early Twentieth Century Edition

J.D. bashing Woodrow Wilson on his C or D thread:

the worst president in history, worse than even W on every score, for all the reasons alfred mentions.

the federal reserve act, as robert la follette said, "legitimized the money trust it was supposed to destroy."

by far the worst blot on his record is the astonishingly extreme suppression of civil liberties during WWI. no president in history weakened the first amendment so much. karp makes the very good point that the main reason for them was that there simply was no good reason for the war; had people been able to criticize it publically, no one would have supported it. wilson's destruction of the progressive movement essentially ended (small-r) republican politics in america, paving the way for the national security state, mccarthyism, and the permanent institutionalizing of corrupt two-party rule. and his stupid blunders at versailles (clemenceau cracked that wilson seemed to believe he was jesus christ) paved the way for WW2.

also in that thread: Morbz calling him one of the great American fascists, far worse than McCarhty...

We all have something in common with Glenn Beck!

haha looks like i've said my piece already!

i was reading a collection of ernie bushmiller's "nancy" last night and discovered that one of bushmiller's pre-nancy strips was an untitled, dialogue-free strip starring...calvin coolidge!

Alice Roosevelt on Coolidge: he looked like he'd been "weaned on a pickle."

"you lose" was a good line tho

Reagan, a Coolidge fan, had his talent for the one-liner.

According to Ike Hoover, the White House valet for more than forty years, Coolidge was the meanest of the presidents, taken to playing cruel practical jokes on the Secret Service and domestic help.

Winston Churchill had more to do with the Great Depression than Warren Harding. it's true.

"you lose" was a good line tho

― mookieproof, Wednesday, April 20, 2011 6:14 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark

also gave birth to part of this classic SCTV bit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btnIRlBidQc

this is where I remind you that Alex Cockburn thinks Harding and Ford were the best 20th-century presidents.

another write-in for andrew johnson

seriously, fuck that dude

nixon by a country mile

I know next to nothing about the older guys. My head says Nixon, but my heart--yes, that's right--won't let me do it. So the doofus.

Forgetting Andrew Johnson is an embarrassing oversight – certainly the worst prez ever.

this is where I remind you that Alex Cockburn thinks Harding and Ford were the best 20th-century presidents.

Who's Dennis Perrin's pick?

I too feel the Andrew Johnson hate. He was President at a time when the country needed someone who would have followed Lincoln's trajectory, and instead you got that gobshite.

Nixon was a straight-up strung out petty criminal holding the highest office in the land - ordering B&E's, covering 'em up, bombing North Vietnam & thereby ensuring the continuing success of the DK regime in Cambodia: 1/4 of the Cambodian population, dead in 4 years, are pretty much on this dude's conscience

This is true but George W. = MORAN

That's a joke, right, Tom? You may be in for some grief there...

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

damn #2 with a bullet, good goin barry

By 1840, after three long years of economic stagnation, the sharpening reformist critique of capitalism as a social system that had marked the 1830s reached a crescendo. People of all kinds had come to understand the ongoing depression as a refutation of the system’s claim to legitimacy, for it clearly could not keep its promises of prosperity and stability. The Workingmen’s Party had been undercut and absorbed by the Democrats who limited themselves to antimonopoly legislation. The labor movement was in full retreat. And the now consolidated Whig Party shocked all observers by beating the Democrats at their own game. They channeled working-class desperation into the infamously cynical Log Cabin and Hard Cider Campaign. The campaign was the apotheosis of a trend Brownson had identified two years previously in the pages of the Boston Quarterly Review: “The Whig party, which, whether right or wrong, we have been in the habit of regarding as the legitimate heir of the old Federal Party, [ has ] challenged success on the ground of being more democratic than the democratic party itself.” The Whigs ran William Henry Harrison for president under specific orders not to speak about policy or political ideas. Instead, they staged mass rallies, barbecues, clambakes, and parades designed to do no more than proclaim the candidate’s populist roots and military heroism.

And that's why this country continues to be ruled by Whigs to this day.

the Whigs were fine when economic necessity conjoined with moral righteousness, i.e. slavery

"hard cider" always tastes so much better in my imaginings of historical crooked campaigns than when i actually head down to the corner and buy an Angry Orchard or w/e. someone should market an aggressively dry, throwback cider in the trappings of the 1840 election. "... And Cider Too!"

Hard cider was the drink of the impoverished ruralite. Apple trees were dead easy to grow. All one had to do was wait until autumn, pick the apples, including the windfall that was on the ground, press them and wait for natural fermentation to do the rest of the job. Alcohol has seldom been easier to come by than that.

a diversity of apples, either

still andrew johnson

Tbf, you're leaving out all the R&D and preparatory work undertaken by Johnny Appleseed.

in between being a rapey hobo

OK, apparently I either received a very faulty and poorly sourced education about the early 19th century US and its colorful figures, or I have a faulty memory of a perfectly acceptable American history education, but I swear at some point I learned that Johnny Appleseed fathered numerous bastards during his itinerant career, which apparently is not only probably completely untrue, I can't even find a snopes-style refutation of it.

no you're right, he spread his seeds all over

Everything I know about the guy came from this book right here:

http://i.imgur.com/yky0KCd.jpg

thought this was going to be about the thing in the nyt today on nixon sabotaging vietnam peace talks in 1968 to help his own election

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/31/opinion/sunday/nixons-vietnam-treachery.html

gerald ford, the wurst president

"Jerry Ford simply adored her; he even swore off his cherished martinis in solidarity. He called her "Mother" and "My Dear Wife." He once confided, "My dear wife is unhappy I'm having liverwurst for lunch today."

"There are fewer ruffles, fewer flourishes, less pomp and circumstance, here, but that's who Gerry Ford was. Many times, I've told one of my favorite stories about Gerald Ford walking into the fanciest French restaurant in Vail, Colorado, where he lived, and ordering liver and onions, breaking the heart of the chef. But that was Gerry Ford. He liked liverwurst sandwiches for lunch. "

Warren G. Harding hate should enjoy a revival during the DJT administration

Holy shit that dell post upthread

thought this was going to be about the thing in the nyt today on nixon sabotaging vietnam peace talks

Yeah, Alfred linked that over here: taking sides: lyndon baines johnson vs. richard milhous nixon

do we have any candidates for dumbest that could challenge the incumbent? harding?

i'd like to think that a dumb person in 1920 was dumber than a dumb person in 2020

Haring wasn't unlikable.

wait, where the fuck was Andrew Johnson?! He was dumb as rocks.

it'd be interesting to rerun this poll and see if anyone other than trump or W gets a vote

i'd like to think that a dumb person in 1920 was dumber than a dumb person in 2020

Why?

Rather disagree with most of Pleasant Plains' judgments, especially about John Fremont doing as bad a job as Buchanan, or that Harding "pushed over the domino" that led to the Great Depression. The Twenties as we know them didn't get started until the worldwide depression that started post-WWI faded in 1923, after which Warren G had left to the great cigar lounge in the sky.

Wilson was a far worse chief executive.

― My mom is all about capital gains tax butthurtedness (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, April 20, 2011 4:19 PM

Eight years later, and I should point out that this is otm. I still kinda think Frémont would've been in over his head, but probably nothing like Buchanan.

James Polk is an excellent example of what kind of effect a one-term president can have on the future of the United States. A lot like Bush Jr., he was a partisan stubborn fuck who demanded a war on whatever pretenses were needed. He appointed not one, but two Supreme Court justices who favored the rights of slaveholders. All that, and he was pretty much a lame duck for half of his presidency!

He wasn't a religious fanatic, at least. And the crazy-ass procedure he underwent as a teenager to remove some urinary stones, well, I might've later started a war with Mexico as well.

/i'd like to think that a dumb person in 1920 was dumber than a dumb person in 2020/

Why?

James Polk is an excellent example of what kind of effect a one-term president can have on the future of the United States. A lot like Bush Jr., he was a partisan stubborn fuck who demanded a war on whatever pretenses were needed. He appointed not one, but two Supreme Court justices who favored the rights of slaveholders. All that, and he was pretty much a lame duck for half of his presidency!

He wasn't a religious fanatic, at least. And the crazy-ass procedure he underwent as a teenager to remove some urinary stones, well, I might've later started a war with Mexico as well.

― pplains,

fortunately he died months after his term ended.

Yet historians still insist We Underrated Him. They still think there's an objective way of assessing presidents. By their standards, I'm not sure why Tyler isn't more revered. He made the most of his single term by pushing the Texas thing as far as it could and forever buried the notion that veeps are meaningless.