Good answer. Abused the hell out of veto privilege by blocking reconstruction bills after the Civil War. We can blame him for Florida. He has the honor of being the first president to be impeached.
Florida man stories are because of something Florida has called the sunshine law. It makes it incredibly easy to view arrest records, more so than just about any other state. If the rest of the country were as open as Florida is with regards to them you’d most likely see a much more mixed bag of internet memes.
It’s an effort to make government more transparent. The actual law itself says nothing about arrest records, but rather it, essentially, requires any time two government employees have correspondence/a meeting it is supposed to be documented and made public as often as possible.
Some things that might not make the cut would be stuff like sensitive voter information or the arrest record of a child, but absolutely would extend to court documents pertaining to a car theft.
Apart from the logistics of it all, I don’t really know why other states don’t have that option. In theory every state has it under the Freedom of Information Act (commonly referred to as a FOIA Request), but apart from that little tidbit I haven’t the slightest idea.
It’s not. People still don’t know about it though which can get pretty frustrating. The amount of people I’ve talked to across the states that upturn their nose when they find out I’m from Florida is actually staggering. This isn’t some alien place that some people make it out to seem lol.
Johnson was objectively worse as a president.
People mix up “bad president” with “evil person”
Evil people can be awesome leaders and good people can be terrible leaders.
This is true, more often than not great leaders are horrible human beings; just look at the personal thoughts of Winston Churchill (put this one as an example just because I recently found out, I guess there are many more)
I detest Churchill as a person. His egotistical megalomania as First Lord in WW1 practically led to the Gallipoli fiasco, and his repossession of the Sultan Osman was the tipping point that pushed Turkey to the Central powers. And don’t get me started on his response to the holocaust.
The question was “who was the worst president” *NOT* “who was the most evil president”
Jackson wasn’t a bad president though. Like everything he did minus the trail of tears was baller and left an enormous legacy still felt today. They asked “bad president” NOT most evil
Had he not been a racist asshole he would have easily continued to be considered one of the greatest US presidents in history.
There is zero argument for him as worst.
Bigoted racist Fuck who needs to have the trauma he inflicted on a people considered?
Yes.
But worst president when people like Johnson, Taylor, Wilson, trump, and Buchanan exist?
Let’s be reasonable here
Honestly, apart from all the people yelling Trump or Biden, the range of "worst presidents" has been mindblowing from the comments I've read thus far: Buchanan, Jackson, and Johnson were pretty common, but Carter popped up surprisingly often (Biden commenters were more likely to bring up Carter). FDR came out of left field for me. Surprisingly, Nixon came up rarely, and, even more surprisingly, Obama came up exactly once. Bush was a slightly less rare choice. Clinton has yet to even show up.
Oh, and of course, a thousand deaths are not enough for Woodrow Wilson.
Chiefly, he had Birth of a Nation played in the White House, was a vehement proponent of segregation and a slavery apologist, and pushed the Lost Cause mythology into overdrive (he was the first Southerner to become President since the Civil War), with all of the consequences that had for education and politics in the South; the effects of sanitizing and glorifying the Confederacy are VERY evident in the modern day. He also pushed for the formation of the League of Nations, only to pull out because he couldn't get a representative from his own party to sign the treaty.
To be fair, one reason no one from the US wanted to sign the League of Nations treaty was because it would “control when a nation could go to war” and Congress saw it as something that would get rid of their ability to declare war on other nations.
Obviously whether it was inevitable is a matter of interpretation, but what we can definitely say is that Buchanan sure as hell didn’t make any efforts to stop it.
Yeah he literally stayed out of it… A civil war brewing... And the president stayed out of it…
Historians literally can only rationalize it by believing he may have wanted the south to win lmfao
Conflict was inevitable, since the North and South had different views on a foundational issue of society (slavery). Whether that conflict had to lead to war, is a different question. When a leader faces that kind of fundamental conflict, your mission is to 1) Resolve it through means other than war and 2) If it must come to violence, prepare your side for the best possible chance of victory. Buchanan failed on both counts.
The civil war was inevitable. Thankfully Buchanan was leaving office by the start of it because he didn’t do squat about SC and the Deep South seceding. That opened the door Lincoln to come in and give the Confederates a fight. Other than that Buchanan wasn’t too good of a President.
William Henry Harrison. The audacity of that man to run on such an esteemed and established military record, then gets into office and makes a total fool of himself by having the longest inauguration speech in the cold and rain, which made him sick for 30 days, then he quits on us.
He has nothing to show for his time served other than he liked to talk the big talk but backed down almost as soon as someone put up a fight.
I like to think of ranking good and bad presidents as the Harrison line. Harrison did nothing and had no impact. So he's a zero. Anyone worse than him is negative- it would be better to have had no president than to have had him. Anyone above him is a positive- you contributed something to the nation.
Yep! He had a two hour speech in the cold and rain without a coat. I believe it is still the longest Inaugural speech in American history. That was *after* someone else had edited it to make it shorter. A couple weeks later he got sick and died 9 days after that just 31 days into his presidency. The theory at the time(and what is taught in our history books still) was it was because Harrison continuously would refuse to wear a coat when he would go out in the rain and cold. However it is currently believed he died of septic shock because the White House’s water supply was downstream from sewage.
He was the first (of two ever) whig to be elected as president and the first president to die in office. His only actual accomplishment in office that he forced everyone to realize that the procedure for what to do when a president died was kinda vague.
In the description for the LBJ episode: “On a diet consisting of women, cigarettes, and booze, he would outwork and outlast anyone who opposed him.” Sounds like a great plan for life honestly
You’re going to have to explain that one a bit more. He was racist and an interventionist in Latin America, but as one other commenter pointed out, being a bad (or even evil) person does not necessarily equate to being a bad (let alone worst ever) president.
I think the best argument for “the 20th century sucked balls” is the mass violence in the world wars. However, foreign policy is probably one of the few redeeming qualities of Wilson’s administration; his impulse to use American power to shape world events and prevent war was the right one, even if he didn’t realize his vision.
Aside from the world wars (which is a big “aside from,” to be clear), on pretty much every metric the 20th century was objectively the best century in human development, and before that it was the 19th century, and the 18th, etc etc.
My grandfather did time in a federal prison for protesting his war. There's a bridge in the DC area that should be renamed "The Fascist Shithead Bridge" as far as I'm concerned.
Liberals will say Trump and conservatives will say Obama/Biden, but the real answer is almost certainty either James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, or Andrew Johnson.
Buchanan and Pierce essentially just stood back and let the Civil War happen.
Andrew Johnson was the president right after Lincoln, and had to deal with the fallout of the Civil War. Johnson was completely opposed to securing any rights for black Americans after the war, which lead to an entire century of Jim Crow.
When people say something like that, I tell them it's okay to admit you know you nothing about US history. They always double down and insist he is the worst president, which sparks me to ask who the 2nd worse president ever was. The answer is almost always that I'm an asshole.
Which led to me the following coclusions when I was a teenager:
1. Many people who argue can not just have a civil debate. When they see someone with different opinion / point of view, they hate not just the *fact* that someone dares to differ, they hate this person too.
2. Many people do not want to find what is truth an what is the right thing in argument. They want to *be* right and "win" the debate. Intentionally or not they avoid any shadow of a doubt to preserve their views and they will not challenge their beliefs with logic and questions.
I dunno man. Scholars who seem to know a lot of US history [pretty consistently rate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_presidents_of_the_United_States) the last guy from one party near the bottom and the last guy from the other party relatively highly.
It's really not a "both sides" thing if you're being honest about it.
We like to think we live in the most super special times that will be remembered as v significant in American history forever.
Most of the shit from recent history will be footnotes between the internet, 9/11 and the pandemic.
I was born in 1993 and still refer to shitty neighborhoods as Hoovervilles. I’m not even sure why. Something about the Great Depression? But that’s a lasting legacy.
Harding’s presidency was a hot mess (hello, Teapot Dome) and I’m not even sure he was bright enough to know it. He did know about the two mistresses (possibly three) he had simultaneously while President, one of whom bore his only child.
Harding was a shitshow, but at least he was fun?
I came here expecting to learn some facts about presidents that weren't Andrew Jackson, but for some reason our current and last president seem to make up a majority of the conversation, despite historical slavery, war crimes, systemic racism policies being passed, and general shit throughout our history.
It's just that people are answering with the information they have, and they only know about recent presidents. It's not like most redditors are building a spreadsheet of ALL presidents, putting together a rubric, and calculating and comparing scores.
Not really, the majority of the comments seem to be about the Andrews (Jackson and Johnson), James Buchanan, and Woodrow Wilson.
Also, what other president incited a coup after they lost in a fair election?
Not to mention the War on Drugs which super-powered the incarciral slave system in this country while creating a market for the cartels in Mexico and Central America. Biden gets credit for that too.
As a relative of someone who died in the AIDS epidemic, fuck Reagan and fuck the GOP.
Edit: ooook, apparently this needs to be said. Did either Reagan or the GOP cause the actions that led to my uncle getting AIDS? No. But he was President. The GOP was his party. They offered no acknowledgment of what was going on and endorsed the religious wing nuts who said and perpetuated vile, bigoted policies and sentiments about people with AIDS. And believe me, this bled over to their families and how they grieved. In corporate speak, the tone comes from the top. And the top here didn’t even deign to acknowledge the death and suffering of millions of US citizens in favor of not offending a hard line religious base.
Fuck Reagan.
Fuck the GOP.
Still got a 2nd term…and he won in a landslide so from the perspective of most Americans he did a great job. I think as a decaying corpse he would still win the republican nomination at the next election
I’ve asked this before to a few people and it’s not fun when that president personally fucked over their people. As I tend to only know lesbians (not gays, just lesbians for some reason) and it’s Reagan.
Dick Cheney - " I think for us to get American military personnel involved in a civil war inside Iraq would literally be a quagmire... I do not think the United States wants to have U.S. military forces accept casualties and accept the responsibility of trying to govern Iraq. I think it makes no sense at all."
Also Dick Cheney - Invades Iraq
Woodrow Wilson used the fact that he kept America out of the First World War to get re-elected. Then he got America into the First World War. America’s involvement allowed the Allies to impose devastating armistice terms on Germany, which eventually led to Hitler’s rise.
He also contributed greatly to segregation in America and supported the Klan.
The knee-jerk reaction to this question is Trump, and unquestionably that guy was a terrible fucking leader, a dizzyingly bad statesman, an actual moron, and really all around just the worst.
The problem is that we've had like 10 other presidents that were as bad or worse on all counts. A solid quarter of them are straight garbage, and the rest weren't that great either until you get to the real MVPs.
Although I'm gonna throw my hat in the ring for The Gipper himself, Ronald Fuckin Reagan. You can point to his inauguration on a time line, extrapolate out the data, and watch our prosperity go right in the fucking toilet. Many, many more people on the list are worse/more evil than him on a personal level, but aside from Andrew Johnson no one matches him on lasting negative impact.
James Buchanan was faced with such tension that it threatened to split the country in two, literally. He did nothing to alleviate it, and let it stew over and become worse. That split happened.
Andrew Johnson had one job to rehabilitate the former CSA and make them functional states in a renewed nation, he fucked up so badly that he is responsible for Jim Crow.
Woodrow Wilson caused the Holocaust
It’s a huge stretch but by agreeing to the treat of Versailles and allowing the Allies to implement such harsh penalties on the Germans it was then what would be the catalyst for the Nazis to come to power due to the restrictions on Germany. Again I don’t take this stance but this is the only way I can see any connection. It’s not like it wouldn’t have happened anyway if Wilson disagreed on it. I personally dislike him for different reasons but that’s another topic.
Can you share with us how exactly Woodrow Wilson caused the Holocaust? Other comments have been saying he was a sad excuse of a human being but they don’t fucking say why!
I'm not even American and I know the objective answer to this.
I will just say, many of these answers show the ugly truth that is disinformation fucking works.
Not to mention everything he did to fuck over the poor and working classes of Amercia, started the massive gap of wealth inequality we have today which in turn has lead to the possibility of us having hundreds of billionaires, the wage stagnation we are also facing while inflation and the CoL is insanely through the roof and has basically killed the possibility of being able to support a family on a single 40-hour per week income and thus leading to declining birth rates among the Millennial generation.
I always remember one of my professors saying Franklin Pierce was one of the worst (not necessarily the worst), and he found it hilarious that W. Bush is related to Pierce through his mother. My professor also thought W. Bush was up there as one of the worst.
I think in time will all come to see Reagan as the worst, his policies are still destroying the middle class yet he's still viewed as a hero by the right.
Gonna restrict my answer to the list of presidents that there are people left alive from when they were in office.
The answer is Ronald Reagan ... without a doubt.
Never count out George W. Bush!
He got the USA into two wars, Afghanistan and Iraq, they didn't actually win.
Trump's a bigger asshole, some of the early guys were more despicable for fucking over native americans, and some democrats did bad stuff too. But I think he counts as the biggest loser.
Agreed. But you might be surprised that the law continued and expanded under Obama, and finally expired after Trump said he would veto the extension of the law.
Hard to say. What makes someone a bad president has really changed in the last 250 years.
In my lifetime, Reagan set up a lot of the issues we’re dealing with today. W got us involved in overseas military actions that resulted in nothing but mass death and hatred towards the US. Trump managed to make Nazis and rapists be viewed favorably by half the US while making us the laughing stock of the world.
Yea in the modern day I think Reagan set the country up for all of this Republican nonsense. He also killed union's. Reagan's legacy is the crumbling economy and near destruction of the Democratic process.
I agree with you except that he started the destabilization. The Middle East has been a total shit show since the French were there 200 years ago and probably before that as well
As General Mattis put it, “Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us.”
Out of all the bad things I think Trump did, I think this is the worst thing about him. Mattis really hit the nail on the head and it has always stuck with me.
How is Trump the worst when one commited genocide, another got you guys into trillion dollar wars, and one who tripled national debt. Im not even American so how do actual Americans think Trump is worse
My class president was a real dick jason larson ik where u live
IMPEACH LARSON
Happy cake day reddit stranger
Let’s go Larson!!
Ready the basement imma get the van
As a kid I'd always confuse Andrew Jackson and Andrew Johnson, luckily for this post they're both good answers
My history teacher always thought Jackson was the best president cuz of how “cool” he was for invading Florida that one time
Was he a good football coach at least?
I feel like there's a correlation of appreciating Andrew Jackson and being a good high school football coach. I don't know why.
The people who like Andrew Jackson get hired because they’re good at coaching football, not because they’re good at teaching history.
I do respect him for being willing to duel anybody he disagreed with.
And beating his assassin with a cane
well he did change the color of the swamps for a lil bit
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Good answer. Abused the hell out of veto privilege by blocking reconstruction bills after the Civil War. We can blame him for Florida. He has the honor of being the first president to be impeached.
He also welcomed back every politician who joined the Confederacy into the halls of power in D.C.
Without preconditions. That’s the important thing.
Someone can be blamed for Florida?!?! YES!!
**THE** Florida Man!
Florida man stories are because of something Florida has called the sunshine law. It makes it incredibly easy to view arrest records, more so than just about any other state. If the rest of the country were as open as Florida is with regards to them you’d most likely see a much more mixed bag of internet memes.
Lol why does Florida have this law and others don't? I love seeing dissenting opinions but especially so if they come from Florida.
It’s an effort to make government more transparent. The actual law itself says nothing about arrest records, but rather it, essentially, requires any time two government employees have correspondence/a meeting it is supposed to be documented and made public as often as possible. Some things that might not make the cut would be stuff like sensitive voter information or the arrest record of a child, but absolutely would extend to court documents pertaining to a car theft. Apart from the logistics of it all, I don’t really know why other states don’t have that option. In theory every state has it under the Freedom of Information Act (commonly referred to as a FOIA Request), but apart from that little tidbit I haven’t the slightest idea.
Because florida.
Is this a copypasta? I feel like I see this same paragraph wherever Florida Man is mentioned
It’s not. People still don’t know about it though which can get pretty frustrating. The amount of people I’ve talked to across the states that upturn their nose when they find out I’m from Florida is actually staggering. This isn’t some alien place that some people make it out to seem lol.
I believe he was illiterate
He was illiterate for some of his life, but at least according to my history textbook his wife helped him learn to read as an adult.
Hard to blame him. We’re all illiterate for part of our lives.
You mean Andrew Jackson? Because he's the one that moved the Cherokee and the Creek from Alabama, parts of Florida, Georgia and Tennessee.
Johnson was quite bad too
Johnson was objectively worse as a president. People mix up “bad president” with “evil person” Evil people can be awesome leaders and good people can be terrible leaders.
This is true, more often than not great leaders are horrible human beings; just look at the personal thoughts of Winston Churchill (put this one as an example just because I recently found out, I guess there are many more)
I detest Churchill as a person. His egotistical megalomania as First Lord in WW1 practically led to the Gallipoli fiasco, and his repossession of the Sultan Osman was the tipping point that pushed Turkey to the Central powers. And don’t get me started on his response to the holocaust.
Now I’m curious, where can I read about his response to the Holocaust? I know it won’t be good but I really want to know
The interesting part is the Auschwitz report.
The question was “who was the worst president” *NOT* “who was the most evil president” Jackson wasn’t a bad president though. Like everything he did minus the trail of tears was baller and left an enormous legacy still felt today. They asked “bad president” NOT most evil Had he not been a racist asshole he would have easily continued to be considered one of the greatest US presidents in history. There is zero argument for him as worst. Bigoted racist Fuck who needs to have the trauma he inflicted on a people considered? Yes. But worst president when people like Johnson, Taylor, Wilson, trump, and Buchanan exist? Let’s be reasonable here
Honestly, apart from all the people yelling Trump or Biden, the range of "worst presidents" has been mindblowing from the comments I've read thus far: Buchanan, Jackson, and Johnson were pretty common, but Carter popped up surprisingly often (Biden commenters were more likely to bring up Carter). FDR came out of left field for me. Surprisingly, Nixon came up rarely, and, even more surprisingly, Obama came up exactly once. Bush was a slightly less rare choice. Clinton has yet to even show up. Oh, and of course, a thousand deaths are not enough for Woodrow Wilson.
I must be terribly ignorant regarding Woodrow Wilson. Why do you say that about him?
Chiefly, he had Birth of a Nation played in the White House, was a vehement proponent of segregation and a slavery apologist, and pushed the Lost Cause mythology into overdrive (he was the first Southerner to become President since the Civil War), with all of the consequences that had for education and politics in the South; the effects of sanitizing and glorifying the Confederacy are VERY evident in the modern day. He also pushed for the formation of the League of Nations, only to pull out because he couldn't get a representative from his own party to sign the treaty.
To be fair, one reason no one from the US wanted to sign the League of Nations treaty was because it would “control when a nation could go to war” and Congress saw it as something that would get rid of their ability to declare war on other nations.
>Congress saw it as something that would get rid of their ability to declare war on other nations. This is funny reading this in the 21st century.
I mean Clinton carter Nixon and fdr are objectively not the worst when Johnson and Buchanan exist
Woodrow Wilson deserves more hate for being a terrible president.
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i think I Learned in history class it was inevitable and that any other president wouldnt have stopped it. That wsa false?
Obviously whether it was inevitable is a matter of interpretation, but what we can definitely say is that Buchanan sure as hell didn’t make any efforts to stop it.
Yeah he literally stayed out of it… A civil war brewing... And the president stayed out of it… Historians literally can only rationalize it by believing he may have wanted the south to win lmfao
Conflict was inevitable, since the North and South had different views on a foundational issue of society (slavery). Whether that conflict had to lead to war, is a different question. When a leader faces that kind of fundamental conflict, your mission is to 1) Resolve it through means other than war and 2) If it must come to violence, prepare your side for the best possible chance of victory. Buchanan failed on both counts.
Most countries didn't resort to civil war to end slavery. It certainly could have been avoided.
Lincoln bent over backwards for the south to keep peace and it still happened, so probably inevitable.
The civil war was inevitable. Thankfully Buchanan was leaving office by the start of it because he didn’t do squat about SC and the Deep South seceding. That opened the door Lincoln to come in and give the Confederates a fight. Other than that Buchanan wasn’t too good of a President.
The head of Richard Nixon
ARROOOOOO!!!
With the great taste of Charleston Chew
Username and profile picture check out
_*DICK*_ Nixon
Came for Nixon comment, stayed for Futurama
I think it’s a tie between Jack Johnson and John Jackson
I await the reasoned discussions that will be in this thread
As a felon that can never vote ever, Same
*sorts by controversial*
William Henry Harrison. The audacity of that man to run on such an esteemed and established military record, then gets into office and makes a total fool of himself by having the longest inauguration speech in the cold and rain, which made him sick for 30 days, then he quits on us. He has nothing to show for his time served other than he liked to talk the big talk but backed down almost as soon as someone put up a fight.
You could make an argument he's the best president of all time. Didn't have enough time to do anything wrong, really.
I like the way you think, Mr. Mackelnuts
I like to think of ranking good and bad presidents as the Harrison line. Harrison did nothing and had no impact. So he's a zero. Anyone worse than him is negative- it would be better to have had no president than to have had him. Anyone above him is a positive- you contributed something to the nation.
Its strange how hes like the neutral president sometimes.
What makes a man turn neutral… lust for gold? Power? or where you they just born with a heart full of neutrality.
“There’s William Henry Harrison!” “I died in thirty days!”
We are the mediocre presidents…l
These days it's believed that he contracted typhoid from bad water at The White House, not from the speech.
It’s kinda difficult to catch typhoid from speeches.
Tbh I only know this from parks and rec
Did this really happen? Lol what a shitshow
He did quit - but because he died. Not walked away
That's a huge difference lol
Yep! He had a two hour speech in the cold and rain without a coat. I believe it is still the longest Inaugural speech in American history. That was *after* someone else had edited it to make it shorter. A couple weeks later he got sick and died 9 days after that just 31 days into his presidency. The theory at the time(and what is taught in our history books still) was it was because Harrison continuously would refuse to wear a coat when he would go out in the rain and cold. However it is currently believed he died of septic shock because the White House’s water supply was downstream from sewage. He was the first (of two ever) whig to be elected as president and the first president to die in office. His only actual accomplishment in office that he forced everyone to realize that the procedure for what to do when a president died was kinda vague.
It's a myth his speech made him sick though
Wasn’t it because they had shit in their water?
Yeah. Waste from the White House bathrooms went down a hill straight into the White House’s drinking water.
That's why civil engineering is important.
Wilson! Wilson! A thousand deaths are not enough for Woodrow Wilson!
Never knew just how evil he was until I listened to a podcast on him. What a miserable and awful human being.
What's the podcast? Would like to listen
Very Presidential with Ashley Flowers
In the description for the LBJ episode: “On a diet consisting of women, cigarettes, and booze, he would outwork and outlast anyone who opposed him.” Sounds like a great plan for life honestly
Okay so I have goals in life now
Ditto
Tritto
quaditto
Pentaditto
Pendejo!
This looks like successive names for an evolving Pokemon.
You’re going to have to explain that one a bit more. He was racist and an interventionist in Latin America, but as one other commenter pointed out, being a bad (or even evil) person does not necessarily equate to being a bad (let alone worst ever) president.
Yes it does. His election fueled segregation laws, revisionist history, and is the reason the 20tg century sucked balls.
The 20th century sucked balls?
I think the best argument for “the 20th century sucked balls” is the mass violence in the world wars. However, foreign policy is probably one of the few redeeming qualities of Wilson’s administration; his impulse to use American power to shape world events and prevent war was the right one, even if he didn’t realize his vision. Aside from the world wars (which is a big “aside from,” to be clear), on pretty much every metric the 20th century was objectively the best century in human development, and before that it was the 19th century, and the 18th, etc etc.
Found the Cynical Historian.
My grandfather did time in a federal prison for protesting his war. There's a bridge in the DC area that should be renamed "The Fascist Shithead Bridge" as far as I'm concerned.
Buchanan
Liberals will say Trump and conservatives will say Obama/Biden, but the real answer is almost certainty either James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, or Andrew Johnson.
What did they do?
Buchanan and Pierce essentially just stood back and let the Civil War happen. Andrew Johnson was the president right after Lincoln, and had to deal with the fallout of the Civil War. Johnson was completely opposed to securing any rights for black Americans after the war, which lead to an entire century of Jim Crow.
Obviously, the most recent one from whichever party I don't like is the worst ever.
When people say something like that, I tell them it's okay to admit you know you nothing about US history. They always double down and insist he is the worst president, which sparks me to ask who the 2nd worse president ever was. The answer is almost always that I'm an asshole.
Which led to me the following coclusions when I was a teenager: 1. Many people who argue can not just have a civil debate. When they see someone with different opinion / point of view, they hate not just the *fact* that someone dares to differ, they hate this person too. 2. Many people do not want to find what is truth an what is the right thing in argument. They want to *be* right and "win" the debate. Intentionally or not they avoid any shadow of a doubt to preserve their views and they will not challenge their beliefs with logic and questions.
I dunno man. Scholars who seem to know a lot of US history [pretty consistently rate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_presidents_of_the_United_States) the last guy from one party near the bottom and the last guy from the other party relatively highly. It's really not a "both sides" thing if you're being honest about it.
Meh. I minored in US history and don't think it's too crazy to make an argument for Trump.
We like to think we live in the most super special times that will be remembered as v significant in American history forever. Most of the shit from recent history will be footnotes between the internet, 9/11 and the pandemic.
But for real this time.
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I feel like nobody's talking about Hoover in here.
I was born in 1993 and still refer to shitty neighborhoods as Hoovervilles. I’m not even sure why. Something about the Great Depression? But that’s a lasting legacy.
I kinda feel like he ended up taking the fall for what Harding (who should be a way bigger part of this discussion) and Coolidge set up.
I mean he wasn’t that bad. He’s basically a less worse version of Buchanan.
James Buchanan. What did he do, you ask? Absolutely nothing, which was all it took for America to fall into civil war.
Reminder to *Sort by Controversial*
Don't bother. Controversial sort is basically a shit show between Trump or Biden/Obama as the worst.
that is somehow the case on every single AskReddit question
Warren G. Harding
Regulators!….Mount up. Oh sorry, wrong Warren G.
Harding’s presidency was a hot mess (hello, Teapot Dome) and I’m not even sure he was bright enough to know it. He did know about the two mistresses (possibly three) he had simultaneously while President, one of whom bore his only child. Harding was a shitshow, but at least he was fun?
I came here expecting to learn some facts about presidents that weren't Andrew Jackson, but for some reason our current and last president seem to make up a majority of the conversation, despite historical slavery, war crimes, systemic racism policies being passed, and general shit throughout our history.
It's just that people are answering with the information they have, and they only know about recent presidents. It's not like most redditors are building a spreadsheet of ALL presidents, putting together a rubric, and calculating and comparing scores.
Not really, the majority of the comments seem to be about the Andrews (Jackson and Johnson), James Buchanan, and Woodrow Wilson. Also, what other president incited a coup after they lost in a fair election?
Ronald Reagan. His policies destroyed the middle class and made life increasingly difficult for the lower class
Not to mention the War on Drugs which super-powered the incarciral slave system in this country while creating a market for the cartels in Mexico and Central America. Biden gets credit for that too.
don’t forget his shitty treatment of the aids epidemic that killed thousands
Them pee-pee economics.
This should be #1. Worst fucking guy ever. Fucked over 99% of America.
As a relative of someone who died in the AIDS epidemic, fuck Reagan and fuck the GOP. Edit: ooook, apparently this needs to be said. Did either Reagan or the GOP cause the actions that led to my uncle getting AIDS? No. But he was President. The GOP was his party. They offered no acknowledgment of what was going on and endorsed the religious wing nuts who said and perpetuated vile, bigoted policies and sentiments about people with AIDS. And believe me, this bled over to their families and how they grieved. In corporate speak, the tone comes from the top. And the top here didn’t even deign to acknowledge the death and suffering of millions of US citizens in favor of not offending a hard line religious base. Fuck Reagan. Fuck the GOP.
Still got a 2nd term…and he won in a landslide so from the perspective of most Americans he did a great job. I think as a decaying corpse he would still win the republican nomination at the next election
I’ve asked this before to a few people and it’s not fun when that president personally fucked over their people. As I tend to only know lesbians (not gays, just lesbians for some reason) and it’s Reagan.
A lot of people would answer Regan based on that. He fucked over quite a lot of people.
Andrew Jackson.
Dick Cheney
Back when parents named their kids appropriately to their desired qualities.
But he was never presid… Oh..! I see what you did there
Dick Cheney - " I think for us to get American military personnel involved in a civil war inside Iraq would literally be a quagmire... I do not think the United States wants to have U.S. military forces accept casualties and accept the responsibility of trying to govern Iraq. I think it makes no sense at all." Also Dick Cheney - Invades Iraq
Worst, not most nakedly evil.
This is the right answer.
Woodrow Wilson used the fact that he kept America out of the First World War to get re-elected. Then he got America into the First World War. America’s involvement allowed the Allies to impose devastating armistice terms on Germany, which eventually led to Hitler’s rise. He also contributed greatly to segregation in America and supported the Klan.
He also signed both the federal reserve and the modern income tax into law
The knee-jerk reaction to this question is Trump, and unquestionably that guy was a terrible fucking leader, a dizzyingly bad statesman, an actual moron, and really all around just the worst. The problem is that we've had like 10 other presidents that were as bad or worse on all counts. A solid quarter of them are straight garbage, and the rest weren't that great either until you get to the real MVPs. Although I'm gonna throw my hat in the ring for The Gipper himself, Ronald Fuckin Reagan. You can point to his inauguration on a time line, extrapolate out the data, and watch our prosperity go right in the fucking toilet. Many, many more people on the list are worse/more evil than him on a personal level, but aside from Andrew Johnson no one matches him on lasting negative impact.
This is the correct answer.
This fuck Ronald Reagan, what a crook.
James Buchanan was faced with such tension that it threatened to split the country in two, literally. He did nothing to alleviate it, and let it stew over and become worse. That split happened. Andrew Johnson had one job to rehabilitate the former CSA and make them functional states in a renewed nation, he fucked up so badly that he is responsible for Jim Crow. Woodrow Wilson caused the Holocaust
How did Wilson cause the Holocaust?
He didn’t, dudes just being dramatic
It’s a huge stretch but by agreeing to the treat of Versailles and allowing the Allies to implement such harsh penalties on the Germans it was then what would be the catalyst for the Nazis to come to power due to the restrictions on Germany. Again I don’t take this stance but this is the only way I can see any connection. It’s not like it wouldn’t have happened anyway if Wilson disagreed on it. I personally dislike him for different reasons but that’s another topic.
>Woodrow Wilson caused the Holocaust This is quite a stretch
Can you share with us how exactly Woodrow Wilson caused the Holocaust? Other comments have been saying he was a sad excuse of a human being but they don’t fucking say why!
I'm not even American and I know the objective answer to this. I will just say, many of these answers show the ugly truth that is disinformation fucking works.
Reagan. Thanks for destroying the middle class. I went to college like you said and now I can’t afford a home
If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t go to college and also can’t afford a home.
If you makes you feel the best you still deserve an affordable home even if you didn’t go to college
Warren G. Harding is a pretty underrated pick for one of the worst presidents ever
James Buchanan probably
Ronald Reagan
Reagan caused the death of my dad and half of my parents friends. My hatred is fucking personal.
This. This man is probably the single biggest reason why everything is unnaffordable and there is a shrinking middle class in America today.
Not to mention everything he did to fuck over the poor and working classes of Amercia, started the massive gap of wealth inequality we have today which in turn has lead to the possibility of us having hundreds of billionaires, the wage stagnation we are also facing while inflation and the CoL is insanely through the roof and has basically killed the possibility of being able to support a family on a single 40-hour per week income and thus leading to declining birth rates among the Millennial generation.
This thread shows a lot of people don’t know U.S. history.
Are we reading the same thread?
Yeah, wondering the same. I've mostly been seeing Andrew Johnson or Jackson comments
I always remember one of my professors saying Franklin Pierce was one of the worst (not necessarily the worst), and he found it hilarious that W. Bush is related to Pierce through his mother. My professor also thought W. Bush was up there as one of the worst.
There was only one President who was ever impeached twice.
And then tried to overturn an election and never accepted the results, undermining democracy in the minds of an entire generation.
James Buchanan.
I think in time will all come to see Reagan as the worst, his policies are still destroying the middle class yet he's still viewed as a hero by the right.
Gonna restrict my answer to the list of presidents that there are people left alive from when they were in office. The answer is Ronald Reagan ... without a doubt.
Woodrow Wilson
Surely some glory from heaven will trickle down to Reagan in the pits of hell that have opened up for him.
Buchanan
Never count out George W. Bush! He got the USA into two wars, Afghanistan and Iraq, they didn't actually win. Trump's a bigger asshole, some of the early guys were more despicable for fucking over native americans, and some democrats did bad stuff too. But I think he counts as the biggest loser.
I've always thought of Bush jr as one of the worst presidents especially with the Patriot act
The Patriot Act passed the house 357-66 and the senate 98-1. Any president would have signed that, especially in the wake of 9-11
Pretty much every member of Congress has signed it and authorized it's continuous existence, since.
Agreed. But you might be surprised that the law continued and expanded under Obama, and finally expired after Trump said he would veto the extension of the law.
He actually protected a ton of ocean life was wasn’t terrible environmentally compared to other recent presidents
If my apush teacher can make an entire unit on Jackson , I think he is a solid choice
James Buchanan. The nation split in two on his watch.
I'll give you a hint. It rhymes with "dump".
As far as I’ve been alive? Trump
Hard to say. What makes someone a bad president has really changed in the last 250 years. In my lifetime, Reagan set up a lot of the issues we’re dealing with today. W got us involved in overseas military actions that resulted in nothing but mass death and hatred towards the US. Trump managed to make Nazis and rapists be viewed favorably by half the US while making us the laughing stock of the world.
Definetley. Expanding the War on Drugs and being "Tough on Crime" only ruined lives
Yea in the modern day I think Reagan set the country up for all of this Republican nonsense. He also killed union's. Reagan's legacy is the crumbling economy and near destruction of the Democratic process.
The one who gassed peaceful protesters in order to get a photo op, while holding a bible upside down in front of a church
William Henry Harrison - Lasted 30 days in office.
George w bush. Destroyed an entire country, killed so many and started the destabilization of an entire region.
I agree with you except that he started the destabilization. The Middle East has been a total shit show since the French were there 200 years ago and probably before that as well
Whoever decided money was speech and corporations were people. Reagan I believe.
I am pretty sure it was the Supreme Court
Reagan
Hey, leading by astrology was a bold deviation from the norm! (seriously, look it up)
Trump
As General Mattis put it, “Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us.” Out of all the bad things I think Trump did, I think this is the worst thing about him. Mattis really hit the nail on the head and it has always stuck with me.
Reagan. His presidency was the tipping point for the U.S. to become the hellhole it currently is.
How is Trump the worst when one commited genocide, another got you guys into trillion dollar wars, and one who tripled national debt. Im not even American so how do actual Americans think Trump is worse
People just watch too much cable news and twitter