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Worst US President?

Worst US President

  • Warren G. Harding

    Votes: 4 7.8%
  • Andrew Johnson

    Votes: 4 7.8%
  • James Buchanan

    Votes: 6 11.8%
  • Herbert Hoover

    Votes: 1 2.0%
  • Franklin Pierce

    Votes: 2 3.9%
  • Ulysses S. Grant

    Votes: 2 3.9%
  • Franklin Roosevelt

    Votes: 9 17.6%
  • Barack Obama

    Votes: 6 11.8%
  • George W. Bush

    Votes: 13 25.5%
  • Other

    Votes: 4 7.8%

  • Total voters
    51
And LMAO @ people calling FDR our worst president ever. He only got us through arguably the toughest back-to-back challenges this nation has EVER faced. But since they can only see history through their tinted lenses, they'll try to rewrite history. (And conveniently ignore the president before him who flatly refused to clean up the mess.)
 
I only took into consideration presidents that have served during my lifetime, Sorry I can't judge a president that I haven't lived under.

I have to go with George W.
 

Richard M. Nixon was missing, other. Not necsesaily the worst, but IMO deserving mention. :peace:peace

We have a poll for the best, which has mostly devolved into a thread about the worst president anyway.

My personal choice is Andrew Johnson, who massively screwed up Reconstruction and whose effects were worse than some other incompetent presidents around the time.

Options chosen from those who are traditionally seen as the worst presidents, along with some names mentioned by DP members in the other thread.
 

Richard M. Nixon was missing, other. Not necsesaily the worst, but IMO deserving mention. :peace:peace

Only 9 spots up there so not everyone could be listed, but it's not like people can't vote for the others if they want.
 
And LMAO @ people calling FDR our worst president ever. He only got us through arguably the toughest back-to-back challenges this nation has EVER faced. But since they can only see history through their tinted lenses, they'll try to rewrite history. (And conveniently ignore the president before him who flatly refused to clean up the mess.)
Coolidge should get the blame for allowing the Depression to develop. Hoover was incompetent to handle something he didn't cause himself, much like Obama.
 
Harding was the worst... Buchanan a strong 2nd.

I have no idea what metric one would use to declare Bush, FDR, or Obama as the worst.
 
And LMAO @ people calling FDR our worst president ever. He only got us through arguably the toughest back-to-back challenges this nation has EVER faced. But since they can only see history through their tinted lenses, they'll try to rewrite history. (And conveniently ignore the president before him who flatly refused to clean up the mess.)

He used a crisis to destroy constitutional limits on the federal government that infect this nation to this day
 
Harding was the worst... Buchanan a strong 2nd.

I have no idea what metric one would use to declare Bush, FDR, or Obama as the worst.

FDR was not a bad president in terms of getting stuff done-in fact he was an excellent president in achieving his goals. Sadly his goals were incredibly deleterious to the concept of a federal system where the states and the federal government were semi-equal partners and the federal government only had the powers specifically delegated to it

So FDR is far different than incompetent people like Harding or Grant or Carter. HE was not corrupt like Harding, or Grant's administration. But like Wilson before him-he demanded that the constitution be mutated, tortured, mutilated and mashed in order to get his agenda passed.
 
FDR was not a bad president in terms of getting stuff done-in fact he was an excellent president in achieving his goals. Sadly his goals were incredibly deleterious to the concept of a federal system where the states and the federal government were semi-equal partners and the federal government only had the powers specifically delegated to it

So FDR is far different than incompetent people like Harding or Grant or Carter. HE was not corrupt like Harding, or Grant's administration. But like Wilson before him-he demanded that the constitution be mutated, tortured, mutilated and mashed in order to get his agenda passed.

he is still very highly ranked among liberals and conservatives alike ( for different reasons , of course)

I'm no fan of FDR by a long shot... but he doesn't deserve to be on a "worst" list.

Buchanan and Harding are ranked as worst on nearly every academic ranking i've ever read..<shrugs>
Obama and Bush are nowhere near being the worst either...
 
he is still very highly ranked among liberals and conservatives alike ( for different reasons , of course)

I'm no fan of FDR by a long shot... but he doesn't deserve to be on a "worst" list.

Buchanan and Harding are ranked as worst on nearly every academic ranking i've ever read..<shrugs>
Obama and Bush are nowhere near being the worst either...

It all depends how you depict worst-whch is why I noted he is very different than real failures like Harding or carter
 
FDR was not a bad president in terms of getting stuff done-in fact he was an excellent president in achieving his goals. Sadly his goals were incredibly deleterious to the concept of a federal system where the states and the federal government were semi-equal partners and the federal government only had the powers specifically delegated to it

So FDR is far different than incompetent people like Harding or Grant or Carter. HE was not corrupt like Harding, or Grant's administration. But like Wilson before him-he demanded that the constitution be mutated, tortured, mutilated and mashed in order to get his agenda passed.

More to the point, I think, is that he succeeded in effectively overturning large portions of the limits that the Constitution intended to place on the federal government, allowing the federal government to grow far outside of its legitimate role. And what he started then has continued ever since then; as our federal government has grown more and more out of control.


It all depends how you depict worst-whch is why I noted he is very different than real failures like Harding or carter

I think it's fair to say that FDR's “success” did much, much, much more harm to this country than did these other presidents' failures.
 
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More to the point, I think, is that he succeeded in effectively overturning large portions of the limits that the Constitution intended to place on the federal government, allowing the federal government to grow far outside of its legitimate role. And what he started then has continued ever since then; as our federal government has grown more and more out of control.

He introduced a mass of cancer cells and the malignancy has never looked back
 
I voted for FDR. Perhaps if he were older, and his actions were not so recent, I wouldn't think so.

And LMAO @ people calling FDR our worst president ever. He only got us through arguably the toughest back-to-back challenges this nation has EVER faced. But since they can only see history through their tinted lenses, they'll try to rewrite history. (And conveniently ignore the president before him who flatly refused to clean up the mess.)

Weird; I had always learned that Hoover had instituted tons of public programs and tripled the top income bracket tax rates to try to combat the great depression. I guess most people ignore Hoover because he was not as famous as FDR, but nonetheless, he certainty tried SOMETHING, the same something a lot of people suggest we try now.
 
+1 FDR for ruining the nation and throwing American citizens into concentration camps by executive order.
 
+1 FDR for ruining the nation and throwing American citizens into concentration camps by executive order.

I certainly agree about the Japanese internment camps.

But ruining the nation? Are you kidding me? He won WW2. He took us out of the Great Depression. Virtually every highway in the country today was built during FDR's administration. He extended electricity to large parts of the country that didn't have it before. He established the foundations of the regulation of wall street...

During his administration we went from being a second world country teetering down towards third world status and occupation by the Nazis to being perhaps the greatest economic and military powerhouse the world has ever seen. To describe that as ruining the country is so far beyond absurd that I don't even know what to say to it. It's totally insane to claim that. Abjectly disconnected from reality.
 
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I certainly agree about the Japanese internment camps.

But ruining the nation? Are you kidding me? He won WW2. He took us out of the Great Depression. Virtually every highway in the country today was built during FDR's administration. He extended electricity to large parts of the country that didn't have it before. He established the foundations of the regulation of wall street...

During his administration we went from being a second world country teetering down towards third world status and occupation by the Nazis to being perhaps the greatest economic and military powerhouse the world has ever seen. To describe that as ruining the country is so far beyond absurd that I don't even know what to say to it. It's totally insane to claim that. Abjectly disconnected from reality.


He didn't win WWII - that was Truman. And creating the REA (Rural Electrification Administration) also set us on course for the energy hole we're in today. Not to mention it was a model of the government program, created for a specific purpose, that sticks around eating tax payer money long after that purpose has been served. You know, the REA would come into town and talk the farmers into going on delivered electricity - all they had to do was to sign away their rights to ever self-generate. That's where I got my first wind turbine and 12/24/36 volt appliances - from an old barn in Missouri (there since the family had signed off to the REA).

And the highway system - that was Ike. We were not a second world country spiraling down, and despite the propoganda of the time there was never any danger of the germans taking the US proper. Hell they couldn't even take Russia.

Finally, the Great Depression. We were headed out of that as it was. FDR's initiatives may have helped, but again they may have also artificially delayed the recovery a bit too. Depends upon whose economic theories you buy into.

It's like the Reagan presidency. Many lionize him, but they ignore the things about Reagan that the anti-Reagan folks rightfully bring up. The truth is somewhere in the middle. A great deal of a president's legacy is how people FEEL about him. We ignore the bad and the flaky stuff when we 'like' what we think we know of the guy.
 
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I certainly agree about the Japanese internment camps.

But ruining the nation? Are you kidding me? He won WW2. He took us out of the Great Depression. Virtually every highway in the country today was built during FDR's administration. He extended electricity to large parts of the country that didn't have it before. He established the foundations of the regulation of wall street...

During his administration we went from being a second world country teetering down towards third world status and occupation by the Nazis to being perhaps the greatest economic and military powerhouse the world has ever seen. To describe that as ruining the country is so far beyond absurd that I don't even know what to say to it. It's totally insane to claim that. Abjectly disconnected from reality.
Second world? Hardly. After WWI, the United States was always among the top five Great Powers.

After September of 1940, a Nazi invasion of the United Kingdom would have been insanely idiotic, let alone one of the United States. I don't know where you're getting that idea from.

To back up your claims of FDR omnipotence (winning WWII, saving us from the Depression...), you'd have to establish causation, not just correlation. You really haven't done that.
 
He didn't win WWII - that was Truman.

Absolutely false. The Nazis surrendered unconditionally less than one month after the end of FDR's presidency. Berlin fell just a few days after the end of FDR's term.

And creating the REA (Rural Electrification Administration) also set us on course for the energy hole we're in today. Not to mention it was a model of the government program, created for a specific purpose, that sticks around eating tax payer money long after that purpose has been served. You know, the REA would come into town and talk the farmers into going on delivered electricity - all they had to do was to sign away their rights to ever self-generate. That's where I got my first wind turbine and 12/24/36 volt appliances - from an old barn in Missouri (there since the family had signed off to the REA).

I understand that your theories would lead you to believe that his approach would not have worked. But in fact it did. Large portions of the country didn't have electricity before and now they do.

We were not a second world country spiraling down, and despite the propoganda of the time there was never any danger of the germans taking the US proper. Hell they couldn't even take Russia.

We had widespread famine, here in the United States, in the early 30s. Estimates are that over 1 million Americans starved to death in that period. We lost roughly 30% of our entire GDP in just three years. How you can not consider that a second world country in a spiral totally baffles me.

Finally, the Great Depression. We were headed out of that as it was. FDR's initiatives may have helped, but again they may have also artificially delayed the recovery a bit too. Depends upon whose economic theories you buy into.

The lowest point our GDP hit was the last quarter of 1932. FDR took office in the first quarter of 1933.

Theories are nice and all, but when they consistently fail to align with what happens in reality, they need to be discarded. Were you aware, for example, that even excluding FDR's spectacular results, the economy has grown by 2.78% on average ever since then when we've had Democratic presidents, but only 1.64% when we've had Republican presidents? Almost all Democrats have outperformed almost all Republicans.

It's like the Reagan presidency. Many lionize him, but they ignore the things about Reagan that the anti-Reagan folks rightfully bring up. The truth is somewhere in the middle. A great deal of a president's legacy is how people FEEL about him. We ignore the bad and the flaky stuff when we 'like' what we think we know of the guy.

That's fair enough to be sure. Certainly there are some things about FDR that I don't approve of, and certainly his accomplishments can get inflated. But to say that he ruined the country?! That's just ridiculous. There is no president in modern history that has a stronger claim to bigger accomplishments than FDR does.
 
Second world? Hardly. After WWI, the United States was always among the top five Great Powers.

After WW1 we were seventh for troop strength, which was a better measure of military strength then than it is today. After WW2, we were the most powerful country in the world militarily and economically.

To back up your claims of FDR omnipotence (winning WWII, saving us from the Depression...), you'd have to establish causation, not just correlation. You really haven't done that.

No, I am contesting JayDubya's ludicrous claim that FDR "ruined the country". His claim cannot possibly stand if the country in fact radically improved during that time period. Even if FDR had nothing to do with that improvement, JayDubya is still 100% wrong. And, of course, in reality, FDR played a massive role in that improvement. He instituted many massive efforts to make exactly those improvements which took place. He reshaped the country and the world. His presidency is generally considered the beginning of modernity itself. I get that that is a tough fact for libertarians to grapple with and that you guys want really badly to believe it wasn't so, but it happened.
 
Those who voted for FDR, Bush or Obama are either hacks or ignorant of US history.
 
I certainly agree about the Japanese internment camps.

But ruining the nation? Are you kidding me? He won WW2. He took us out of the Great Depression. Virtually every highway in the country today was built during FDR's administration. He extended electricity to large parts of the country that didn't have it before. He established the foundations of the regulation of wall street...

During his administration we went from being a second world country teetering down towards third world status and occupation by the Nazis to being perhaps the greatest economic and military powerhouse the world has ever seen. To describe that as ruining the country is so far beyond absurd that I don't even know what to say to it. It's totally insane to claim that. Abjectly disconnected from reality.

This. A thousand times this. One would think that if conservatives couldn't give him credit for pulling us out of the Great Depression, at least they could give him credit for his leadership throughout most of WWII.
 
And the highway system - that was Ike.

That was the Interstate highway system. The US highway system came well before that.
 
Absolutely false. The Nazis surrendered unconditionally less than one month after the end of FDR's presidency. Berlin fell just a few days after the end of FDR's term.

Hate to break it to you, but the Nazis weren't the only AXIS power we were fighting in WWII. The Japanese didn't surrender until Truman dropped the bombs. After FDr was dead and buried.

I understand that your theories would lead you to believe that his approach would not have worked. But in fact it did. Large portions of the country didn't have electricity before and now they do.

Don't know much about The REA or those times do ya? Those areas DID have electricity, and it was speading. But it wasn't centralized (a big word, much sought after back then, the politicians loved it like they love "green" now - sometime we'll have to discuss how Stalin, with help from GE, used that to rule Russia). The thing was, their electricity was self generated (typically by wind turbine, though there was some small hydro). They used DC (12/24/26 volt appliances). The REA made them give that up - for life.

America was electrifying on it's own already. The REA helped to centralize that and put it under central control. A good deal for the farmers, because they got a wire dropped to them and juice for years for free. Their children however, became slaves to the utility companies and no longer knew how to generate their own.

We had widespread famine, here in the United States, in the early 30s. Estimates are that over 1 million Americans starved to death in that period. We lost roughly 30% of our entire GDP in just three years. How you can not consider that a second world country in a spiral totally baffles me.

You really need to took into some history courses. Never heard of the Dust Bowl? There's alot of whys and wherefores about the Dust Bowl that might surprise you. Like why the farmers were growing there to begin with, and how the water problem was solved.

The lowest point our GDP hit was the last quarter of 1932. FDR took office in the first quarter of 1933.

As America was on it's way back up. Again, there are citations that his programs helped that recovery, just as there are citations that they slowed that recovery.

Theories are nice and all, but when they consistently fail to align with what happens in reality, they need to be discarded. Were you aware, for example, that even excluding FDR's spectacular results, the economy has grown by 2.78% on average ever since then when we've had Democratic presidents, but only 1.64% when we've had Republican presidents? Almost all Democrats have outperformed almost all Republicans.

That shows a total lack of how the American system of government works. That's like the old rapist nun correlation (Statistics 101), where the rise in rapes matched the increase in new nuns for the same area. It's a false correlation. Presidents propose, Congress enacts.

That's fair enough to be sure. Certainly there are some things about FDR that I don't approve of, and certainly his accomplishments can get inflated. But to say that he ruined the country?! That's just ridiculous. There is no president in modern history that has a stronger claim to bigger accomplishments than FDR does.

I disagree with that last. I think Ike did far more for the country than FDR. But I don't think FDR "ruined the country". He changed it, that's for sure. Not all of those changes were good and we're sufferring from some of them today. Some of his changes were good.

He created and enabled the forerunner of the dirty tricks CIA and was all in on that. Was that a good thing?
 
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Hate to break it to you, but the Nazis weren't the only AXIS power we were fighting in WWII. The Japanese didn't surrender until Truman dropped the bombs. After FDr was dead and buried.

But are you honestly saying that you think that therefore Truman gets more credit than FDR? That's absurd. FDR won the war. Truman cleaned up the leftovers.

That shows a total lack of how the American system of government works. That's like the old rapist nun correlation (Statistics 101), where the rise in rapes matched the increase in new nuns for the same area. It's a false correlation. Presidents propose, Congress enacts.

Not really. The president's agenda has a massive impact on the legislative direction. FDR pushed through tons and tons of major legislation. Most presidents do. The congress knows the president can veto, and its pretty rare that congress can override a veto, and the president has the ear of the nation in a way congress does not. So the Congress knows it needs to play ball.

And also, not everything is legislative. How the law is administered is also a huge deal. Commerce, the FTC, the FDA, the SEC, the EPA, etc, all have a massive economic impact and they are under the direction of the president.

I mean, really, are you going to contend that it is just a super huge coincidence that the economy has so consistently and dramatically performed so much better under Democratic presidents? If it were just a sample of one or two, sure, that could just be a coincidence... But we're talking about all of modern US history.
 
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