Who Are The Five Worst Presidents In American History?

[PoliticalChic]

T is a former president not 'the' President now. Your tears of anguish will water the taste buds of the victors.

The term President always applies to one who had been elected so. You didn't know that????

 

[PoliticalChic]

I think we have to look at both the short term and long term results/consequences of each Presidency.

How much did Teddy Roosevelt help or harm American progress by interpreting the Constitution that government could do anything it was not specifically forbidden to do? That is effectively what started the initially small entitlement ball rolling downhill. He had such high approval ratings nobody dared challenge him and he did some good things but he was the first to seriously turn the Constitution on its head.

FDR was similarly popular with the people and therefore got away with a lot because of that. But who can question his escalation of entitlement programs gave that snowball a huge push until it has become the unknowable, unmanageable, unaffordable, unbreakable albatross around the necks of the American people today?

How many soldiers and civilians were needlessly killed with nothing to show for it when LBJ escalated the Vietnam war? America (and nobody else) benefitted in any way from that war other than the military industrial complex and nothing was accomplished but losing a lot of blood and treasure. Did the very real benefits of the 1964 Civil Rights Act outweigh the negative consequences? How about Medicaid and Medicare that he signed into law that have become among those unmanageable programs that do harm as well as good.? That one would make a good debate.

How much did Nixon help or harm American progress by signing the EPA into law?

How much did Carter help or harm American education by establishing the Department of Education?

How much did George W. Bush help or harm American education with his Common Core initiative?

Obama was the first to seriously weaponize government against political opponents and citizens who displeased him. Biden (or whoever is running Biden) has doubled downed on that. And both, while perhaps they didn't think it up as policy, pushed the flood gates open for a divided American we have not had to experienced since the Civil War era.

All these things and many many more should factor into the legacy of various Presidents over the centuries. How they were judged in doing their jobs may or may not have far reaching and lasting or irreversible consequences, good or bad. They should be judged on whether they made American more of what it was intended to be or whether American is significantly worse for them being here.

So I would have to think long and hard about my list. I have settled on a top five worst yet. I'm pretty sure ObGama and Biden will be on it, but will have to think about the others some moire.

God Bless you, Foxy......few recognize that Teddy was far from a conservative.

1. “Teddy Roosevelt, in his “New Nationalism” speech” rightly maintains that every man holds his property subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it.” New Nationalism Speech by Theodore Roosevelt.
2. 
   
3. bMore from the same speech, 'The New Nationalism,' 1910: “We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well used. It is not even enough that it should have been gained without doing damage to the community. We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community.

c. And his view of the Constitution? ‘Well known is TR's outburst, when told the Constitution did not permit the confiscation of private property: "To hell with the Constitution when the people want coal!" Less well known is that at one point TR summoned General John M. Schofield, instructing him: "I bid you pay no heed to any other authority, no heed to a writ from a judge, or anything else except my commands."’ 33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask. By Thomas E. Woods, Jr. (p. 139) see 33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask, by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. | Mises Institute

 

[forkintheroad7]

My favorite…the nexus of politics and history! And in today’s listicle, the work of one of the most astute and eruite intellects, Ben Shapiro. I came upon his piece of that title, Five Worst Presidents, and just had to share it!

The fifth worst President was Jimmy Carter, who did amazingly good job of damaging America given that he only lasted four years.

• Stagflation- high levels of inflation and stagnation.
• Huge unemployment rates
• Gasoline lines
• The Iranian Revolution and the Hostage Crisis
• Said he would reverse our “inordinate fear of communism,” followed by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
• After his presidency he hung out with Hamas, and wrote speeches for Yasir Arafat
• Brokered the North Korean deal that led to North Korea having nuclear weapons

That was from Ben, but let me add Carter’s lie about being a nuclear scientist.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out Carter’s party…..the Democrats.

And be sure to pay attention to the party affiliation of each of the next four Worst Presidents.

Carter hung out w/ Hamas?

I didn't know that. Well, he's 99 years old now...

 

[John Edgar Slow Horses]

The term President always applies to one who had been elected so. You didn't know that????

You did not know that former presidents are not accorded the same privilege of recognition in print to the current President.

You are now quarreling sillily to quarrel sillily, so you are on my ignore in this thread until I decide differently.

 

[forkintheroad7]

My list (sorry it is not in order... 5 is least problematic, #1 is most problematic)

2. LBJ
4. Carter
3. Obama
1. The One Who Erased Our Borders/calls himself Catholic but is FAR FROM it... etc.. etc... etc...
5. FDR

 

[Foxfyre]

God Bless you, Foxy......few recognize that Teddy was far from a conservative.

1. “Teddy Roosevelt, in his “New Nationalism” speech” rightly maintains that every man holds his property subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it.” New Nationalism Speech by Theodore Roosevelt.
2. 
   
3. bMore from the same speech, 'The New Nationalism,' 1910: “We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well used. It is not even enough that it should have been gained without doing damage to the community. We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community.

c. And his view of the Constitution? ‘Well known is TR's outburst, when told the Constitution did not permit the confiscation of private property: "To hell with the Constitution when the people want coal!" Less well known is that at one point TR summoned General John M. Schofield, instructing him: "I bid you pay no heed to any other authority, no heed to a writ from a judge, or anything else except my commands."’ 33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask. By Thomas E. Woods, Jr. (p. 139) see 33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask, by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. | Mises Institute

Even the revered Abraham Lincoln had his issues with long ranging consequences. Instead of leading on working with the grievances of the South and working out some compromises, he exacerbated the situation so that the South chose to secede rather than continue to live under the thumb of what they considered an oppressive and predatory northern states and government. Lincoln was philosophically opposed to slavery as were most southerners, but he had no intention of freeing the slaves when the Congress had no such intention. He felt forced into freeing the slaves when the South seceded and then only freed those in the seceding states. He did not free those in the northern states that did not secede.

And he had no love for the Negro nor saw it beneficial to integrate them into American society. His thought was to round them all up and send them to Liberia or some such.

He is credited with freeing the slaves and preserving the Republic when in truth the history is a bit more sketchy than that. I don't fault him. He was a product of his time and his culture. But I do believe in keeping history honest just as we agree on Teddy Roosevelt. Both did good things. And both did some bad things with far reaching consequences.

 

[Leviticus]

While I think Obama was pretty bad, GWB gets my node as the worst.

That bastard ignited the deficit and we are paying the price.

The deficit would have happened anyway. The surplus under Clinton was because of the dot com bubble.

Bush did make it worse though.

 

[forkintheroad7]

FDR was probably the one who most loved big govt.. (aside from the last 2 D presidents, that is)

Thankfully, a lot of his alphabet soup agencies were ditched but today, no one wants to ditch any of them

So somewhere along the line, people got comfortable with all these govt agencies butting into Americans' business
and telling us how to do every damn little thing

 

[PoliticalChic]

The deficit would have happened anyway. The surplus under Clinton was because of the dot com bubble.

Bush did make it worse though.

Thank you, but point of clarification: The Clinton Surplus was simply one more Democrat lie.
There was no surplus.
Let me prove it:

While not defending the increase of the federal debt under President Bush, it's curious to see Clinton's record promoted as having generated a surplus. It never happened. There was never a surplus and the facts support that position. In fact, far from a $360 billion reduction in the national debt in FY1998-FY2000, there was an increase of $281 billion.

Verifying this is as simple as accessing the U.S. Treasury (see note about this link below) website where the national debt is updated daily and a history of the debt since January 1993 can be obtained. Considering the government's fiscal year ends on the last day of September each year, and considering Clinton's budget proposal in 1993 took effect in October 1993 and concluded September 1994 (FY1994), here's the national debt at the end of each year of Clinton Budgets:
Fiscal
Year Year
Ending National Debt Deficit
FY1993 09/30/1993 $4.411488 trillion
FY1994 09/30/1994 $4.692749 trillion $281.26 billion
FY1995 09/29/1995 $4.973982 trillion $281.23 billion
FY1996 09/30/1996 $5.224810 trillion $250.83 billion
FY1997 09/30/1997 $5.413146 trillion $188.34 billion
FY1998 09/30/1998 $5.526193 trillion $113.05 billion
FY1999 09/30/1999 $5.656270 trillion $130.08 billion
FY2000 09/29/2000 $5.674178 trillion $17.91 billion
FY2001 09/28/2001 $5.807463 trillion $133.29 billion


As can clearly be seen, in no year did the national debt go down, nor did Clinton leave President Bush with a surplus that Bush subsequently turned into a deficit. Yes, the deficit was almost eliminated in FY2000 (ending in September 2000 with a deficit of "only" $17.9 billion), but it never reached zero--let alone a positive surplus number. And Clinton's last budget proposal for FY2001, which ended in September 2001, generated a $133.29 billion deficit. The growing deficits started in the year of the last Clinton budget, not in the first year of the Bush administration.

Understanding what happened requires understanding two concepts of what makes up the national debt. The national debt is made up of public debt and intragovernmental holdings. The public debt is debt held by the public, normally including things such as treasury bills, savings bonds, and other instruments the public can purchase from the government. Intragovernmental holdings, on the other hand, is when the government borrows money from itself--mostly borrowing money from social security.

When it is claimed that Clinton paid down the national debt, that is patently false--as can be seen, the national debt went up every single year. What Clinton did do was pay down the public debt--

But he paid down the public debt by borrowing far more money in the form of intragovernmental holdings (mostly Social Security).Update 3/31/2009: The following quote from an article at CBS confirms my explanation of the Myth of the Clinton Surplus, and the entire article essentially substantiates what I wrote.

"Over the past 25 years, the government has gotten used to the fact that Social Security is providing free money to make the rest of the deficit look smaller," said Andrew Biggs, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute."

Read the whole article at
The Myth of the Clinton Surplus

 

[PoliticalChic]

FDR was probably the one who most loved big govt.. (aside from the last 2 D presidents, that is)

Thankfully, a lot of his alphabet soup agencies were ditched but today, no one wants to ditch any of them

So somewhere along the line, people got comfortable with all these govt agencies butting into Americans' business
and telling us how to do every damn little thing

....and he was a small minded bigot who hated capitalism and successful individuals. And not much of an intellect, either.
But a dedicated follower of Stalin.
True story.

 

[forkintheroad7]

....and he was a small minded bigot who hated capitalism and successful individuals. And not much of an intellect, either.
But a dedicated follower of Stalin.
True story.

I knew he negotiated w/ Stalin but I didn't know he followed him

I did suspect and still do that there is much we do not know about this and many other world events, past and present

 

[PoliticalChic]

I knew he negotiated w/ Stalin but I didn't know he followed him

I did suspect and still do that there is much we do not know about this and many other world events, past and present

Two examples:
1. Stalin demanded that the Allies attack Europe the furthest west possible so the Red Army could control at least half of Europe at wars end. Through Italy was Eisenhower's first plan, until FDR offered him another star to choose Normandy.
2. Stalin would not allow FDR to accept a negotiated surrender of Germany, only unconditional surrender....

It's a tale of two Presidents.


Roosevelt promulgated the Morgenthau Plan per Stalin's instructions.

Truman, the Marshall Plan.


While Hitler was useful to Stalin early on, they were allies, the endgame required that his brand of socialism, national socialism....based on nationalism and/or race...had to be removed as an impediment to Stalin's conquest of Europe, and then further.
Stalin's policy was simple: the result of the war had to leave Germany a smoldering wreckage, with no ability to resist Stalin's forces. This was the basis of the Morgenthau Plan.

The Morgenthau Plan calling for total annihilation of Germany, and 'unconditional surrender'.......



Of course, Stalin didn't care about how many Russians were killed- most of the Russians who died were killed by Stalin himself....and certainly not about the numbers of American soldiers..
...but shouldn't Roosevelt have had a concern?


Once the Morgenthau Plan for 'unconditional surrender' was announced, [Stalin's spy] Harry Dexter White's plan to pastoralize, pulverize, Germany....destroy all German science, industry, technology as well as everything else...it provided high-octane propaganda for the Nazis.


Thomas Dewey stated this:
"Almost overnight, the morale of the German people seemed wholly changed....Now they are fighting with a frenzy of despair." Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan · Page 6



"President Roosevelt's son-in-law Lt. Colonel John Boettiger who worked in the War Department explained to Morgenthau how the American troops who had had to fight for five weeks against fierce German resistance to capture the city of Aachen had complained to him that the Morgenthau Plan was "worth thirty divisions to the Germans."
Morgenthau Plan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Didn't 'the brilliant' FDR know this would be the result in Germany????

Or....didn't he care.

Did he feel that Stalin's smile was far more important?

 

[forkintheroad7]

Two examples:
1. Stalin demanded that the Allies attack Europe the furthest west possible so the Red Army could control at least half of Europe at wars end. Through Italy was Eisenhower's first plan, until FDR offered him another star to choose Normandy.
2. Stalin would not allow FDR to accept a negotiated surrender of Germany, only unconditional surrender....

It's a tale of two Presidents.


Roosevelt promulgated the Morgenthau Plan per Stalin's instructions.

Truman, the Marshall Plan.


While Hitler was useful to Stalin early on, they were allies, the endgame required that his brand of socialism, national socialism....based on nationalism and/or race...had to be removed as an impediment to Stalin's conquest of Europe, and then further.
Stalin's policy was simple: the result of the war had to leave Germany a smoldering wreckage, with no ability to resist Stalin's forces. This was the basis of the Morgenthau Plan.

The Morgenthau Plan calling for total annihilation of Germany, and 'unconditional surrender'.......



Of course, Stalin didn't care about how many Russians were killed- most of the Russians who died were killed by Stalin himself....and certainly not about the numbers of American soldiers..
...but shouldn't Roosevelt have had a concern?


Once the Morgenthau Plan for 'unconditional surrender' was announced, [Stalin's spy] Harry Dexter White's plan to pastoralize, pulverize, Germany....destroy all German science, industry, technology as well as everything else...it provided high-octane propaganda for the Nazis.


Thomas Dewey stated this:
"Almost overnight, the morale of the German people seemed wholly changed....Now they are fighting with a frenzy of despair." Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan · Page 6



"President Roosevelt's son-in-law Lt. Colonel John Boettiger who worked in the War Department explained to Morgenthau how the American troops who had had to fight for five weeks against fierce German resistance to capture the city of Aachen had complained to him that the Morgenthau Plan was "worth thirty divisions to the Germans."
Morgenthau Plan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Didn't 'the brilliant' FDR know this would be the result in Germany????

Or....didn't he care.

Did he feel that Stalin's smile was far more important?

well, I will have to read up on this. I've read books on Hitler but not so much on FDR. But everyone knows fdr made the gummit bigger and then LBJ did same. I'm kind of "religious" these days, so therefore, it is rather tiring reading about things of the past bc nothing can be done about it anymore. (not that anything can be done today either... )

I sometimes wonder if maybe I watch too much current events also.. but things are very fascinating in that realm lately! See my posts on James Comer investigation and other topics.

 

[Foxfyre]

Thank you, but point of clarification: The Clinton Surplus was simply one more Democrat lie.
There was no surplus.
Let me prove it:

While not defending the increase of the federal debt under President Bush, it's curious to see Clinton's record promoted as having generated a surplus. It never happened. There was never a surplus and the facts support that position. In fact, far from a $360 billion reduction in the national debt in FY1998-FY2000, there was an increase of $281 billion.

Verifying this is as simple as accessing the U.S. Treasury (see note about this link below) website where the national debt is updated daily and a history of the debt since January 1993 can be obtained. Considering the government's fiscal year ends on the last day of September each year, and considering Clinton's budget proposal in 1993 took effect in October 1993 and concluded September 1994 (FY1994), here's the national debt at the end of each year of Clinton Budgets:
Fiscal
Year Year
Ending National Debt Deficit
FY1993 09/30/1993 $4.411488 trillion
FY1994 09/30/1994 $4.692749 trillion $281.26 billion
FY1995 09/29/1995 $4.973982 trillion $281.23 billion
FY1996 09/30/1996 $5.224810 trillion $250.83 billion
FY1997 09/30/1997 $5.413146 trillion $188.34 billion
FY1998 09/30/1998 $5.526193 trillion $113.05 billion
FY1999 09/30/1999 $5.656270 trillion $130.08 billion
FY2000 09/29/2000 $5.674178 trillion $17.91 billion
FY2001 09/28/2001 $5.807463 trillion $133.29 billion


As can clearly be seen, in no year did the national debt go down, nor did Clinton leave President Bush with a surplus that Bush subsequently turned into a deficit. Yes, the deficit was almost eliminated in FY2000 (ending in September 2000 with a deficit of "only" $17.9 billion), but it never reached zero--let alone a positive surplus number. And Clinton's last budget proposal for FY2001, which ended in September 2001, generated a $133.29 billion deficit. The growing deficits started in the year of the last Clinton budget, not in the first year of the Bush administration.

Understanding what happened requires understanding two concepts of what makes up the national debt. The national debt is made up of public debt and intragovernmental holdings. The public debt is debt held by the public, normally including things such as treasury bills, savings bonds, and other instruments the public can purchase from the government. Intragovernmental holdings, on the other hand, is when the government borrows money from itself--mostly borrowing money from social security.

When it is claimed that Clinton paid down the national debt, that is patently false--as can be seen, the national debt went up every single year. What Clinton did do was pay down the public debt--

But he paid down the public debt by borrowing far more money in the form of intragovernmental holdings (mostly Social Security).Update 3/31/2009: The following quote from an article at CBS confirms my explanation of the Myth of the Clinton Surplus, and the entire article essentially substantiates what I wrote.

"Over the past 25 years, the government has gotten used to the fact that Social Security is providing free money to make the rest of the deficit look smaller," said Andrew Biggs, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute."

Read the whole article at
The Myth of the Clinton Surplus

It is also significant that it was Newt Gingrich's reformer tea party Republicans coming to power in 1995 aided and abetted by Tim Penny's 33 or so reformer Democrats who sent legislation again and again to Clinton until he finally signed Welfare and other economic reforms that started bringing the deficit noticeably down and almost eliminated it before most of those guys term limited themselves out.

Unfortunately they were mostly replaced with super progressive Democrats and old guard neocon/globalist Republicans who didn't see debt reduction as a their first priority.

Economics is not one of the issues I criticize from the Bush 43 administration. He did a pretty good job with that. Environment, education, energy, immigration not so much.

 

[John Edgar Slow Horses]

A psychiatrist friend of mine would say the MAGA and 4chan and QAnon here is a smorgasbord of psychopathic personalities one could study for a lifetime.

 

[PoliticalChic]

well, I will have to read up on this. I've read books on Hitler but not so much on FDR. But everyone knows fdr made the gummit bigger and then LBJ did same. I'm kind of "religious" these days, so therefore, it is rather tiring reading about things of the past bc nothing can be done about it anymore. (not that anything can be done today either... )

I sometimes wonder if maybe I watch too much current events also.. but things are very fascinating in that realm lately! See my posts on James Comer investigation and other topics.

Really impressed with that "I'm kind of "religious" these days," Hard to be so in this culture.

Let me recommend a great book:

 

[PoliticalChic]

A psychiatrist friend of mine would say the MAGA and 4chan and QAnon here is a smorgasbord of psychopathic personalities one could study for a lifetime.

That psychiatrist needs a psychiatrist. Maybe you two could get a group rate.

 

[Foxfyre]

A psychiatrist friend of mine would say the MAGA and 4chan and QAnon here is a smorgasbord of psychopathic personalities one could study for a lifetime.

Good for you. An psychiatrist friend with deranged opinions is better than no friend at all.

 

[forkintheroad7]

Really impressed with that "I'm kind of "religious" these days," Hard to be so in this culture.

Let me recommend a great book:

You are telling ME!!!!!!!

 

[Foxfyre]

Carter hung out w/ Hamas?

I didn't know that. Well, he's 99 years old now...

Arafat was not Hamas. He was PLO. But there was a lot of contact between Arafat and Carter. Carter infuriated the Israelis when he prominently laid a wreath at Arafat's tomb in 2008 and praised Arafat. (Carter had been instrumental in Arafat receiving a Nobel Peace Prize for signing the Oslo Accords that he, Arafat, violated and undermined afterwards.)

It didn't help when at the same event Carter arranged a reception for and hugged the then Hamas leader, Nasser Shaer who was dedicated to the eradication of Israel. Just a bit of trivia of the legacy of presidential policies/efforts/events that don't age well despite probable good intentions.