America’s Worst Presidents

Andrew Soergel and Jay Tolson in a 2014 U.S. News and World Reportarticle analyzed 44 presidencies determining “The 10 Worst Presidents.”

In their analysis, Soergel and Tolson determined John Tyler as the fifth worst president. Tyler served as our tenth president in 1841 when William Harrison died of pneumonia thirty days into his term of office. Once president, Tyler opposed everything his Whig party stood for, including a national bank. Harrison’s entire cabinet resigned leaving Tyler to fight impeachment attempts.

The fourth worst president was Ulysses S. Grant, who served as our 18^thCommander-in-Chief from 1869-1877. Grant served when graft and corruption was ubiquitous after the Civil War. He supported the Civil Rights Act of 1875 producing “short-lived gains for African Americans,” and instituted the reservation system as a last ditch effort to protect Native Americans from extinction.

Our 31^stpresident was worse. Herbert Hoover had the distinction of assuming his presidency on the eve of the Great Depression. Though he lowered taxes and started public works projects to create jobs, his strict adherence to conservative principles made him look like a mean-spirited and unsympathetic leader. The homeless even dubbed their shantytowns, Hoovervilles. Number 31 supported tariffs that fueled international trade wars making the Depression worse. (Sound familiar?)

The 37^thpresident, Richard Nixon, served from 1969-1974 and opened relations with China and reached an important arm limitation deal with the Soviet Union. However, Nixon’s obstructionist behavior during the Watergate Investigation led to his resignation for involvement in the attempted burglary of the Democratic National Headquarters making him America’s second worst president.

Number 43, George W. Bush, could be construed as America’s worst president. Bush was at the helm during the 2001 terrorist attack on the Twin Towers. Instead of hunting down Bin Laden in Pakistan, he deployed troops to Afghanistan and then Iraq costing taxpayers between $4-6 trillion, the deaths of millions of people world wide, and millions of others displaced as refugees.  

It would be to no one’s surprise Dubya voted for Donald Trump in 2016 so that Trump would become our 45^thCommander-in-Chief. According to a 2018 survey of America’s top political scientists, Donald Trump has the distinction of being America’s worst president.

Here’s what President Trump has done since taking office in January 2016: Withdrew the United States from the Trans Pacific Partnership, which has already resulted in China’s move to fill the vacuum America has left in its wake. He has pushed for a wall to be built on the borders of Mexico and the US and when refugees arrived at that border looking for America’s help, Mr. Trump’s administration separated parents from their children. Finally, Trump’s performance at Helsinki pushed a bipartisan disdain for the president’s support of Russian president Vladimir Putin. Forty-five consistently belittles the heads of state of America’s allies making leaders question the United State’s leadership role in the world. And he’s a pathological liar. (There is a plethora of complaints about #45, so please add your observation in the comment box below.)

Yes, America has had great presidents like Abraham Lincoln, who helped save the Union, and Franklin D. Roosevelt who brought this country out of the Great Depression and World War II. There will be others, for our founding fathers imbedded a system of checks and balances into our Constitution that has helped this nation survive the leadership of dunces as Herbert Hoover and George W. Bush; and we will survive the leadership of America’s worst and current president, I hope.