Top 5 worst U.S. Presidents.

[Sasquatch]

1. George W. Bush
2. Ronald Reagan
3. Andrew Jackson
4. Woodrow Wilson
5. James Buchanan

[Michaelf7777777]

Based on what I know of them (I'm not particularly well versed on many pre-Twentieth Century Presidents)

1. Andrew Johnson
2. Herbert Hoover
3. Warren Harding
4. Franklin Pierce
5. George W. Bush

[Rooney]

I do not rank presidents. I have one or two whom I find to be effective but as a libertarian I find that all have transgressed. Furthermore, lists of "good" or "bad" presidents are rarely based off of something of fact that can be measured (such as GDP, production rates, strength of the dollar, inflationary rates) because history is not a fact based study most of the time. History is strongly influenced by personal opinions and personal favorites. My own list of the 5 worst presidents would be mocked by all and so I will not show it. Furthermore, my own list could probably be critiqued to hell and I see no reason to argue it.

I truly wish historians would stop the needless exorcise of listing presidents. Their lists reflect nothing but personal opinion and thus they are useless to any academic study of the presidency. 

[Deano1001]

1. gEORGE BUSH (WOrst Prsdent Evar!!!!1!one!)
2, Barrack Obamma (muslim)
3. GROVER CLEVALND (He wz bad rite?)
3. Nixon (why did hes teal from demococratS?)
5. Sarahj Palin (HAHA LOL)

But in all seriousness the Civil War era Presidents were the worst, save Lincoln.

1. James Buchanan (A crowd favorite among historians for worst of all time)
2. Andrew Johnson (ed up the south for the next 100 years)
3. Ulysses S. Grant (The post war version of Buchanan, all while being a raging alcoholic)
4. George W. Bush (Self explanatory)
5. Warren G. Harding (Although a short lived administration, it was also probably the 2nd most corrupt behind Grant)

[Deano1001]

I do not rank presidents. I have one or two whom I find to be effective but as a libertarian I find that all have transgressed. Furthermore, lists of "good" or "bad" presidents are rarely based off of something of fact that can be measured (such as GDP, production rates, strength of the dollar, inflationary rates) because history is not a fact based study most of the time. History is strongly influenced by personal opinions and personal favorites. My own list of the 5 worst presidents would be mocked by all and so I will not show it. Furthermore, my own list could probably be critiqued to hell and I see no reason to argue it.

I truly wish historians would stop the needless exorcise of listing presidents. Their lists reflect nothing but personal opinion and thus they are useless to any academic study of the presidency. 

And now I am genuinely interested in hearing your list...

[Oakvale]

I think it's worth highlighting that there are people who've listed Franklin D. Roosevelt as being a worse President than James Buchanan. Heh.

[Jerseyrules]

I do not rank presidents. I have one or two whom I find to be effective but as a libertarian I find that all have transgressed. Furthermore, lists of "good" or "bad" presidents are rarely based off of something of fact that can be measured (such as GDP, production rates, strength of the dollar, inflationary rates) because history is not a fact based study most of the time. History is strongly influenced by personal opinions and personal favorites. My own list of the 5 worst presidents would be mocked by all and so I will not show it. Furthermore, my own list could probably be critiqued to hell and I see no reason to argue it.

I truly wish historians would stop the needless exorcise of listing presidents. Their lists reflect nothing but personal opinion and thus they are useless to any academic study of the presidency. 

And now I am genuinely interested in hearing your list...

I promise not to mock you

[Putting the 'red' in 'redneck' since 1991]

The Worst of the Worst
1. James Buchanan, who allowed the country to collapse all around him.
2. Warren Harding, a corrupt and ineffectual President that allowed his subordinates to run circles around him and sell public lands to the oil industry.
3. Richard Nixon, and I think this one speaks for itself.
4. Andrew Johnson, who wasn't really satisfied with the outcome of the Civil War and seemed dead-set on returning the South to the status quo ante bellum.
5. Franklin Pierce, who helped set the stage for the Civil War with his exceedingly weak and ineffectual Presidency.
6. Jimmy Carter, who twiddled his thumbs during the crises of the 1970s.
7. Calvin Coolidge, whose economic policies greatly contributed to the financial bubble that caused the Great Depression.
8. Herbert Hoover, another thumb-twiddler during a period of great crisis.
9. Millard Fillmore, another weak and ineffectual pre-Civil War President.
10. Ulysses Grant, who was really breathtakingly corrupt and in bed with the railroad interests.

The Best of the Best
1. Abraham Lincoln, for preserving the Union.
2. Franklin Roosevelt, whose policies established the social safety net and made the United States into a superpower.
3. George Washington, nuff said.
4. Lyndon Johnson, for finally delivering on that 'All Men are Created Equal' thing.
5. Theodore Roosevelt, for obvious reasons.
6. Harry Truman, for standing up to the Soviet Union, establishing NATO, and generally kicking ass.

Honorable mention(s): Barack Obama, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Chester Arthur, Bill Clinton

[I Can't Get That Sound You Make, Out Of My Head]

Objectively....

Buchanan
Johnson
Harding
Grant
Dubya

[I Can't Get That Sound You Make, Out Of My Head]

I've said this before, but the internet's hatred of Woodrow Wilson is just my favourite thing. My favourite thing.

Well the internet people are either liberals or libertarians, so....

[WillK]

Objectively....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk

[Kuu ülevaade olulisematest]

Jimmy Carter as sixth-worst? Really?

[Mikestone8]

Let me preface this with that I don't know a lot about Wilson.

I know he was a segregationist and was quoted in the introduction to Birth of a Nation, and that certainly doesn't endear me to him. But what I like about him is that I associate him with the high tide of progressivism (the income tax amendment; the FTC, the Clayton Antitrust Act, child labor laws, and yes even the Federal Reserve). I think the US entry into WWI, while not entirely necessarily, was not heinous either, may have helped to shorten the war and more than anything else pushed the US into superpower status. And while he failed to get the US into the League of Nations or negotiate a more sustainable Treaty of Versailles, I blame the latter on British and French vindictiveness and the former on his opponents in the Senate. I think the League of Nations overall as a concept was vindicated by the UN.

His first term wasn't too bad (bar the racial segregation of government departments) but you are far too kind about his second.

He basically threw civil liberties to the winds during WW1, allowing dissenters like Debs to be savagely sentenced. In doing so he killed his League of Nations before it was born, since the Progressive elements who might have supported him were crushed and demoralise. As one of them put it, he had "put his enemies in office and his friends in jail".  The superpatriotic binge to which the war gave rise would continue far into peacetime in the shape of the Ku Klux Klan. He also tolerated strikebreaking and persecution of Labour Unions on the excuse that their activities "hampered the war effort".

As for Britain and France, no doubt they weren't saintly, but that hardly came as a surprise. Look up Wilson's speeches of Dec 1916 and Jan 1917, when he observed that there was little to choose between the two sides in the European War. He allied with them knowing perfectly well what they were, and had no right at all to be surprised at how the Peace Conference turned out. Iirc he had himself said that a decisive victory for either side would be disastrous, and yet he played a leading role in  bringing about that precise result.

Re the Senate, if he wanted their co-operation, shouldn't he have paid them a bit more attention when drawing up the League Covenant, rather than just doing it all himself and demanding that they rubber stamp it? He behaved, in fact, much like Andrew Johnson in 1865,trying to push through his own peace plan and totally ignoring the views of Congress. In both cases, the Presidents got exactly what their behaviour invited - a size 24 steel toed boot right in the chops.

Incidentally, where do you find any evidence that US intervention shortened WW1? During 1917 things were going so badly for the Entente that they might well have sought a compromise peace but for the prospect of American resources. As it was, the former man of peace turned into a bellicose hawk and contemptuously dismissed the Pope's peace note of Summer 1917, and forbade American Socialists to attend the Stockholm Conference. So much for Peace Without Victory.

The US, btw, was already a superpower before WW1, though Europe hadn't really noticed yet. By about 1912 its annual steel production had overtaken that of all the Euriopean powers combined. The World Wars did not bring about America's superpower status, but merely called attention to it.

On women's suffrage he may have been some help, but more by his party affiliation than anything. Support for it was strogeest among Republicans, of whom only 19 Representatives and eight Senators voted against the 19th Amendment. By contrast, 70 Democratic Congressmen and 17 Senators voted nay. So Wilson's support may have won it the narrow (56-25) margin by which it passed the Senate. However, his principle rivals in 1912, Champ Clark and WJ Bryan, would also have supported it, probably with the same result. In any event, the Harding landslide, which vastly strengthened the GOP in both houses, would have ensured its passage in 1921, so Wilson can claim only very limited credit for it.

I shall always regret Charles E Hughes' defeat in 1916, and occasionally wonder whether even Harding might have been a lesser evil.

[© Tweed the Younger]

Reagan
Adams
Coolidge
Bush II
McKinley

[Jerseyrules]

Reagan
Adams
Coolidge
Bush II
McKinley

Am I the only one who noticed they're all republicans, and that at least two of those are unfair?

[WillK]

Reagan
Adams
Coolidge
Bush II
McKinley

Am I the only one who noticed they're all republicans, and that at least two of those are unfair?

Adams (either one) wasnt a Republican.   I dont know what you mean by unfair, though I completely disagree with several of the choices.

[dead0man]

Buchanan-for the reasons mentioned
A.Johnson-for the reasons mentioned
FDR-for increasing the size of govt....derp (the derp is making fun of myself)
Tyler-because everybody else seems to not like him
..and lets say....I don't know....LBJ just because he was a dick and killed many MANY more people than W

[fezzyfestoon]

Bush II
Buchanan
Eisenhower
McKinley
Pierce

There's a bit of a modern skew, but I tried to be more objective than I wanted to be.

[Beta Ray Bill is the best pony]

Bush II
Buchanan
Eisenhower
McKinley
Pierce

There's a bit of a modern skew, but I tried to be more objective than I wanted to be.

Ending an unpopular war and presiding over relitive peace?

[fezzyfestoon]

And drastically altering the American culture towards a future of massive waste and religious government. His impact on the future was so wildly negative, there's no way he's not one of the worst. There were definitely a lot of positives, but they pale in comparison to leading us down the path he at least claimed to oppose.

[Beta Ray Bill is the best pony]

So you're saying he's the reason religious fundamentalists have been more porminant?

[Communists For McCain]

So you're saying he's the reason religious fundamentalists have been more porminant?

The most religious thing I saw Eisenhower do is say a prayer at his first inauguration.

But I do kind of agree about some of his negatives, especially in regard to foreign policy.  Sure, we can act all warm and fuzzy about his admittance of a "military industrial complex", but that doesn't make him an automatic hero.  If anything that just makes him more of an honest villain.

But the religious crap?  I must be deaf or something because I don't recall Eisenhower going on tv and saying "homosexuality is an evil plague and must be destroyed!" or ranting and raving about how women should be homemakers and shouldn't have promiscuous relations with the menfolk and how the Birth Control League is evil.

SO yeah, I must've missed something while reading up on his wikipedia page or the ten years or so of American History education.

[True Federalist]

Reagan
Adams
Coolidge
Bush II
McKinley

Am I the only one who noticed they're all republicans, and that at least two of those are unfair?

Adams (either one) wasnt a Republican.   I dont know what you mean by unfair, though I completely disagree with several of the choices.

Depends on which Adams you meant.  the elder Adams was a Federalist, but his son John Quincy was a Republican.  (Altho the party he was part of is usually called the Democratic-Republican party to keep things from being too confusing.)

[Assistant to the Regional Manager Cathcon]

Calling McKinley a bad president, let alone one of the worst, is complete & utter bull.

[Communists For McCain]

Calling McKinley a bad president, let alone one of the worst, is complete & utter bull.

I guess it depends on how someone considers a president one of the "worst".
For me I ignore the ideological viewpoints and go more with how "successful" the said President was.  I believe that most people in their right mind would conclude that Presidents like Tyler, Pierce, Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, and Hoover were utter failures in their tenures.

Some people on here seem to take a little more subjective of an approach.

So yeah, by my definition calling McKinely, whose politics I despise by the way, one of our worst presidents is a little crazy.