Top 5 worst U.S. Presidents.

[President Johnson]

Worst:

1.) James Buchanan
2.) Franklin Pierce
3.) Andrew Johnson
4.) George W. Bush
5.) Millard Fillmore


Best (in no particular order): Lincoln, FDR, Truman, LBJ, Obama

[RightBehind]

My top five best presidents would be Lincoln, Washington, FDR, Clinton and LBJ.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

I agree with the before 1900/after 1900 distinction. The nation had changed a lot by/changed a lot in 1898.

so:

1789-1898

1) Andrew Johnson (I too agree that the Civil War was too much of a slow boil to pin on Buchanan alone to make him the worst)

The long march to Civil War Presidents, in order of having time to turn the ship:
2)Fillmore
3) Pierce
4) Buchanan


5) Van Buren (the guy that actually * carried out * the Trail of Tears. Also wanted to return the escaped slaves from the Amistad, and was largely powerless to stop the panic of 1837 (though that wasn't super duper his fault))

Honorable mention to McKinley (weak/relied too much on counsel, defeated Bryan in a bought election (Bryan of course brings a pitter patter to my populist heart). He had a pretty good Asst Sec of Navy and VP though : P) 


1898-2016

1) Hoover
2) Harding
3) W. Bush (No, not because I'm a lefty. Because I'm a realist in FP. He started off the American Century with a costly geopolitical mistake with immediate and severe consequences (Iraq))
4) Reagan (Okay this is because I'm a lefty, and I think the deregulation conga is bad, bad dance. He also started the 'massive deficit spending but everything's fine' train, for you conservatives)
5) Johnson (The Great Society was a wonderful idea, but Vietnam triggering the culture war and destroying faith in Gov't is basically unforgivable in my eyes.)


Honorable mentions go to Nixon (smart guy, effective, but see above about trust in Gov't) and  Clinton (NAFTA, triangulation, long term ideological crisis for the Dem party)  and. Jeers but no honorable mention goes to Kennedy for starting serious involvement in Vietnam.

Nixon is effectively tied for 5 with Johnson. Put together they destroyed the honor and prestige of the Presidency, and set the battle lines for the next 40 years of social strife.


Top 5:

1) Lincoln
2) Washington
3) TR
4) Ike
5) FDR (though really would prefer he'd devolved the New Deal to the states at some point. Muh Jeffersoniansim prevents him from being 2 or 1, b/c I'm not super enamored of the centralized state he created. That said, Great Depression and WWII are two massive crises he handled Pretty Well)

Honorable mention goes to Jackson, for bearing forth the notion that 'gosh, wouldn't it be interesting if regular people got to decide who would run the nation?' Honorable mention for domestic policy goes to LBJ, but ya know, he's on the other list for a reason.

Honorable wish goes to Bryan because gosh I just wish he was President at some point : P

[Derpist]

I hate most worst/best lists because we go "oh, did we like that presidency or not?" When the better question should be "did this president do better than a rando put in the same position?" Also, I think the results of most presidencies tend to be strongest right AFTER they leave. So I blame the miserable Clinton presidency for pain in the 2000's and the miserable Bush presidency for the pain in the 2010's.

Worst
1. Woodrow Wilson (rancid white supremacist/eugenicist who pretty much ruined the entire 21st century by setting up the stage for WW2, cold war)
2. Andrew Johnson (ruined reconstruction; race is going to eventually tear America apart)
3. John F. Kennedy (almost destroyed all human life and only beloved because he avoided Armageddon very fashionably. IMO, a 10% chance of exterminating all human life is policy-wise equivalent to killing 10% of humanity.)
4. Bill Clinton (sold out the Democratic Party to corporate America and set the stage for our decades horribilis)
5. Herbert Hoover (Hawley-Smoots; at least 30% responsible for the great depression)


Best
1. Abraham Lincoln (duh)
2. Andrew Jackson (father of american democracy)
3. Grover Cleveland (prevented America from entering the imperial race, which would have ended horribly)
4. Dwight Eisenhower (postwar return to normalcy + boosted federal civil rights unlike JFK)
5. Jimmy Carter (made reforms and fiscal policies that set the stage for the 1990's. actually tried to prevent the insanity of modern US foreign policy)

[Kingpoleon]

Best

1. FDR
2. Washington
3. Lincoln
4. Truman
5. JFK

Putting JFK among likes of Lincoln and FDR is like putting Jeff Sessions with Lister Hill.

I prefer Lincoln to FDR, and I cannot name many people who do not. Exactly how are Lincoln and FDR alike?

[Derpist]

I prefer Lincoln to FDR, and I cannot name many people who do not. Exactly how are Lincoln and FDR alike?

One of them crushed a pathetic unsustainable flailing economy based on slave labor that people for some reason thought could dominate the future.

The other crushed an unsustainable unsustainable flailing economy based on slave labor that people for some reason could dominate the future.