Five Worst Presidents

Election

Ben Shapiro has his five.  Mine are:

40.  Franklin Pierce-Proof that a good man can be a terrible president.  Loving husband and father, his only son died before his parent’s eyes in a train wreck shortly before Pierce was sworn in as president, and an able and brave volunteer general in the Mexican War, Pierce as president was a complete disaster.  His policy of appeasing the slave holders of the South enraged the North.  Pierce vigorously enforced the Fugitive Slave Law, and attempted unsuccessfully, to have Kansas admitted to the Union as a slave state.  Passions over slavery built throughout his administration and Pierce, through his Doughface, a name applied to Northern politicians with Southern sympathies, policies did nothing to tamp them down.

41.  Jimmy Carter-The second worst president of my life time.  His economic policies helped drive both inflation and interest rates to record-setting levels.  His energy policy consisted mainly of sweaters and advising people to turn down thermostats.  His manifest weakness encouraged Soviet adventurism.  (His reaction when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan was to exclaim that Brezhnev, the Soviet Premier, had lied to him.)  The impotence of him and his administration was best symbolized by the botched attempt to rescue our diplomats held hostage by the Iranians.  A kidney stone of a presidency.

42.  Barack Obama-He found the nation in a fiscal disaster and made it worse.  No president had ever been as feckless when it comes to piling up debt until Covid and the current administration.  We will be generations cleaning up after him.  His contraception mandate demonstrated the complete contempt he has both for the Constitution and American liberties.  By far the worst president in my lifetime until Biden.

43.  James Buchanan-There is little to be said in favor of the worst president to sit in the White House.  His policies of attempting to appease the South helped encourage an ever-growing movement towards secession during his term.  During the secession crisis following the election of Lincoln, Buchanan dithered and convinced the South that the “cowardly Yankees” as typified by Buchanan, would never fight to preserve the Union.  James Buchanan by his malfeasance and nonfeasance in office did more than any other man to bring about the Civil War.

 

I would slip Biden in there, probably between Obama and Buchanan.  Our first President manifestly suffering from dementia, he has presided over reignited inflation, a bug out from Afghanistan that destroyed American prestige, and the use of lawfare against political opponents great and small.  His ongoing attempt to jail Trump is probably his most ominous legacy as Presidents going forward will fear that losing an election may well mean prison for them.  With Biden, an utterly corrupt and ridiculous figure, I fear that we may be hearing the first notes of the death-knell of the Republic.

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Monday, February 19, AD 2024 12:27pm

[…] Moose Politics:The Border Crisis Has Brought Chaos to America – Sean Collins at Sp!kedFive Worst Presidents – Donald R. McClarey, Esq., at The American CatholicBiden’s Decline Is a Legitimate News […]

Dave G.
Monday, February 19, AD 2024 3:16pm

Apparently this is in response to some release of the best and worst presidents, with Trump as dead last and Biden in the top third, ahead of Wilson and Reagan.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Monday, February 19, AD 2024 5:49pm

I don’t think the perspective of 50 years is going to salvage the reputation of Biden or Obama, unless of course future historians are as untrustworthy as the current crew.

Sticking to those holding office prior to 1974, the doughface trio strikes me as inadequate for their time but not authors of the country’s troubles. (Pierce was a drunk married to a perfectly wretched creature). Other candidates (some with important virtues, but all making bad decisions in office): Andrew Jackson (Trail of Tears, weaking the banking system), Andrew Johnson (lax Reconstruction policy), Woodrow Wilson (foreign policy bollocks, 1918-19), Herbert Hoover (catastrophic monetary policy), Lyndon Johnson (is there something he did well?), and Richard Nixon (wage and price controls, bollocks energy policy, putting Arthur Burns in charge of the Fed).

Guy, Texas
Guy, Texas
Monday, February 19, AD 2024 7:37pm

The case can be made that Biden is the five worst presidents. Guy, Texas

Ezabelle
Ezabelle
Monday, February 19, AD 2024 7:48pm

By far the worst president in my lifetime until Biden.

https://images.app.goo.gl/npJCfh6TJqqKZcnu6

Donald Link
Monday, February 19, AD 2024 8:30pm

I would have to include Tyler in a tie with Pierce. He essentially supported the secession and his son served as a officer in the Confederate army.

Jay Anderson
Tuesday, February 20, AD 2024 12:36pm

Wilson is the worst. Period.

I will not be moved from this indisputably correct assessment. It sticks in my craw that his successor was tagged with the “worst” moniker for the better part of a century despite being a very good President who brought normalcy back to our land after 8 years of the ACTUAL absolutely worst President ever.

Last edited 2 years ago by Jay Anderson
Art Deco
Art Deco
Tuesday, February 20, AD 2024 2:14pm

<i>I will not be moved from this indisputably correct assessment.</i>
==
Wilson made some consequential mistakes. I’m not seeing how this made him ‘indisputably’ the worst.

Donald Link
Tuesday, February 20, AD 2024 6:56pm

I can tell you what would have happened if Roosevelt had won. He would have told the Germans in no uncertain terms they did not want war with the US. The General Staff already knew this but an unhinged Kaiser had his way when he saw how feckless Wilson was over earlier ship sinkings. Also, Wilson had not gone ahead with the new modernization of the army after the Spanish-American War or the Philippine insurrection. And it didn’t help that the actions against Pancho Villa in Mexico were only marginally successful. The end result of all this was the destruction of most of the stabilizing monarchies in Europe which led to WW II and the greatly contributed to the mess there today. Wilson may not have been the worst but but he was certainly top tier. Finally, in domestic policy he set race relations back to the era of reconstruction with his praise of “Birth of a Nation” as accurate history.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Wednesday, February 21, AD 2024 6:58am

That’s quite a daisy chain.

I doubt American policy had much influence over the dynamics of conflict in Europe prior to 1917.

The Romanovs and the Provisional Government in Russia made a hash of things. That wasn’t Wilson’s doing. As for the German monarchies, nothing stood in the way of the German states restoring their dynasties after 1919. There just wasn’t much motivation to do so. The principal advocate of monarchy during the inter-war period was the National People’s Party, whose support hovered around 14% of the vote. The Hapsburg dominions fell apart like a cheap tent at the end of 1918. That was consequent to their own internal fissures. Neither was it Wilson’s doing that the German establishment discredited itself in 1918-30 through policy disasters.

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