Worst President might be up for debate

[edhopper]

since he has not had the chance to do the damage some other Presidents like Bush, Hoover or Buchanan did. (to name a few)

But he is unquestionably the worst person to ever occupy the Oval Office. He is also the most unqualified and the least capable of doing the job once in office. AND it could be argued the most corrupt.

[onecaliberal]

1. He has dismantled our government and left us with pretend democracy.

[edhopper]

2. True

but a complete Dem win in November can undo much of that without too much long lasting damage.
If he steals another election however, he will become the worst President in history with the wreckage he leaves in his wake.

[Happy Hoosier]

3. A complete victory in November....

cannot reverse the Gorsuch and Kavanaugh appointments, not can it unpack the Federal courts. WE will live with damage for a generation. And if he wins in November, the damage will essentially destroy 100 years of progress in this country.

[edhopper]

4. Stop being so optimistic

I am all for going after Kavanaugh. ITMF!

[getagrip_already]

7. go after? how?

Impeachment still requires 2/3 for a justice. That's if impeachment even applies.

Removing a sitting scotus justice has never been attempted. It's entirely possible a scotus justice has the same protection from prosecution a potus has.

He is likely to be with us till death do us part.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

8. It has been tried once, in 1803, and the justice was acquitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Chase

[NewJeffCT]

9. SCOTUS impeachment is almost impossible

and, even lower court justices are rarely impeached & removed, and usually only when caught committing felonies.

A better solution, I think, would be to declare a judicial emergency and add an extra judge or two to each federal appeals court and 2-3 extra judges to each circuit court.

[getagrip_already]

10. Interesting... tx

So he could be impeached, but we still wouldn't have votes to remove him.

[Jamastiene]

21. Exactly.

We are stuck with Gorsuch and Kavanaugh for life. For LIFE. We probably won't get an even chance at the SCOTUS for decades.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. He's already done long-lasting damage. It will take decades

to fix what he's already broken. It isn't just the Supreme Court and other court appointments; it's the almost complete dismantling of the mechanisms of the federal government. The next Democratic president will need his/her entire first term just to re-staff the government agencies and get them functioning again. And then there's the fact that our (former?) allies don't trust us any more. That problem will take years to overcome.

[dewsgirl]

11. Unfortunately Velveteen is 100 percent correct.😞

[Volaris]

24. Re-staffing the State Dept MUST be priority, and it MUST be done with long-term vision in mind.

And I agree that it will take at least 4-8 years to get that department back to where it was.

Justice needs to be 2nd on that list...we need an AttyGen that will PROSECUTE the criminal elements of the last 4 years...Hillary Clinton or Adam Schiff come to mind, if Elliot Ness is too busy with being dead and whatnot.

[Newest Reality]

5. Underestimating?

You may be underestimating the damage.

Unfortunately, the distractions concerning his behavior, (which might even be tactical as has been noted) in the mass media obscure the real damage his policies have and are doing and we can only expect more. In other words, he's not done yet.

Every now and then we see a news item that the US or the WH has done x. If you pay attention to what his sycophantic appointees to various important government agencies are doing, (or neglecting) the damage is rather severe so far and that's just in regards to the agencies and not the policies, (like the tariffs, SNAP, etc.).

I think we can safely say that he appointees are either industry insiders who have vested interests in their impact, or they are blatantly opposed to the functions and purpose of the agency they oversee. That's not how it is supposed to work because it is not performing a service, but rather, imposing a strong bias that can be contrary to the common will and needs of the people.

So far, he seems to be the worst person for this job on every level and his personal agenda seems to be disruptive and destructive overall. I also see a tendency in that agenda for attaining full control of the system if that were possible, hence, a tin pot dictator or Fascist authoritarian are not terms I use lightly or to denigrate him personally.

[BlueMTexpat]

32. I'm of this mind myself.

IMO, NO single person deemed to be "President" has EVER done as much damage to our institutions, rule of law and global standing in as short a time as Trump has.

Especially the institution of the judiciary. Unfortunately, THIS alone will take a VERY long time to repair.

IMO, 45 is not only the worst Person; he is also the worst individual EVER to occupy the WH in ANY capacity. He is also a fraud.

I STILL refuse to accept him as MY President. I never have used that title together with his name, and I never will. Ever.

[The Mouth]

12. I'll still give GWB the worst award

Starting a completely unnecessary war that has cost 6 trillion and counting, killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, thousands of American servicemen, made us vastly unsafer, and embedding us in not one but two quagmires that we weren't even in before and that even Obama couldn't get us completely out of... Not even Cheeto Benito has screwed things up that badly.

Yet.....

[BlueWI]

23. Have to agree.

Turned a major surplus into a deficit in one budget cycle.

Along with numerous other face palm moments and cataclysmically poor decisions.

[The Mouth]

30. In a way, it's a good thing that Trump is *NOT* "likable"

Or genial, or even attempts to be a decent or moral person. Enough damage done when he hasn't even tried to hide is sociopathy, if he was charming, tactful, and eloquent we'd have the fucking wall completely built, two more tax cuts for the rich and five times the tariffs.

[BlueWI]

33. No kidding.

W got occasional points for a facile bit of humility. Trump, not so much.

[Caliman73]

13. The top 3 slots and the bottom 3 are always up for debate.

Top 3 are typically: Lincoln, Washington, and FDR in no particular order.

Bottom has been Buchanan, Pierce, and Andrew Johnson.

The 3 bottom dwellers are mainly there because the did little to stop, or actually did things that accelerated and worsened the Civil War period which arguable was the worst time in American history killing over 10% of the US population.

I think you can make a very solid case for Bush Jr. and Trump to join that debate but because the death toll in American lives is not that high in Bush Jr.'s time and likely won't get that high with Trump, they may never get to the absolute bottom.

I would say that they are tied for last in the modern times.

[edhopper]

14. Nixon also

he was a criminal, prolonged the Viet Nam war and cost 25,000 American lives, AND was traitor in 1968.

[csziggy]

34. I'm very worried that the death tool attributed to Trump will far surpass that of

Buchanan, Pierce, and Andrew Johnson. If they are blamed for not stopping or actively instigating the events that lead to the American Civil War, then I believe Trump may end up being responsible for much worse in the future. It may not happen during his (hopefully soon to be over) tenure, but he has set in motion events that could lead to a horrific death toll.

Even if he does not get us into a war, the way his administration has stopped the work towards alleviating the damage from global climate change. While President Obama had made major steps, Trump has not only eliminated those positive steps but has accelerated the danger.

Same for every Republican president since Ronald Reagan - every single one of them has done what they could to fight the efforts to stop global warming, starting the day that Reagan had the solar panel President Carter had installed on the White House. If the US had led the way that Carter called for, we would not be in such dire shape now.

[bluestarone]

15. In my mind

He is the WORST! (he's not done yet!)

[lpbk2713]

16. He's made friends of our enemies and enemies of our friends.

None of the monumental harm he has done our country was by accident.

It was by design. He is a criminal without a doubt.

[zentrum]

17. Good distinction.

[Dukkha]

18. Definitely the least qualified and the most vulgar

Disenfranchised people kept saying they wanted an outsider to come in and" run the country like a business" and be like a powder keg in DC. Now history will show that it was a disaster to allow an un-vetted totally unqualified person to hold the most powerful office in the land. New controls and checks and balances need to be implemented to prevent this dumpster fire from ever happening again.

[Poiuyt]

19. Historical rankings of presidents of the United States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_presidents_of_the_United_States

The last two surveys have had trump at 44 and 42 respectively (out of 44). I think it's premature to label him as the worst president in US history at this point as historians and political scientists will need to get some perspective to judge him. I will say, however, that he and his administration is the most corrupt in our history.

[mwooldri]

20. Why do I want Keith Olbermann...

... to do a one off "Worst President (as opposed to person) in The World" spot?

[Jamastiene]

22. Because he would ace it.

Plus, it would be almost therapeutic to hear him do that.

[Warpy]

25. This country has yet to have an honest appraisal of the damage Reagan did

Yes, the current guy is dreadful, completely unsuitable to the job and most likely working for Putin. He has refused to honor his oath of office and has gone out of his way to appoint crooks to head agencies he wants destroyed because they're inconvenient for rich men. He's left a lot of the government positions unfilled, making our government a hollow farce while he struts and blusters. And every single dreadful thing he's done had its roots in the garbage Reagan got away with.

Yet most people alive today remember ole Ron fondly, the shoe polished hair and the rouged cheeks giving him that "jes plain folks" image as he talked down to them so much that they didn't notice he was losing the plot. He made them feel all warm and fuzzy while he napped and his cronies stole us blind.

So when I think of bad presidents, I think of the amount of damage they did that is going to last us because nobody ever wants to come to terms with how such a nice man did so much damage that has to be undone. They just never seem to separate the policies from the personal.

What Dumpster Fire is doing might look like the reductio ad absurdum of Reagan's policies, but they're the logical continuation of them, something that keeps his popularity among the 0.1% nice and high.

[The Mouth]

31. THANK YOU!!!

As I posted elsewhere in this thread, Trump's very obnoxiousness and utter lack of manners or decency has probably been one of the main things keeping him from doing the amount of damage Reagan did. Ronnie dragged the whole damned Overton window far right, destroyed unions and in so many ways changed the structure and fabric of the nation for the worse MUCH more effectively than Trump; but he was likable, witty, charismatic.

[enid602]

26. defunded

He's also defunded our Government, thanks to his tax cut.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

27. Perhaps have two awards: Domestic and International.

W. Bush gets the international loser award. Trump a close second.

tRump gets the domestic loser award. Reagan a close second.

KY............

[rampartc]

28. if trump is not the worst president in every category

it is certainly not for lack of effort.

sadly, that is exactly what his millions of cull followers want.

[NNadir]

29. Trump is working on approaching Buchanan.

On paper, Buchanan was qualified - he'd served in Congress and as Secretary of State - but it is true, that because of the times in which he was President, the country disintegrated and fell into Civil War.

Trump isn't there...yet.

He is certainly the most corrupt President ever, but he was corrupt before he took office, so perhaps we have the most corrupted population since the Civil War, when the wealth of the entire country depended on the most corrupt practice known, human slavery.