Who was worst US president in the 20th and 21st centuries?

[New Chalcedon]

I can only pick one?!
Okay, Carter - I'll have to say that he's a really nice guy, but I think that was the problem - Too nice.
and Obama - How can he NOT understand that spending money that you don't have gets you deeper in debt. (Adding negative numbers just makes a bigger negative number)

Yeeees.....because Obama had to cure the $1.3trn deficit Bush left him the very day he entered office, whilst dealing with what could have been the Second Great Depression, of course!!

/sarcasm

[Grave_n_idle]

Reagan

I'm inclined to agree, to be honest.

I mean, other Presidents did some shitty stuff, don't get me wrong. Watergate, internment of Japanese Americans, Iran-Contra, Bay of Pigs... but Reagan is the President that instigated war between Americans and their government.

[Demara]

I mean, other Presidents did some shitty stuff, don't get me wrong. Watergate, internment of Japanese Americans, Iran-Contra, Bay of Pigs... but Reagan is the President that instigated war between Americans and their government.

(emphasis mine)
This only supports your point (and is a reason that many people, including myself, really dislike Ronald Reagan's presidency), but Iran-Contra was under the Reagan administration. I'm sure you know that, but just correcting the (I assume) typo.

[LochNessMontropolis]

I can only pick one?!
Okay, Carter - I'll have to say that he's a really nice guy, but I think that was the problem - Too nice.
and Obama - How can he NOT understand that spending money that you don't have gets you deeper in debt. (Adding negative numbers just makes a bigger negative number)

Your nominations for worst president... are based on one guy being too nice, and another guy not immediately curing the excesses of the previous decade?

That seems like a harsh metric.

I find it hard to believe niceness and not being able to do magic are actually the worst things that have transpired in the Oval Office in the last century.

As for Carter, I said he is a nice man because he IS.
No, I didn't expect Obama to "immediately" cure the deficit problem. Nor did I expect that he would make it WORSE, but he did.
However I choose or whatever "metric" I use is not the issue here. The topic merely asks for my opinion, which I gave. I could have chosen JFK for his fashion sense or Bush for his Southern drawl.....

[LochNessMontropolis]

I can only pick one?!
Okay, Carter - I'll have to say that he's a really nice guy, but I think that was the problem - Too nice.
and Obama - How can he NOT understand that spending money that you don't have gets you deeper in debt. (Adding negative numbers just makes a bigger negative number)

Yeeees.....because Obama had to cure the $1.3trn deficit Bush left him the very day he entered office, whilst dealing with what could have been the Second Great Depression, of course!!

/sarcasm

Yeeeees.....because solving a lack of money is by spending more that you don't have.........right..... (verbal irony)

[AiliailiA]

Yeeees.....because Obama had to cure the $1.3trn deficit Bush left him the very day he entered office, whilst dealing with what could have been the Second Great Depression, of course!!

/sarcasm

Yeeeees.....because solving a lack of money is by spending more that you don't have.........right..... (verbal irony)

Hi. I'm that drunk person who walks up so casually you don't see me coming, and puts an arm around your shoulders (you and New Chalcedon) and insists that you should be friends.

Then explains why you should both be friends, in such drunken and rambling detail that both of you begin to doubt whether there is or ever was such a thing as friendship. But before you can make the conceptual leap to questioning enmity too, you both independently decide that the first priority is to get rid of the drunk person who is holding you both by your necks and babbling nonsense. It has crossed both your minds that the drunken person may at any moment vomit over both of you, as the drunken person has a certain sashaying style which strong suggests the Jackson Pollock style of stand and deliver, should the opportunity arise.

Then, mercifully for both of you, the drunken person takes a sudden interest in something in the next room, lets go of the both of you, and lumbers away leaving you to resume your conversation. No harm done I hope.

[New Chalcedon]

Yeeees.....because Obama had to cure the $1.3trn deficit Bush left him the very day he entered office, whilst dealing with what could have been the Second Great Depression, of course!!

/sarcasm

Yeeeees.....because solving a lack of money is by spending more that you don't have.........right..... (verbal irony)

And yet, the deficit is lower than when Obama took office, and will go down further once the irresponsible, budget-busting Bush tac cuts finally expire at the end of this year. Fancy that!

[Frisivisia]

Yeeees.....because Obama had to cure the $1.3trn deficit Bush left him the very day he entered office, whilst dealing with what could have been the Second Great Depression, of course!!

/sarcasm

Yeeeees.....because solving a lack of money is by spending more that you don't have.........right..... (verbal irony)

It's not about debt, dumbass, it's about jobs, and getting the economy moving, and to get jobs flowing and the economy growing, you spend. In times where you have jobs and the economy is going, then you cut back and deal with the deal, a la Clinton. Just because you did not choose to educate yourself about economics doesn't mean you must ask to have your wrongful believes pushed on the rest of us.

[Tmutarakhan]

No, I didn't expect Obama to "immediately" cure the deficit problem. Nor did I expect that he would make it WORSE, but he did.

Absolutely false.

[Zohai]

Hoover, Reagan and GWB.

[Radovia]

Other,

Clinton.

Was an ass all over the Yugoslavian shindig, messed up over Rwanda and basically bought in welfare reform that pleases no one.

[Divair]

Other,

Clinton.

Was an ass all over the Yugoslavian shindig, messed up over Rwanda and basically bought in welfare reform that pleases no one.

Clinton over Bush?


wat

[Eaglleia]

Oh, definitely Washington or Lincoln. FDR was terrible too.

Joking. XD I'd say Wilson, George W Bush, LBJ, Hoover, Nixon, Tyler, Reagan, Harding and Buchanan were amongst the worst. Obamas bad, but not that bad in comparison. People are just hating cause he's the current President.

The question is "Who was the worst US president in the 20th and 21st centuries?" Therefore Washington and Lincoln aren't an option even you're saying it out of jest. While although I agree that Presidents Tyler, and Buchanan were rather horrid that don't fit in that time frame.

I'm guessing you're one of the people that let Vietnam overshadow Lyndon B. Johnson's presidency despite the fact that he did tremendous work for civil rights. While despite the fact that Woodrow Wilson originally sidestepped the issue of Women's rights he later became a huge supporter of women's suffrage, he even approached the house personally (Something that was quite rare back than) and made a strong and widely published appeal to the House to pass the nineteenth amendment.

Yeah I forgot about that bit. I included a lot of current names.
We could say that people let Watergate overshadow Nixons Presidency too. But I understand your point.

[Scythian Nation]

I believe Obama is the worst U.S. President in the 20th and 21st centuries because he not only endorced the Bush policies of using the fear of international terrorism to radically expand executive power, he expanded those policies further by claiming the power not merely to detain citizens without judicial review but to assassinate them without due process.

[Lyrantea]

Definitely Obama.

[Grand Soviet Union]

Bush Jr. or Reagan.

[Farnhamia]

I believe Obama is the worst U.S. President in the 20th and 21st centuries because he not only endorced the Bush policies of using the fear of international terrorism to radically expand executive power, he expanded those policies further by claiming the power not merely to detain citizens without judicial review but to assassinate them without due process.

You would, of course, be incorrect in that assessment.

[Hollorous]

I will say Kennedy, because of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Kennedy's brinkmanship threatened not just the US with destruction, but human civilization itself, and it was based entirely on faulty intelligence and a gross overestimation of US capabilities. Namely, the simple fact that the number of missiles in Cuba numbered in the hundreds, not a dozen.

I agree with this. His reckless (at best) policies created a bad situation and the Soviets were the ones reasonable enough to end it. Yet Kennedy was labeled a hero and Kruschev pretty much ended his career.

[Austriona]

I would say Obama.

[Totalise]

i say FDR his economic polocies mad a bad economic depression worse. his "new deal" was a "new faliure", the only thing that he did right was to declare war on japan and even then congress broke procedure to do it as Rankin (congress woman from montana) voted no and they brushed her aside instead of going by the numbers which would have allowed her to make her case against such a decleration. FDR was the first and only american monarch (12 years in office), he became president with isolationist policies as his platform and then started selling guns and material to the brits putting american sailors in harms way just as willson did 20 years before. his administration knew about pearl harbor several days in advance ect.

[Divair]

i say FDR his economic polocies mad a bad economic depression worse. his "new deal" was a "new faliure", the only thing that he did right was to declare war on japan and even then congress broke procedure to do it as Rankin (congress woman from montana) voted no and they brushed her aside instead of going by the numbers which would have allowed her to make her case against such a decleration. FDR was the first and only american monarch (12 years in office), he became president with isolationist policies as his platform and then started selling guns and material to the brits putting american sailors in harms way just as willson did 20 years before. his administration knew about pearl harbor several days in advance ect.

The ignorance is overwhelming.

[Bojikami]

Why the fuck is LBJ on that list? He was one of our greatest presidents and made look JFK look like a useless pile of great hair.

And Dubwah gets the obvious nomination of worst modern president.

LBJ heavily escalated the Vietnam War...

LBJ: Well that escalated quickly.

[Pope Joan]

Reagan's deregulation of commerce and industry did us more harm than any other single presidential tactic. Iran-Contra should have sent some politicos to jail (not just good old Ollie). Derailed social programs have cost us in the long run.

Short term gain, long term havoc. The legacy of the next face on Mount Rushmore.

[Paixao]

Not quite sure where all the hate for JFK is coming in...

He was the first president to realize there actually was an environmental problem, passing the Clean Air Act as well as a few others to. Apart from that he put down the foundations for the civil rights movement that LBJ passed through after his death, playing the 'honor his last wish' card on Congress to get it through. He started up a social campaign that (although uninformed and not on-the-whole terribly successful) again laid down the foundations for much of what Johnson would achieve.

Much as people criticize him for Cuba, he was half of the deal that stopped us from nuclear annihilation, better for America to have backed down than for the world to have gone nuclear. The Berlin gaff, was just that - not a big deal - gave the Germans a laugh

On the whole he wasn't amazing, but far from the WORST in the 20th Century.

[Serrland]

Harding, without a doubt. Maybe Wilson, too.