10 WORST Decisions America Ever Made
Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re looking at the worst choices ever made by the U.S. government. These decisions either caused untold suffering or came back to haunt America down the road.
CIA’s Foreign Interference (1947-)
After World War II, the CIA had one job: fight communism and secure resources by any means necessary. What followed was a spree of short-sighted covert operations. Take the 1953 Iranian coup - by toppling a democratically elected leader, the CIA planted the seeds of regional instability that persist today. Even allies weren’t safe, as seen in Italy and Australia, where they funneled funds and propaganda to sway elections. Worse, the agency helped install dictators like Mobutu Sese Seko in the Congo and Suharto in Indonesia, both notorious for human rights abuses. In Latin America, the CIA's Operation Condor saw leftists assassinated and propped up brutal right-wing dictators responsible for countless disappearances and deaths. These short-sighted interventions inflicted untold suffering and permanently damaged America’s global reputation.
Laissez-Faire Economics (1923-29)
In the roaring 1920s, the U.S. embraced laissez-faire economics, a philosophy best described in English as 'hands off.' The government let the private sector take the wheel with little-to-no oversight. Presidents Harding and Coolidge embraced this philosophy, leading to rampant abuse and speculation and an unregulated stock market. It all came crashing down on Black Tuesday with the 1929 crash. Banks, operating with little oversight, extended excessive credit, creating a debt bubble that exploded. As the economy spiraled, President Hoover clung to his belief in limited government action. He resisted direct federal relief and relied on voluntary private measures. His refusal to provide direct aid to struggling Americans exacerbated the Great Depression, spreading it like a contagion to every corner of the nation.
The Iraq War (2003-11)
The Iraq War started with lies and ended in catastrophe. The Bush administration, led by neoconservative hawks, insisted that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He didn’t. Neocons promised Iraqis would greet us as “liberators." They didn’t. Instead, America dragged its allies into a brutal and unjustified occupation. It was fueled by arrogance and a complete misunderstanding of Iraq’s sectarian landscape. The administration’s reckless decision to disband Saddam’s Baathist government left thousands of armed, trained, and angry former soldiers unemployed. Many later joined insurgent groups, fueling the chaos that eventually birthed ISIS. The war, which cost over $1 trillion, shattered America’s global credibility and left Iraq in ruins.
Interfering With & Ending Reconstruction (1865-77)
The Reconstruction Amendments - considered to be a second Bill of Rights - had the potential to reshape America into a country that better reflected its promise of equality. Instead, a series of failures sabotaged it. Andrew Johnson, a Southern sympathizer, let ex-Confederates regain power in the South. President Grant, who did make some strides in protecting Black rights, fell victim to corruption and a lack of focus. The South saw violent white backlash under his watch in the 1876 election. That vote ended in a corrupt bargain between Rutherford B. Hayes and southern white Democrats. When he entered office, he pulled federal troops from the South. The deal secured his presidency, dooming Black Southerners to a century of segregation, voter suppression, and racial terror.
Internment of Japanese-Americans (1942-46)
After Pearl Harbor, America’s fear turned into paranoia, fueled by racism. That paranoia fueled one of the most shameful mass civil rights violations in American history. In 1942, the U.S. government forcibly relocated over 120,000 Japanese-Americans to internment camps under FDR's Executive Order 9066. These people - most American citizens - were imprisoned without trial for no reason other than their ancestry. Families lost their homes, businesses, and dignity. The Supreme Court upheld this racist policy in Korematsu v. United States, claiming it was a “military necessity.” Meanwhile, actual Nazi spies operated within the country, with impunity, completely undetected. Even after the war, Japanese-Americans received little compensation for their suffering. Korematsu wasn't officially overturned until 2018.
The Vietnam War (1964-75)
The Vietnam War wasn’t just a disaster: it was a decades-long wound on America’s psyche. Sold to the public as a necessary stand against communism, the war was built on deception. The Gulf of Tonkin incident, for example, was exaggerated to spread a lust for revenge. The military insisted victory was just around the corner - another lie, exposed by the Pentagon Papers. Meanwhile, troops, often young draftees, were dropped into a brutal conflict where they both endured and committed atrocities like the My Lai massacre. As body bags piled up, public support collapsed. Unlike their fathers, soldiers returning home weren’t welcomed as heroes. They faced hostility and indifference. The war left lasting scars, from PTSD-ridden veterans to a deep and abiding public skepticism of government.
SCOTUS & Legalized Segregation
In the aftermath of Reconstruction, the U.S. Supreme Court made a series of decisions that entrenched racial segregation for decades. The Civil Rights Cases of 1883 struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1875, ruling that the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments could not outlaw discrimination by private citizens. This was cemented a few years later in Plessy v. Ferguson, where SCOTUS upheld racial segregation under the guise of “separate but equal.” Jim Crow received the Supreme Court’s stamp of approval, leading to decades of racial terror. The KKK and other white supremacist groups terrorized Black communities with impunity. Violence and lynchings were commonplace. Racist laws enshrined systemic racism, economic disparity, and social marginalization, the effects of which are still felt today.
Sins of the Nuclear Age (1945-)
As of this video, the United States remains the only nation to use nuclear weapons in war. Historians still debate whether it was necessary, but there’s no debating the horror unleashed. The bombs that hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 instantly killed tens of thousands, leaving many more to suffer slow, agonizing deaths from radiation exposure. In the years that followed, the world lived under the shadow of mutually assured destruction, the grim doctrine that any nuclear conflict would end civilization. Meanwhile, the U.S. government secretly conducted horrific radiation experiments on unwitting civilians. Project SUNSHINE harvested body parts - not all from adults - to study radioactive fallout. The Cincinnati Radiation Experiments exposed cancer patients, many poor and Black, to lethal radiation without consent.
The Trail of Tears (1830-50)
The U.S. didn’t just take Native American land: it forcibly marched entire nations to their deaths. Under the Indian Removal Act of 1830, President Andrew Jackson forced the Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole nations off their ancestral lands. The Cherokee endured the worst of it, dragged on a brutal 1,200-mile march to Oklahoma. Thousands died from exposure, disease, and starvation. Those who resisted were shackled, forced to watch soldiers looting their homes. It was large-scale ethnic cleansing, uprooting entire cultures. The scars of this atrocity remain, centuries later. Indigenous communities still fight tooth and claw for sovereignty, justice, and survival.
Compromising on Slavery
America’s worst compromises weren’t about policy, but about people. From the Missouri Compromise to the Compromise of 1850, lawmakers repeatedly sacrificed human decency for political convenience. They treated slavery like a political chess piece rather than a moral stain. Instead of solving the issue, these deals merely delayed the inevitable, allowing tensions to fester. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was the final insult, a compromise ending in chaos. “Bleeding Kansas” turned the prairies into a battleground. Pro- and anti-slavery forces slaughtered each other without mercy. The Dred Scott decision then shattered any hope of a peaceful resolution, ruling Black Americans weren’t citizens at all. These half-measures all but ensured war. By kicking the can down the road, America guaranteed that blood, not words, would decide its future.
What do you think was the biggest mistake in U.S. history? Let us know in the comments.
