Top 10 Worst US Presidents

If PEPFAR, the program to combat HIV/AIDS, were the main component of George W. Bush’s legacy, he would be beloved by historians. The program has saved millions of lives and curbed the spread of HIV in the developing world. Unfortunately, his eight years in office left the United States with a heap of dark consequences. He allowed a 90’s era assault weapons ban to lapse, resulting in a 20-year spike in mass shootings. His administration also defended torture and violated civil liberties with the bipartisan PATRIOT Act. His presidency also ended with the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. Ultimately, however, Bush will be remembered for war. He launched both the calamitous war in Iraq and the nearly twenty-year war in Afghanistan.

Zachary Taylor followed a common pattern for presidents in the 1800s: his reputation as a war hero got him elected. Once in office, though, he had no idea what he was doing. Taylor had one of the shortest presidencies in American history, dying after just one year and four months into his term. Still, his time in office was forgettable at best. His country boy demeanor wasn’t an affectation - he was a fairly simple man unsuited for the complex rough and tumble of politics. Taylor was a slave owner but vehemently opposed its expansion beyond the southern slave states. He resisted the Compromise of 1850, exacerbating tensions between North and South.

Herbert Hoover, fairly or unfairly, will always be remembered for his poor response to the Great Depression. He focused on trade, passing the second harshest tariffs in American history. This, in turn, forced countries like Canada to retaliate with tariffs of their own. The trade war did nothing to alleviate the suffering of average Americans. Neither did his tax cuts. The technocratic style of the former Commerce Secretary did nothing to inspire hope in the American people - Hoover was a notoriously bad communicator. An adamant conservative, Hoover refused to lean too heavily - if at all - on social welfare. His politics made him seem cruel to the American people, who happily ousted him for Franklin Roosevelt.

John Tyler took office when William Henry Harrison died only a month into his term. He was the first-ever vice president to be elevated to Commander in Chief. Despite being elected as a Whig, he utterly rejected his party’s platform. The Whigs despised Tyler, calling him “His Accidency.” The entirety of Harrison’s cabinet resigned in protest of Tyler’s politics. As a land-owning aristocrat from Virginia, Tyler was a states’ rights champion and rabid supporter of slavery. When he rejected the Whig plan for a central bank, they ejected him from the party. When he vetoed a Whig tariff, they tried - but failed - to impeach him. After his presidency, Tyler became a Confederate representative.

Millard Fillmore took office when Zachary Taylor died in office in 1850. One of his first acts as president was to support the Compromise of 1850. The Compromise was a package of bills to foster a detente between slave and free states. Unfortunately, that peace was bought by allowing the spread of slavery in new territories. Worse, it included the Fugitive Slave Act, which forced the federal government and citizens of free states to capture and return escaped slaves. Fillmore believed that compromise would stave off a conflict. While it may have delayed the Civil War, it only exacerbated tensions. He also completely sidestepped the moral question of allowing slavery to fester.

Warren Harding is an odd entry on this list. He died in office as one of the most popular presidents ever. His former attorney general called him a “modern Abraham Lincoln.” But in the century since his presidency, a great deal of information has come out about him and his administration. Harding was a lazy president, who spent much of his time golfing, gambling, and carousing. An infamous womanizer, historians have recently discovered a cache of lurid love letters to his mistress. Worst of all, his administration was horrifically corrupt. In the Teapot Dome Scandal, members of his administration took bribes from oil companies in exchange for favorable leasing rights. Harding died of a stroke halfway through his term.

President Franklin Pierce was a ferocious advocate of Manifest Destiny. Much of his presidency was devoted to expanding the territory of the United States. He wanted to annex and invade Cuba, but Congress wouldn’t allow it. The Mexican War Hero was yet another advocate of ‘compromise’ in the years leading up to the Civil War. He fervently supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. The law set up popular sovereignty in the newly minted territories of Kansas and Nebraska. This allowed the citizens of the territories to decide for themselves whether to allow slavery. Pro and anti-slavery advocates flooded into the territory, leading to a murderous conflict, Bloody Kansas. The disorganized violence was just a precursor to the Civil War.

The 2024 presidential candidate led an administration marred by scandal, allegations of corruption, and division. Trump was the first president in U.S. history to get impeached twice, though he wasn’t convicted. His controversial leadership boiled over in 2020; he contradicted his own experts during the COVID-19 pandemic, spreading confusion and misinformation. He promoted unhelpful medications and once intimated that COVID patients should ingest bleach. Experts believe that his communications to the public exacerbated the pandemic and its death toll. After the 2020 election, his presidency ended with a rally on the Ellipse where he spread misinformation about the election. He encouraged his followers to march on the Capital, where they engaged in a violent insurrection. Today, he is under indictment in four jurisdictions for various alleged crimes.

Despite their wildly different politics, Abraham Lincoln chose the Southern Democrat as a running mate to help unite the country. After Lincoln’s death, Johnson fought against the ‘Radical Republicans’ at almost every turn after the war. While they were able to pass Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution, their egalitarian agenda was stymied by Johnson. As a result, he became the first president in American history to be impeached. Thanks to his efforts, Reconstruction’s efforts to build a more equal South failed. He did nothing to stop revanchist white southerners from violence towards free Black citizens, curtailing their civil rights. Thanks to the Johnson administration, the South entered another century of oppression, violence, and Jim Crow.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few dishonorable mentions.

William Henry Harrison (1841)
A More Than 8,000-Word Inaugural Speech Led to a Fatal Case of Pneumonia & the Shortest Presidency

Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893)
His High Tariffs & Higher Spending Led to the Economic Panic of 1893

Chester A. Arthur (1881-1885)
Arthur Was Never Actually Elected President & Enacted the Chinese Exclusion Act

Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929)
His Tax Cuts Increased Wealth Inequality & He Refused to Help Struggling Workers

James Buchanan bears the ignominious honor of being the president who allowed America to devolve into civil war. A northern Democrat, Buchanan believed slavery was an unspeakable evil. Despite his personal beliefs, however, he refused to oppose the growth of slavery in new territories. Even before he became president, he backed every compromise that allowed slavery to flourish. During the Buchanan administration, the discontent over slavery led to growing calls for Southern secession. Buchanan did nothing to stem the secessionist tide. When Lincoln was elected, the South made their intentions crystal clear. Buchanan decided that the mess would be Lincoln’s problem, doing the bare minimum as a lame duck even as the country descended into civil war.

Politics is contentious nowadays, so we know many of you may have rankings of your own. If you have different picks for America’s worst presidents, please let us know - respectfully - in the comments below.