Max Boot: The worst president. Ever.

[Eugene]

Source: Washington Post

The worst president. Ever.

By Max Boot
Columnist
April 5, 2020 at 9:00 a.m. EDT

Until now, I have generally been reluctant to label Donald Trump the worst president in U.S. history. As a historian, I know how important it is to allow the passage of time to gain a sense of perspective. Some presidents who seemed awful to contemporaries (Harry S. Truman) or simply lackluster (Dwight D. Eisenhower, George H.W. Bush) look much better in retrospect. Others, such as Thomas Jefferson and Woodrow Wilson, don’t look as good as they once did.

So I have written, as I did on March 12, that Trump is the worst president in modern times — not of all time. That left open the possibility that James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, Warren Harding or some other nonentity would be judged more harshly. But in the past month, we have seen enough to take away the qualifier “in modern times.” With his catastrophic mishandling of the coronavirus, Trump has established himself as the worst president in U.S. history.

His one major competitor for that dubious distinction remains Buchanan, whose dithering helped lead us into the Civil War — the deadliest conflict in U.S. history. Buchanan may still be the biggest loser. But there is good reason to think that the Civil War would have broken out no matter what. By contrast, there is nothing inevitable about the scale of the disaster we now confront.

The situation is so dire, it is hard to wrap your mind around it. The Atlantic notes: “During the Great Recession of 2007–2009, the economy suffered a net loss of approximately 9 million jobs. The pandemic recession has seen nearly 10 million unemployment claims in just two weeks.” The New York Times estimates that the unemployment rate is now about 13 percent, the highest since the Great Depression ended 80 years ago.

Far worse is the human carnage. We already have more confirmed coronavirus cases than any other country. Trump claimed on Feb. 26 that the outbreak would soon be “down to close to zero.” Now he argues that if the death toll is 100,000 to 200,000 — higher than the U.S. fatalities in all of our wars combined since 1945 — it will be proof that he’s done “a very good job.”

-snip-

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/05/worst-president-ever/

[AZ8theist]

1. Boot NOW thinks Doturd is the worst in history??

In other news, water is wet. Film at 11.

Are you fucking kidding me??????
How could ANYBODY watch this shit show and not realize he's the worst in history? You have to be some kind of dunce to not see what's in front of your face like this asshole.....

[Blue_Adept]

5. Or, you know, context and the kind of view that comes from being a historian.

There's still plenty of reason many will think Buchanan will remain being the worst.

Of course, it's also colored by one's own knowledge, or lack thereof, of history in order to make the statement.

[US4u2]

2. Proof?

Tell that to the dead, Donny!!!

[ronatchig]

3. I would argue that

G.W. Bush should be at least mentioned as a candidate for this distinction. After all, the man who have us 19+ years of "police actions"around the world and drove the economy into the ditch.
Hell, the naming of the "Dick" as VP should get him an honorable mention in the all star team of screw ups!
But then again,Rump has brought the plague to main street America hasn't he?

[Magoo48]

4. His destruction of 50 years worth of hard won environmental protections,

this alone makes the worst ever. And, there’s oh so much more.