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[MetalSlimeHunt]

Now? Obama may not be the "oh god, what the fuck" horrible, but he's certainly the "this isn't t-that bad, I should live with it" horrible.

[Frumple]

... I'd kinda' count this latest bush, really. Dude presided over a lot of what were pretty objectively screwups. Before that... I can't really remember much before bush senior, so I couldn't really say.

[scriver]

The Donald is love, The Donald is life.

So what do you think his Trumph card will be?

[tryrar]

... I'd kinda' count this latest bush, really. Dude presided over a lot of what were pretty objectively screwups. Before that... I can't really remember much before bush senior, so I couldn't really say.

fORGETTING nIXON THERE, AREN'T YOU? 

Edit:goddamn capslock

[Angle]

In my lifetime? Dubya. Before that? Reagan, Nixon.

[Frumple]

... Nixon actually had a fair amount going for him, iirc. FJ likes to speak on the subject occasionally, I do believe. Definite problems, but it wasn't a unilateral thing. Bush Jr., on the other hand... I legit can't really remember much good that one sat through. Fucking the education system, the wars, buggering the economy, probably other stuff I'm forgetting... critter just kinda' watched everything go to the pits, more or less. Reagan I can't really remember much about at the moment beyond apparently heralding the GOP's decent towards insanity.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I actually like Nixon. Yeah, Watergate, whatever. It's not like every major politician under the sun doesn't do equivalent wrongs anyway. The man had two things going for him, gravitas and moderation. I will never allow anybody to forget that the EPA was created by the GOP, and it only happened because of him. Had things not gone so turnways between him and Reagan we wouldn't be dealing with as severe extremism, and certainly not from the right.

[Bauglir]

Reagan's two chief problems were Reaganomics, and turning religion into a Republican sticking point. If we're talking about insanity, though, I lay a lot of the blame on Gingrich, but he wasn't even a President. But, yeah, Nixon wasn't that bad.

[scriver]

I want to nominate Bill Clinton, who fucked with the restrictions on what banks can do, and thus ended up fucking the whole world.

[smjjames]

I meant historically as in back into the 19th century. Though given the differences between then and now, it's kind of hard to gauge horribleness.

[mainiac]

When was the last time we had a really horrible president?

Harding

Makes George Bush look like the second coming of FDR.

[smjjames]

When was the last time we had a really horrible president?

Harding

Makes George Bush look like the second coming of FDR.

A quick look at wiki doesn't really say anything about economics.

He's right up there with James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, and Andrew Johnson.

Also down in that area are Millard Filmore and John Tyler. Theres also Ulysses S. Grant, although he seems to be in a bit more favorable light more recently since about 10-15 years ago. No idea what changed there.

[Lord Shonus]

Buchanan was pretty bad - his extreme wishy-washiness on the matter of seccession made the Civil War all but inevitable, and his ineptitude caused the Democratic party to founder, ushering in Lincoln's controversial election. If he'd held the party together, the Civil War might have been held off until slavery died a natural death (which was already inevitable - machinery would soon have made the institution unprofitable).

Johnson was terrible - his wrangles with Congress made the entire Civil Rights movement necessary.

Grant himself wasn't particularly bad, but his administration was ridiculously corrupt, and his clumsy attempts to curb this just made things worse.

McKinley was the US's most imperialist president, presiding over the conquest of the Philippines and Cuba, and the annexation of Hawaii.

Coolidge set the path for the Great Depression with his deregulation and business-worshipping policies. Unfortunately, history tends to place the blame on Hoover, who was actually pretty good - his policies were "too little too late", but he was moving in the right direction.

After that, we don't have a bad president until Bush I.

[smjjames]

More like Bush II IMO. At least Bush 41 had an actual real reason to invade Iraq rather than some adventure based on shoddy intelligence and the patrioticsm that was still raging after 9/11.

Most of the presidents in the second half of the 19th century weren't great in general really. The last 'not too horrible' one before Lincolin and later Hayes seems to be Martin Van Buren. He got a really bad score in the 2008 thing on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States . No idea what was up with that.

Edit: Oh, he did continue the Native American movement policy (Cherokee Trail of Tears for ex) that was started under Jackson, I would rate him pretty bad under that. Much of it seems to be dealing with stuff from the previous adminstration.

[Bauglir]

After that, we don't have a bad president until Bush I.

Urrrgh. This is something I have to quibble over. It is really heavily dependent on what you mean to say. Reagan was good at actually handling the duties of a president and, in the short term, appears to have had a positive impact on the economy. But the fiscal policy he created has wound up being one of the absolute worst things to happen to the nation.

If I had to make it snappy, I'd say that Reagan was a decent president, but it was a very bad thing that he ever was president.

EDIT: When I say "one of the absolute worst" I guess I should emphasize "one of". The immediacy of the problems that came of it might be clouding my judgment, but I admit there have definitely been a number of things that have been worse.