Will Trump be below Buchanan in historical rankings?
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  Will Trump be below Buchanan in historical rankings?
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Question: Will Donald Trump go below James Buchanan in historical rankings?
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Yes
 
#2
No
 
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Author Topic: Will Trump be below Buchanan in historical rankings?  (Read 2304 times)
Tekken_Guy
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« on: November 06, 2020, 07:46:07 PM »

James Buchanan is usually considered the worst U.S. President of All Time. Does Donald Trump go below James Buchanan in historical rankings? Or will he not quite make it that deep?
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DaleCooper
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« Reply #1 on: November 06, 2020, 07:48:59 PM »

Most likely, especially once we start to truly feel the catastrophic effects of climate change and start to judge these presidents more harshly through that lens.
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MATTROSE94
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« Reply #2 on: November 06, 2020, 07:49:03 PM »

Probably. At best Donald Trump will be ranked a spot lower than Warren Harding.
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Progressive Pessimist
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« Reply #3 on: November 06, 2020, 07:49:40 PM »

I hope so. He deserves it.
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OSR stands with Israel
Computer89
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« Reply #4 on: November 06, 2020, 07:53:04 PM »

Trump has been no where near as bad as Buchanan, and honestly these 5 president are still worse

1. James Buchanan
2. Franklin Pierce
3. Andrew Johnson
4. Herbert Hoover
5. John Tyler
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Badger
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« Reply #5 on: November 06, 2020, 07:58:16 PM »

Here's what I typed earlier today in another thread.


Whereas Buchanan dithered and made horrible choices accelerating secession in the face of the Civil War, it is highly unlikely he could have averted the war, and was guilty primarily of indecision plus horse and buggy use of the power of the president to prevent secession. Trump dealing with covid-19 was worse in that not only did he blatantly act out of pure partisan self-interest to try to protect the stock market and GDP growth for his re-election, but such perfidy led to literally hundreds of thousands of otherwise preventable deaths.

Whereas Nixon's abuse of the presidency was far-reaching and abhorrent, first, at least he was punished for it appropriately - - f*** you GOP except Mitt Romney-- and more importantly it did not rise to the level of literally trying to tear down American democracy in order to ensure himself re-election. Nixon tried to burgle his opponents headquarters, Trump try to fundamentally sabotage the US Postal Service. Example after example, Trump abused the president's Authority on a scale far worse than Nixon ever did, and the GOP permitted him to escape.

The abject corruption and graft that went on during the Harding Administration was venile and truly of an unprecedented scale of the time. That is until now. Harding was at least not personally involved or profiting from the grass, but refused to do anything about his cronies enriching themselves at the taxpayer expense even though he knew it was happening. Trump by contrast has aggressively abused presidential Authority and foreign conflicts of interest to enrich himself personally and his family, in a manner far worse than Albert Fall got out of the Teapot Dome scandal  Etc.

In summary, by comparison to the three worst Presidents who earned their ignoble place in American history respectively by failing to act in the face of a deadly National crisis, far-reaching abuse of the powers of the presidency, and whole scale graft and Corruption, Trump is quite worse than each of them in their respective failings. Furthermore, he combines those 3 worst Presidents failings all into one single Administration!

Worst. President. Ever. And I am grossly disappointed and concerned about the state of our democracy that he even came remotely close to re-election. Yes, Democrats have some serious soul-searching and post-election autopsies to perform regarding how the bottom fell out for Latino support and they even lost support among young African-American men to such a despicable character. But at the end of the day don't Trump's supporters likewise deserve more than a little blame for continuing to support this garbage bag of a president?
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VBM
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« Reply #6 on: November 06, 2020, 08:01:59 PM »

What did Buchanan do?
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Progressive Pessimist
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« Reply #7 on: November 06, 2020, 08:02:55 PM »

Badger makes a good point. Trump is almost like all of the worst separate aspects of all our worst Presidents fused together into some sort of eldritch Akira-like monstrosity.
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Harry
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« Reply #8 on: November 06, 2020, 08:09:20 PM »

Yes, and Badger summed up why very well.
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mardigrappa
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« Reply #9 on: November 06, 2020, 08:10:01 PM »

Trump has been no where near as bad as Buchanan, and honestly these 5 president are still worse

1. James Buchanan
2. Franklin Pierce
3. Andrew Johnson
4. Herbert Hoover
5. John Tyler
I'm inclined to definitely agree.

Buchanan had a lot of consequences, which were undoubtedly far more than what Trump did. Even though Trump wasn't anywhere as bad as Democrats portrayed him, he was nowhere as bad as those other presidents in the way that they absolutely set the country back and whose actions had consequences for decades to come. Although I'd argue Andrew Johnson has been far worse than Pierce. And John Tyler wasn't quite bottom 5.
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Fmr. Gov. NickG
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« Reply #10 on: November 06, 2020, 08:10:22 PM »

Yes, he is worse than Buchanan.  It’s arguably a close call between him and Andrew Johnson.
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Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook
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« Reply #11 on: November 06, 2020, 08:14:03 PM »

Two rankings of presidents significant enough to get on Wikipedia happened in 2018. One placed Trump at the very bottom, the other put him at #42, ahead of only Buchanan and Andrew Johnson.
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Progressive Pessimist
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« Reply #12 on: November 06, 2020, 08:17:35 PM »

Two rankings of presidents significant enough to get on Wikipedia happened in 2018. One placed Trump at the very bottom, the other put him at #42, ahead of only Buchanan and Andrew Johnson.

I eagerly await more of those rankings soon. Accurate or not, they'll surely stick in Trump's craw.
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Starry Eyed Jagaloon
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« Reply #13 on: November 06, 2020, 08:18:07 PM »

Trump has been no where near as bad as Buchanan, and honestly these 5 president are still worse

1. James Buchanan
2. Franklin Pierce
3. Andrew Johnson
4. Herbert Hoover
5. John Tyler

Not having Andrew Jackson in the bottom five is criminal.
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Buzz
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« Reply #14 on: November 06, 2020, 08:18:08 PM »

Atlas bubble gonna atlas bubble.

The obvious answer is hell no.
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Badger
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« Reply #15 on: November 06, 2020, 08:20:14 PM »

Atlas bubble gonna atlas bubble.

The obvious answer is hell no.

Oh really? Why don't you offer counter argument then?

What would it be too much trouble to peel your lips off of Trumps shoes?
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John Dule
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« Reply #16 on: November 06, 2020, 08:32:15 PM »

His presidency was not worse than Buchanan's, but as a president he is quite clearly the worst ever.
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woodley park
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« Reply #17 on: November 06, 2020, 09:04:17 PM »

Atlas bubble gonna atlas bubble.

The obvious answer is hell no.

Oh really? Why don't you offer counter argument then?

What would it be too much trouble to peel your lips off of Trumps shoes?

Everyone says Trump will be remembered for his three Supreme Court Justice appointments, but I strongly disagree. I couldn't tell you who Reagan appointed to the court, for example, and I'd consider myself much more familiar with American political history than the average American.

More than anything, Trump will remembered for his disastrous response to COVID-19. That will place him in the bottom tier in the pantheon of American presidents.
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Hope For A New Era
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« Reply #18 on: November 06, 2020, 09:20:39 PM »

He wouldn't have been, until the pandemic. He literally let 200,000+ Americans die. I have to step back for a moment when I think about it to grasp the true scale of it. It's not even shocking anymore. But history will look back on that in particular very harshly.
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SN2903
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« Reply #19 on: November 06, 2020, 10:14:20 PM »

No he's top 10  or 12 even with 1 term. His accomplishments are amazing
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Starry Eyed Jagaloon
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« Reply #20 on: November 06, 2020, 11:59:30 PM »

No he's top 10  or 12 even with 1 term. His accomplishments are amazing

At least you're admitting he lost. That's progress.
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brucejoel99
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« Reply #21 on: November 07, 2020, 12:06:53 AM »

His presidency was not worse than Buchanan's, but as a president he is quite clearly the worst ever.

I feel like this sums up my thoughts exactly. He'll probably still be historically ranked ahead of Buchanan & maybe Andrew Johnson, but - compared to them, & relative to all of their respective times - he's quite possibly a worse person to hold the office itself.
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dw93
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« Reply #22 on: November 07, 2020, 12:17:09 AM »

He’ll be sandwiched in between James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson.
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GeneralMacArthur
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« Reply #23 on: November 07, 2020, 12:19:23 AM »

Buchanan's handling of the slavery issue is pretty analogous to Trump's handling of COVID-19.

Buchanan refused to acknowledge the reality of the problem, refused to accept the grave and impending threat facing the nation.  He refused to take the decisive action needed to offset the crisis.  Similarly, Trump refuses to acknowledge the reality of COVID, refuses to accept the threat it poses to the nation, refuses to take the decisive action required.

Buchanan stocked his administration with pro-slavery southerners and sympathized with their cause.  He allowed secessionist, pro-slavery organizations like the Knights of the Golden Circle and other filibusters to operate without impediment under his watch.  Similarly, Trump has surrounded himself with hack frauds like Dr. Atlas who take direct action to make the pandemic worse, endorses similar figures in the media and internet, and tells non-stop lies to the press and the American people about the pandemic.

Buchanan was an arrogant, belligerent prick whose sympathy for southern secessionists and pro-slavery causes was unassailable.  He refused to believe that he was wrong and refused to take any action that might imply that he was wrong.  Trump, similarly, is an arrogant, belligerent prick who buys into these idiotic and self-serving conspiracy theories about the pandemic, repeats them in public, and can not be convinced by evidence or reason.

You can make the argument that both men were treasonous, in that they betrayed their oaths of office by not only failing to protect the nation in a time of crisis, but actively working to undermine it.



The thing is, Buchanan places at the bottom of historical rankings for these actions alone.  The rest of his presidency was unsuccessful but uneventful and unmemorable.  Trump's COVID response is just one of the many, many terrible things he will be remembered for.  It's not even the worst facet of his legacy -- Trump's assault on American democracy will be viewed as far worse by history (as will the Republican Party's disgraceful participation in that assault).

Furthermore, Trump's malicious mishandling of COVID-19 was far more malignant and involved than Buchanan's mishandling of slavery.  It seems like not a day has gone by in the last eight months that Trump hasn't done something outrageous or harmful to try to get more people killed and exacerbate the crisis.



Trump's COVID-19 crisis has killed 230,000 Americans so far.  365,000 Americans died in the civil war (as did 290,000 confederate traitors, but they deserved to die and their deaths are a good thing).  The only question left is if Trump's crisis will lead to more dead Americans than Buchanan's.
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Harry
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« Reply #24 on: November 07, 2020, 12:38:58 AM »

No he's top 10  or 12 even with 1 term. His accomplishments are amazing

He literally has 2 accomplishments - tax cuts and judges, and Mitch McConnell did most of the work on both. Everything else he promised (#BuildTheWall, #LockHerUp, #RepealObamacare, etc.) was a total failure, even though he had a trifecta.
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