Worst Democratic President of the 20th Century

[Lechasseur]

Carter tbh

[OSR stands with Israel]

Objectively it was Carter, and I love the guy. Not a bad president on the list though.

Carter’s foreign policy was an utter disaster and arguably even worse than George W Bush’s Foreign Policy. Here look at these measures :

Iran : He did all he could to prevent a military coup in Iran which could have stopped the Iranian Revolution Which not only turned one our biggest Allies into our biggest enemies but also a state sponsor of terrorism as well . Then after this he refused to evacuate the embassy which would have prevented the hostage crises

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/10/ayatollah-khomeini-jimmy-carter-administration-iran-revolution

Cold War : Carter came in saying we have an inordinate fear of communism and neutered the CIA as well . By 1980 many former Allies of ours in Latin America fell to communism and of course the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.

[Mr. Smith]

Clinton.

You don't like peace and prosperity?

I don't like amoral douchebags.

Bill Clinton had an extraordinary ability to 'compartmentalize.' Although he was a horrible person in private, he was not only an expert policy wonk as President, he was one of the most honest Presidents in his public dealings.

If I had to choose between this and a sanctimonious jerk like Jimmy Carter for President, I'd choose Clinton 100 times out of 100.

He couldn't define what "is" is in public. He couldn't compartmentalize the innards either which led to this.

And ftr, Carter was also considered an expert policy wonk, you can just watch an early SNL sketch with Dan Akyroyd where that's literally the point.

That said, Clinton was a fantastic Republican. Or would've been. He got along great with Nixon after all.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Carter by competency, Wilson by values.
(Although you could say Wilson during his stroke was the worst in competence also).

He was racist, yes, but otherwise he was one of the most important progressive presidents ever and his liberal internationalist values were both moral and extremely important in reshaping US foreign policy for the better.

The internet's hate boner for Wilson in recent years will never cease to amaze me.

I genuinely can't believe I'm agreeing with you, let alone on internal Democratic Party discourse, but... This, a hundred times this.

Wilson's pivotal role on the international stage in freeing literally over half a dozen different nationalities from the yoke of imperial oppression far overshadow the rest of his legacy.

The problem with Wilson is that he was not only "a racist" but such that he represented a step backwards on race for the time. He not only segregated the Civil Service, but also promoted the Lost Cause in both media and academia, helping to spread nationally a narrative about the Civil War that had been isolated to the South and in so doing laid the groundwork for much of the opposition to Civil Rights in coming decades. This also has negative impacts to this day when it comes to the spread of misinformation about Civil War, Slavery and Reconstruction.

Also whatever credit Wilson gets for appointing Brandeis, he loses by having appointed McReynolds, a virulent racist, anti-Semite, and misogynist who would have to rank as one of the worst Justices in history on sheer unpleasantness. For a period comparison, he would be the Theodore Bilbo of the Supreme Court.

This also affected his foreign policy, as Wilson went out of his way to block the push by Japan for a clause condemning racial supremacy in the League of Nations.

[darklordoftech]

Carter by competency, Wilson by values.
(Although you could say Wilson during his stroke was the worst in competence also).

He was racist, yes, but otherwise he was one of the most important progressive presidents ever and his liberal internationalist values were both moral and extremely important in reshaping US foreign policy for the better.

The internet's hate boner for Wilson in recent years will never cease to amaze me.

I genuinely can't believe I'm agreeing with you, let alone on internal Democratic Party discourse, but... This, a hundred times this.

Wilson's pivotal role on the international stage in freeing literally over half a dozen different nationalities from the yoke of imperial oppression far overshadow the rest of his legacy.

The problem with Wilson is that he was not only "a racist" but such that he represented a step backwards on race for the time. He not only segregated the Civil Service, but also promoted the Lost Cause in both media and academia, helping to spread nationally a narrative about the Civil War that had been isolated to the South and in so doing laid the groundwork for much of the opposition to Civil Rights in coming decades. This also has negative impacts to this day when it comes to the spread of misinformation about Civil War, Slavery and Reconstruction.

Also whatever credit Wilson gets for appointing Brandeis, he loses by having appointed McReynolds, a virulent racist, anti-Semite, and misogynist who would have to rank as one of the worst Justices in history on sheer unpleasantness. For a period comparison, he would be the Theodore Bilbo of the Supreme Court.

This also affected his foreign policy, as Wilson went out of his way to block the push by Japan for a clause condemning racial supremacy in the League of Nations.

Wilson was also a tyrant. He incarcerated critics of the draft and deported people based on speculation that they were “socialists”, and set the stage for the rise of J. Edgar Hoover.

[Benjamin Frank]

Clinton.

You don't like peace and prosperity?

I don't like amoral douchebags.

Bill Clinton had an extraordinary ability to 'compartmentalize.' Although he was a horrible person in private, he was not only an expert policy wonk as President, he was one of the most honest Presidents in his public dealings.

If I had to choose between this and a sanctimonious jerk like Jimmy Carter for President, I'd choose Clinton 100 times out of 100.

He couldn't define what "is" is in public. He couldn't compartmentalize the innards either which led to this.

And ftr, Carter was also considered an expert policy wonk, you can just watch an early SNL sketch with Dan Akyroyd where that's literally the point.

That said, Clinton was a fantastic Republican. Or would've been. He got along great with Nixon after all.

1.Clinton was being legalistic on the definition of the word 'is' because he was asked a legal question, and he was correct that there was more than one definition of 'is' based on the question.

2.Carter's policy wonk expertise made it very difficult for him to make a decision. Clinton was not much better, but he had a far better understanding of politics that helped guide him.

3.In many ways the 1990s was an even more right wing period in the English speaking world anyway than the 1980s. Clinton did the best he could holding back the right wing excesses like risky tax cut schemes that would have ballooned the deficit again and led to renewed high long term interest rates.

Yes, he conceded on welfare reform, but he achieved children's health care with S-CHIP, a 10 year ban on semi automatic weapons (it's not a coincidence the mass shootings have spiked after this ended), family and medical leave (his first legislation passed), free trade with labor and envrionmental provisions, a large increase in Pell grants and the EITC, added millions of acres to national parks, and actually cut the debt, not merely reduced the deficit.

In foreign policy his Administration under negotiator George Mitchell achieved the uneasy peace that has remained in Northern Ireland. He also achieved a nuclear non proliferation 'framework' with North Korea that, contrary to the right wing lies, was being faithfully adhered to by North Korea until the warmonger administration of George W Bush ended it. (Not at all different than the non nuclear prolfieration deal with Iran that Iran was adhering to until Donald Trump ended it.)  Of course, what would have happened with North Korea when the son took over the country is another question, but North Korea faithfully abided by the agreement until W Bush ended it (in the end with North Korea ramping up its nuclear program again, the W Bush admininstration actually pathetically tried to get North Korea to reenter into the agreement.)

4.It might be true that Clinton and Nixon had similar policy outlooks, but then so did Nixon and Lyndon Johnson. There was something of a (domestic) policy consensus in the U.S, until inflation and then the Reagaon 'Revolution.' But, lessons had been learned from the battles with inflation, and Clinton 'course corrected' American domestic policy after Reagan as much as possible given the times, had George W Bush not been selected by 5 justices on the Supreme Court, the United States would likely be in a very different place domestically with balanced budgets and no proliferation of semi automatic weapons, and internationally as well with no invastion of Iraq and North Korea possibly very different as well.

Also, contrary to what many people might think now, there was a foreign policy consensus with much of the American public as well until the Tet Offensive. The Vietnam war was extremely popular until 1968.

5.It is true that it was President Clinton as part of addressing the deficit who privated many government 'businesses' and not Reagan at all, but the U.S government was bloated with as many as 20,000 business operations. Not all 'right wing' ideas are bad, and Clinton did very well in getting the government out of many of these operations.

This is quite consistent, for example, with Nixon/Ford/Carter who all played a role in deregulating the government control of the trucking and airline industries. Of course, there are some people who think this was a bad thing, likely mostly the same people as those who oppose carte blanche these privatization, and they make some decent points, but I think these things largely made the U.S economy more dynamic.

[darklordoftech]

In foreign policy his Administration under negotiator George Mitchell achieved the uneasy peace that has remained in Northern Ireland. He also achieved a nuclear non proliferation 'framework' with North Korea that, contrary to the right wing lies, was being faithfully adhered to by North Korea until the warmonger administration of George W Bush ended it. (Not at all different than the non nuclear prolfieration deal with Iran that Iran was adhering to until Donald Trump ended it.)

[Benjamin Frank]

Objectively it was Carter, and I love the guy. Not a bad president on the list though.

Carter’s foreign policy was an utter disaster and arguably even worse than George W Bush’s Foreign Policy. Here look at these measures :

Iran : He did all he could to prevent a military coup in Iran which could have stopped the Iranian Revolution Which not only turned one our biggest Allies into our biggest enemies but also a state sponsor of terrorism as well . Then after this he refused to evacuate the embassy which would have prevented the hostage crises

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/10/ayatollah-khomeini-jimmy-carter-administration-iran-revolution

Cold War : Carter came in saying we have an inordinate fear of communism and neutered the CIA as well . By 1980 many former Allies of ours in Latin America fell to communism and of course the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.

The CIA was necessarily neutered by the Ford Administration under the direction of CIA head George H W Bush who was getting the CIA out of illegal operations like overthrowing foreign governments and conducting illegal research on American (and non American) citizens under Operation CHAOS (MK-Ultra, the mind control experiments, was one of the illegal programs under Operation CHAOS.)

It's likely that the CIA coordinated illegal programs with the FBI, who had related illegal operations under COINTELPRO (short for Counter Intelligence Program), that, along with many other programs, actively fomented violence between left wing activist groups (Malcolm X along with many other lesser known activists was likely killed as a result of COINTELPRO), however, the CIA, unlike the FBI was able to destroy all the documents under its possession related to Operation CHAOS, so a great deal of what the the CIA illegally engaged in will likely never be known.

One thing that I find interesting about this whole period, is that you can go back prior to the revalations around Operation Chaos/MK Ultra and COINTELPRO and listen to what left wing conspiracy theorists thought the U.S government was getting up to. What they thought was much milder than what was really going on. The CIA and the FBI illegal covert operations were so extreme that even conspiracy theorists couldn't imagine them.

Also, the only country in Central and South America that was taken over by a communist dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s was Nicaragua, hardly a big deal. The far bigger problem for the people of Central and South America at that time was right wing dictatorships, but the Reagan Administration excused that at the time with Jeanne Kirkpatrick saying "our dictators are better than your dictators."

[I Will Not Be Wrong]

Carter by competency, Wilson by values.
(Although you could say Wilson during his stroke was the worst in competence also).

He was racist, yes, but otherwise he was one of the most important progressive presidents ever and his liberal internationalist values were both moral and extremely important in reshaping US foreign policy for the better.

The internet's hate boner for Wilson in recent years will never cease to amaze me.

Oh I completely agree with you. I just meant the racism. Otherwise, he was a good president imo.

[Benjamin Frank]

Carter by competency, Wilson by values.
(Although you could say Wilson during his stroke was the worst in competence also).

He was racist, yes, but otherwise he was one of the most important progressive presidents ever and his liberal internationalist values were both moral and extremely important in reshaping US foreign policy for the better.

The internet's hate boner for Wilson in recent years will never cease to amaze me.

Oh I completely agree with you. I just meant the racism. Otherwise, he was a good president imo.

the biggest problem with Woodrow Wilson he was his inflexible sanctimony. The reason that France insisted on the Treaty of Versailles was because they owed enormous debts...to the United States. Had Wilson been more flexible on these France debt repayments, France was willing to be more flexible on its treaty demands with Germany.

In addition to being a virulent racist, Wilson was an impractical prick.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Carter by competency, Wilson by values.
(Although you could say Wilson during his stroke was the worst in competence also).

He was racist, yes, but otherwise he was one of the most important progressive presidents ever and his liberal internationalist values were both moral and extremely important in reshaping US foreign policy for the better.

The internet's hate boner for Wilson in recent years will never cease to amaze me.

Oh I completely agree with you. I just meant the racism. Otherwise, he was a good president imo.

the biggest problem with Woodrow Wilson he was his inflexible sanctimony. The reason that France insisted on the Treaty of Versailles was because they owed enormous debts...to the United States. Had Wilson been more flexible on these France debt repayments, France was willing to be more flexible on its treaty demands with Germany.

In addition to being a virulent racist, Wilson was an impractical prick.

Wilson provided us with a lot of highly valuable reforms, and an internationalist vision that ultimately was realized after WW2. But he was not the best man to effectively bring it all out, at least outside of domestic affairs. He saw himself as a crusader for progressive values (with all that entailed, not all of it good) and thus was not the most pragmatic figure. He provided a large part of the intellectual basis for the New Deal and the post-WW2 order, but he likely could not have brought them into force if in FDR's shoes.
It's no accident he, for a long time, has been remembered more for his ideals than his actual actions in office.

[dw93]

Wilson. He was a racist even in the context of the times he served in, squandered the aftermath of WWI, and refused to resign after having a stroke.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It's pretty difficult at this point to defend Clinton honestly. There's a reason why he's been all but entirely sidelined and is rarely brought up by the Democratic Party today.

So a few points as to why:

1-His personal behavior was unquestionably unacceptable. The best defense one can make of it is that it was irrelevant to his role in office and that the Republican campaign against him was completely a witch hunt. But even if one accepts that, that's not really an argument to defend him as a individual or as someone who should be regarded today, which is why I think in the post-MeToo era the Democrats' policy effectively becomes to just not talk about him generally.

2-Outside of his appointments, it's tough to point toward any lasting progressive legacy from him. You can blame this on the Blue Dogs in Congress and then Newt Gingrich, but Obama and Biden used executive power for some good outcomes and at least did some things with a much smaller majority. Notable Clinton legislation includes things like welfare reform, don't ask don't tell instead of simply repealing the ban on homosexuals in the military, DOMA, repeal of Glass-Steagall and telecommunications deregulation. The welfare reform thing is what really irks me because unlike most of the other things (which were bad but admittedly not really things he could do much about with the Congressional numbers and votes), it got very few Democratic votes in Congress and his veto could've continued to have been upheld. Yes he vetoed it at first and yes the version passed was a bit watered down, but there's no reason he couldn't have just kept making the Republicans keep passing it into a brick wall like Obama did like 40 times with their ACA repeal bills. The Brady Bill and Assault Weapons Ban turned out to be toothless jokes. Liberal internationalists might point toward his intervention in the former Yugoslavia as effective intervention that saved lives, but if you accept that it's tough then to also overlook his lack of reaction in Rwanda. The best we got from him is basically "eight years of peace and prosperity" and a lot of nostalgia for the era, which considering what followed it is completely understandable but I don't think can really be attributed to him. Clinton nostalgia obviously made tons of sense during the Bush Administration just as Obama nostalgia is so hot today, but how much of that is due to Clinton himself is really up for discussion.

I will say this, Clinton haters (be they of the right-wing variety or the Twitter-brained leftist variety) tend to be much worse than he is, definitely, but considering who we're talking about that's not really much of an accomplishment.

[Ferguson97]

Slick Willy

[Benjamin Frank]

It's pretty difficult at this point to defend Clinton honestly. There's a reason why he's been all but entirely sidelined and is rarely brought up by the Democratic Party today.

So a few points as to why:

1-His personal behavior was unquestionably unacceptable. The best defense one can make of it is that it was irrelevant to his role in office and that the Republican campaign against him was completely a witch hunt. But even if one accepts that, that's not really an argument to defend him as a individual or as someone who should be regarded today, which is why I think in the post-MeToo era the Democrats' policy effectively becomes to just not talk about him generally.

2-Outside of his appointments, it's tough to point toward any lasting progressive legacy from him. You can blame this on the Blue Dogs in Congress and then Newt Gingrich, but Obama and Biden used executive power for some good outcomes and at least did some things with a much smaller majority. Notable Clinton legislation includes things like welfare reform, don't ask don't tell instead of simply repealing the ban on homosexuals in the military, DOMA, repeal of Glass-Steagall and telecommunications deregulation. The welfare reform thing is what really irks me because unlike most of the other things (which were bad but admittedly not really things he could do much about with the Congressional numbers and votes), it got very few Democratic votes in Congress and his veto could've continued to have been upheld. Yes he vetoed it at first and yes the version passed was a bit watered down, but there's no reason he couldn't have just kept making the Republicans keep passing it into a brick wall like Obama did like 40 times with their ACA repeal bills. The Brady Bill and Assault Weapons Ban turned out to be toothless jokes. Liberal internationalists might point toward his intervention in the former Yugoslavia as effective intervention that saved lives, but if you accept that it's tough then to also overlook his lack of reaction in Rwanda. The best we got from him is basically "eight years of peace and prosperity" and a lot of nostalgia for the era, which considering what followed it is completely understandable but I don't think can really be attributed to him. Clinton nostalgia obviously made tons of sense during the Bush Administration just as Obama nostalgia is so hot today, but how much of that is due to Clinton himself is really up for discussion.

I will say this, Clinton haters (be they of the right-wing variety or the Twitter-brained leftist variety) tend to be much worse than he is, definitely, but considering who we're talking about that's not really much of an accomplishment.

Keep in mind that as part of the times, virtually everybody was saying that Clinton would lose reelection if he vetoed welfare reform.

I think people now either don't appreciate or have forgotten how demonized people on welfare were, from welfare cheats, to welfare queens to the claims that women had extra children just to get slightly higher welfare benefits, the vast majority of Americans, even many otheriwise liberal people, believed all of these things.

Clinton also got a fair amount in return for signing welfare reform, including, I believe, the children's health legislation (SCHIP) and additional child care assistance.

I don't think it's accurate to criticise people without understanding the context of the times. Bill Clinton was in private dealings a horrible person, in public dealings he was one of the best Presidents of the 20th century.

There clearly is also not an appreciation here for how big a deal and how hard it was for Clinton and the Democrats to not only eliminate the deficit but to pay down a significant amount of the debt.  George W Bush and Alan Greenspan were absolute garbage.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Obviously, DIXIECRAT Wilson females couldn't vote until 1920 he was racist but not racist like Jefferson whom enslaved 600 Blks, everyone say they dislike Joseph Kennedy he wasn't a DIXIECRAT Wilson was but in today's standards he would be a Bill Clinton Democrat but he wasn't back then and neither was Jefferson

[Benjamin Frank]

Obviously, DIXIECRAT Wilson females couldn't vote until 1920 he was racist but not racist like Jefferson whom enslaved 600 Blks, everyone say they dislike Joseph Kennedy he wasn't a DIXIECRAT Wilson was but in today's standards he would be a Bill Clinton Democrat but he wasn't back then and neither was Jefferson

Women actually had the vote in a number of states before 1920, although only in Illinois could they vote in the 1916 Presidential election.

In these states women could vote for President prior to the 19th Amendment: 1913 Illinois 1913 1917 Nebraska, Ohio, Indiana, North Dakota, Rhode Island  1919 Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Tennessee, Wisconsin

The following states granted women the right to vote prior to the 19th Amendment: 1890 Wyoming  1893 Colorado  1896 Utah, Idaho  1910 Washington  1911 California  1912 Arizona, Kansas, Oregon  1914 Montana, Nevada  1917 New York  1918 Michigan, Oklahoma, South Dak

[Sir Mohamed]

Wilson because of his racial policies, that were even racist for his time. People also need to remember how much his admin restricted civil liberties in general.

[Orser67]

Carter.

Wilson has much lower lows than the other Democratic presidents, but I give him a lot of credit for the domestic legislation that he passed. While his racial views were odious, I think both his actual impact on race relations, and his racism as compared to contemporaries, is often overstated on the internet (Wilson was probably the worst of his era, but the only decent president of his era on race was Harding, imo). Obviously his foreign policy didn't quite work out, but I give him credit for moving us towards the liberal internationalism that dominates foreign policy discourse today.

Carter, on the other hand, was just a bad president who was both ineffective at pursuing his own goals and actively blocked a major healthcare reform effort and other liberal legislation favored by congressional Democrats. His failure set the stage for a conservative era that we only now, finally, seem to be moving away from.

[Benjamin Frank]

I see nobody has taken this up since I last posted, but as an example of how people on welfare were regarded when Clinton was President, consider Gavin Newsom on supervised drug injection sites.  People on welfare in the 1990s (and before that) were as stigmitized then as (hard) drug users are now.  Even though over 100,000 Americans have died in the past year as a result of drug overdoses, even in 'liberal' California, there was no consensus for Newsom to go for safe injection sites.

There seems to be a lack of appreciation here now that President Clinton would have lost reelection had he not signed the so-called welfare reform. Then, as now, politicians need to pick their battles.

I hope this better explains the context of the times in the 1990s.

I hope in 25 more years that the views on safe injection sites if not the illegality of hard drugs are more in line, at least with Democrats, as the views expressed here on those on welfare. That is, that Gavin Newsom will be considered a Republican for opposing even safe injection sites.

[President Johnson]

I was torrn between Wilson and Carter. Wilson had higher highs and lower lows. Overall, I'd say Carter because he was pretty ineffective as president and left the nation is crisis. Of course, some factors were beyond his control, but he lacked the vision to make things better and effectively deal with the problems at hand.

Wilson and Clinton were the worst as people. Carter and Truman the best in that category.

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

He was racist, yes, but otherwise he was one of the most important progressive presidents ever and his liberal internationalist values were both moral and extremely important in reshaping US foreign policy for the better.

The internet's hate boner for Wilson in recent years will never cease to amaze me.

Wilson was a literal Klansman though. That pretty much negates almost everything that he did.

[Dr. MB]

Wilson followed by Clinton, the others don't even register.

[Dr. MB]

Carter by competency, Wilson by values.
(Although you could say Wilson during his stroke was the worst in competence also).

He was racist, yes, but otherwise he was one of the most important progressive presidents ever and his liberal internationalist values were both moral and extremely important in reshaping US foreign policy for the better.

The internet's hate boner for Wilson in recent years will never cease to amaze me.

He was by far the most authoritarian president we've ever had. Didn't hold back on quashing any dissent against his policies and his war if he didn't like it.

[If my soul was made of stone]

On a purely instinctive and unideological level, I'm very annoyed by how trendy it's become to consider Wilson absolutely bottom tier. I'm not much of a fan of him at all, but the idea of him being bottom of the barrel is an online libertarian bro meme that's somehow metastasized. And he went to Johns Hopkins, so as a fellow Blue Jay I have to be defensive. Mike Bloomberg at least paid off a semester's worth of student loans for me!

Funny Peanut Man and Bubba are the only options, and between them I'd probably go longue durée and pick the former, since he was responsible for the latter and also history's greatest monster. Props to him for discovering the hidden secret of human sexuality (Poles being the hottest people alive) tho.