who is the worst president in us history
There is no single, universally agreed answer to “who is the worst president in U.S. history,” but in recent years historians’ surveys and public polls most often put Donald Trump and James Buchanan at or near the very bottom, with Andrew Johnson also frequently mentioned.
Below is a forum-style “Quick Scoop” that mirrors how this topic is being debated online today.
Who is the worst president in US history?
Quick Scoop: Historians’ rankings now often label Donald Trump as the lowest-rated U.S. president overall, while many traditional scholarly lists still single out James Buchanan (and sometimes Andrew Johnson) as the worst for 19th‑century failures that helped enable the Civil War and undermine Reconstruction.
How historians rank “worst president”
Professional historian and political‑science surveys tend to use criteria like crisis leadership, moral authority, economic management, administrative skills, and respect for democratic norms.
- A 2024 survey of 154 presidential scholars ranked Donald Trump 45th out of 45 , explicitly calling him the worst U.S. president, below earlier “calamitous” figures linked to the Civil War era.
- In many long‑running academic rankings, James Buchanan has traditionally held the bottom spot for failing to confront secession and effectively green‑lighting Southern extremists in the 1850s.
The case against Donald Trump
In recent expert surveys, Trump drops to the bottom for a mix of governance failures and attacks on democratic norms.
Key knocks that historians highlight:
- Democratic norms and rule of law
- Refusal to accept the 2020 election result and rhetoric that helped incite the January 6 attack on Congress are cited as unprecedented challenges to a peaceful transfer of power.
* Post‑presidency, he has been overshadowed by dozens of criminal charges tied to his conduct in office and around elections, which scholars see as part of a broader pattern of norm‑breaking.
- Crisis management (COVID‑19)
- Trump’s handling of the COVID‑19 pandemic is widely criticized as delayed, inconsistent, and politically polarized, which scholars argue deepened a national health and economic crisis.
- Governing style and corruption concerns
- Historians describe his administration as unusually chaotic , with high turnover, blurred ethical lines, and frequent use of inflammatory rhetoric, including xenophobic and racist language.
* His legislative record is often seen as thin relative to the political power his party held early in his term.
Because of this combination—weak crisis leadership plus damage to institutions—many recent academic rankings and op‑eds now label Trump “worst ever” or “at the very bottom,” sometimes explicitly grouping him with Buchanan and Warren G. Harding.
The classic “worst”: James Buchanan & Andrew Johnson
Before Trump, the default scholarly answer to “worst president” was usually James Buchanan.
James Buchanan (1857–1861)
Historians typically fault Buchanan for:
- Failure to prevent the Civil War
- He backed the pro‑slavery Dred Scott decision and tolerated Southern schemes to admit Kansas as a slave state, deepening sectional crisis.
* When Southern states began seceding, he largely refused to act decisively, leaving the Union to fracture just as Abraham Lincoln was about to take office.
- Moral and political abdication
- Scholars see Buchanan not as the sole cause of the Civil War, but as a president whose passivity and bias toward pro‑slavery interests helped push the nation toward catastrophe.
Because his inaction helped set the stage for the bloodiest conflict in U.S. history, he remains a top contender for “worst ever” in many traditional rankings.
Andrew Johnson (1865–1869)
Another frequent nominee is Andrew Johnson , Lincoln’s successor.
Historians criticize him for:
- Sabotaging Reconstruction
- Johnson opposed robust protections for formerly enslaved people and fought against civil rights reforms, including vetoing key legislation that Congress then had to override.
* His approach enabled Southern states to impose Black Codes and roll back many gains of emancipation, with long‑lasting consequences for racial inequality.
- Governance breakdown
- His conflict with Congress over Reconstruction was so intense that he was impeached (and only narrowly acquitted), symbolizing a near‑collapse of cooperative governance.
As a result, many scholars rank Johnson as second‑worst, just behind Buchanan, especially when focusing on long‑term harm to civil rights.
What polls and forums are saying now
Public opinion and online forums don’t always match the historians, but Trump now dominates many “worst president” conversations.
- A 2026 Yahoo/YouGov poll found about 40% of Americans label Trump the worst president in U.S. history, and another 12% call him “worse than average,” putting over half the public on the negative side.
- Older polls sometimes put more recent presidents like Barack Obama or others at or near the bottom, but survey experts warn these “worst” questions are highly sensitive to wording, timing, and partisan mood.
- On history‑focused forums, many users still argue that James Buchanan or Andrew Johnson are objectively worse, because their failures are tied directly to the Civil War and the betrayal of Reconstruction.
Multi‑viewpoint snapshot
Here’s how different communities commonly answer “who is the worst president in US history”:
| Source / lens | Most common “worst” picks | Main reasons cited |
|---|---|---|
| Recent historian surveys | Donald Trump | [7][2]Attacks on democratic norms, poor crisis leadership (COVID‑19), weak legislative record, legal and ethical controversies. | [7][1][2][6]
| Traditional scholarly rankings | James Buchanan; often Andrew Johnson second | [1][5][6][10]Failure to confront secession and slavery (Buchanan); undermining Reconstruction and civil rights (Johnson). | [5][6][10][1]
| Recent public opinion polls | Donald Trump | [3]Strong partisan dislike, perception of poor overall performance and norm‑breaking behavior. | [8][3]
| Online history forums | James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, sometimes Trump | [9][5]Debates balance structural damage (Civil War/Reconstruction) vs. modern institutional and democratic damage. | [9][5]
Why there’s no final “correct” answer
Calling anyone the single “worst president in US history” is ultimately a value judgment, even when backed by data.
- Different people weight harms differently: some prioritize how a president handled existential crises like the Civil War and Reconstruction; others focus on protecting democratic norms in the modern era.
- Polls can be distorted by partisanship, question wording, and recency bias, so they say as much about today’s politics as about historical performance.
Still, if the specific search phrase is “who is the worst president in US history,” current expert rankings and a large share of public opinion increasingly point to Donald Trump , while many historians insist that James Buchanan (and closely, Andrew Johnson) still deserve that label because of their role in the disasters surrounding the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.
