The first of two 2024 presidential debates occurred on Thursday, June 27, and many Americans walked away from the televised exchange with greatly diminished hope for our country.
Joe Biden is a perfectly good president. He’s not great, by any means, but he’s also not a heartless megalomaniac. He’s just old — painfully so — and gradually losing the clarity and focus that is absolutely required to lead a nation.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, is a selfish, egotistical man-child with no interest in making the country better. He just wants to make himself and his friends richer, and the country more sycophantically devoted to his blinding ego, and he doesn’t care who ends up underfoot in pursuit of his schemes. He made that clear in the debate, as he lied and side-stepped his way through a range of responses.
Among the many, many outright lies that Trump rattled off during the 90-minute debate was one regarding the “worst president” the United States has ever seen. According to the disgraced dumptruck of a former president, Joe Biden is the worst president in U.S. history. Despite his failings, that feels like a real reach, so let’s examine Trump’s claim.
Who is the worst president in American history?
The United States has had some truly incredible presidents, but for every wonderful, productive, stellar Commander in Chief the nation welcomes, there are plenty of disasters to take their place.
Through a modern lens, Donald Trump easily seems to take the cake for the worst leader this nation has ever seen, but we lack the context of history. Many times throughout this nation’s tenure people have held the same belief, looking down on the president of the era as a stain on the office.
He may not be a lying, cheating, selfish, felon of a presidential candidate, but Joe Biden is no dream either. He’s not nearly so ineffective as his Republican competition, but the current president is by no means the best this nation has ever seen. He’s not the worst either, despite Trump’s claims, according to a February 2024 poll of historians.
The poll, which examined every leader the U.S. has ever elected, actually placed Biden in the 14th position. He is, according to data, the 14th best president the nation has ever seen, but there’s a catch: He may just have Trump to thank for his ranking.
The best thing Biden’s ever done in office, according to the poll? Booting Trump from the presidency. According to the college professors who conducted the survey, “Biden’s most important achievements may be that he rescued the presidency from Trump, resumed a more traditional style of presidential leadership, and is gearing up to keep the office out of his predecessor’s hands this fall.”
So who’s the least popular president in history? At least according to the poll, that spot goes to the one, the only, the skidmark master general: Donald Trump. He was ranked 45th on the poll — a fitting number for the 45th president — and, since no 46th place is included on the list, that earns Trump the bottom ranking position.
Just ahead of dirt-last Trump is 15th American President James Buchanan, whose mark on the nation can be boiled down to his avid support of slavery. His incompetence in the position is alleged to have paved the way for the Civil War, and yet he’s still more popular than Trump.
That’s a hard pill to swallow, and one that Trump will absolutely deny at every opportunity. He’s not interested in facts or academic polls, he’s interested in power. And anything that gets in the way of that is nothing but an obstacle in the pathetic former president’s path.