Ronald Reagan did more damage to this country than any president before or after him.

While W. sucked in many ways, there is no way he is the worst. Off the top of my head I can easily think of four better contenders: Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan (both guilty of pro-slavery fuckery before the Civil War), Andrew Johnson (fought to let the Confederates off the hook after the war and opposed the 14th amendment), and Donald Trump (first president to be impeached twice, first to be convicted of a felony, and may be remembered by future historians as the spark that ignites the next Civil War).

It's tempting to pick someone recent, but the real answer is probably Andrew Jackson. He successfully engineered a genocide, trampled the Constitution and human rights, and was actively hostile to limits on Presidential power.

Reagan

I would hire nucular George every day for the next 4 years to get rid of the orange dipshit.

George W Bush Jr.

Yes I am handing him the worst president title, even over Trump.

Because, it was his mishandled War on Terror, that plunged the country into massive national debt. He crashed the housing market. He literally had waged a war on obese people, minorities and other things as distractions from his failure to capture Osama. He allowed American Surveillance with Patriot Act I and II. His cabinet were all crooks and he was just a dumb puppet.

He is essentially the ripple effect of everything we're dealing with today and Trump is merely the symptom of that.

This question is too difficult, there are too many candidates...

Trump is definitely in the bottom quintile, but also anyone putting him in the bottom 5 is just recency bias.

The idiot son of an asshole

andrew jackson (or johnson can never remember which) for the trail of tears. absolutely awful

Going for the low hanging fruit, huh?

Does worst mean:

• least able to achieve their stated agenda, ie worst at their job. (Trump)
• worst vision for America, ie most evil (Reagan)
• worst overall impact to America, ie one you'd kill with a time machine (Bush Jr, but Trump might catch up in term 2)
• Worst for the world, ie the one I'd kill with a time machine (Washington)

Although I'm not American and don't know your history that well.

It's Reagan or Nixon, no contest. Bush pales in comparison

Plenty of choice. In my view, most presidents were rambling reeking right wingers in some way or other, save for FDR and Teddy Roosevelt, who were the two presidents I'd actually call capable and outspoken on civil rights (rather than just pragmatical like Lincoln). They did have their blemishes, but less than e.g. Andrew Jackson.

So many presidents were terrible for one people or another.

Andrew Jackson? Held hundreds of slaves and quite literally led an ethnic expulsion against Native Americans (the Trail of Tears).

Lincoln? Mostly good, but did not forbid slavery in the form of penal labour. If one were to abolish slavery, why not go the full mile?

Wilson? Rabid antisemite, pretty much.

Hoover? Might've tried to tackle the Great Depression -- but did so by allying with large coorporations, effectively being corrupt and choosing bribery.

Truman? Dropped nukes and set the stage for "we support any government that hates people being remotely leftist".

Nixon - corrupt and wanted to sidestep the rule of law, all for his own profit: to stay in power. Other than thaf, decent, but that's a big "other than that".

Reagan - enough said. Ultracapitalist, misleading, made the US economy far worse by accruing debt like there's no tomorrow, and shoving it onto the poor -- typical oligarch behaviour! Militaristic, power-hungry. And no, he did not end the Cold War: Gorbachov did.

JFK: socially pretty good, actually. But economically, the cutting of the top rates made the richest keep more money. At least it wasn't down below 50%, but still. Had that happened, I think the tax rates would've allowed wealth accumulation.

And so on.

So, in my view, it's hard to focus on who is the worse, and better to rather focus on what is the best. Ted would be my candidate. Not only social progress, but also economical, and in a way that favour the worker -- and he also was environmentally aware. That is a good president.

The one that's presiding over a genocide and is currently trying to start WW3.

Wasn't it Nixon who sold the americans out? Or Truman?