Americans have elected some dubious people to run our show, and it always leads to pain. However, there's a difference between personal badness and terrible policy. For example, President Carter was a well-intentioned man but was in way over his head, hurting the country in significant ways.
Conversely, Thomas Jefferson cannot be considered a good guy but was a political genius. Many of the citizen protections he advocated remain in place today.
I write about all this in "Confronting the Presidents," as the struggle to find "good" leaders is, of course, ongoing. We had another chaotic situation this year, so it is worth looking back.
Elected in 1856, President James Buchanan was by a wide margin the worst president of all time, as we document in the book. Cowardly, with no sympathy at all for enslaved human beings, Buchanan did nothing as the South rose in ferocity. His weak administration directly led to the Civil War.
President John Tyler was actually a traitor. Lyndon Johnson and Warren Harding exceedingly corrupt. And then there's President Joe Biden.
Although my coauthor Martin Dugard dissents, I consider Mr. Biden the second worst president in history. Most bad presidents inherited problems they couldn't fix or made worse. Think Herbert Hoover. He didn't cause the Great Depression but was clueless in helping Americans gravely damaged by it.
Joe Biden is a different cat, as Dennis Miller might say. He created problems. On his first day in office, he opened the southern border to millions of migrants now in the country unsupervised. Biden didn't have to do it. Congress wasn't even involved. Joe simply waved everyone in and has never explained why.
Even the often inebriated Franklin Pierce would have been appalled.
And remember that Biden, Vice President Harris, and Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas all told the country the border was secure for three years.
But then, confronting an election, they suddenly changed their minds, which might qualify them for the Cynicism Hall of Fame.
No doubt Andrew Jackson would have called this out in a big way, maybe with a dueling pistol.
President Biden also drove the inflation rate from 1.4 percent to more than 9 percent. Working Americans continue to suffer from that. Joe blamed the surging prices on Trump. Two words: homework, dog.
Biden and Harris cede nothing, of course. Few bad leaders do. Buchanan wrote a book blaming the Civil War on Congress. Nobody read it.
Finally, in order to cast a responsible vote, you have to know stuff. That's not easy in a country where propaganda is now a thriving industry. That's why I wrote "Confronting" to provide perspective about the lows and highs of presidential votes.
Finally, she probably doesn't know it, but Kamala Harris is doing exactly what Warren Harding did in his 1920 campaign: no meaningful interviews.
And while Warren H. got away with it, the country was very badly served by his White House presence.
Worth considering 104 years later.
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