Lyndon B Johnson was the worst president in history. His war on poverty actually caused rates of poverty to stop declining, as it offered strong incentives to not work. The model cities program is part of what made Detroit the economic wasteland that it is today. His methods of escalation and botched foreign policy probably prolonged the Cold War and Vietnam War, which caused the death of thousands of American soldiers. His Great Society programs caused huge deficits and caused stagflation. Overall, terrible president.
Who was the worst president in US history and why?
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@bmdrocks21
FDR set the stage for LBJ. He was the worst.
James Buchanan. He hastened the coming of the Civil War and failed to address the structural issues present which made it possible.
I don't know about that. LBJ was among the last of the Democrats who took the Soviet threat seriously. Dem politicians after him seemed downright eager to collude with the ComIntern to undermine the foreign policy interests of the United States.
If nothing else, the War on Poverty probably helped alleviate criticisms of capitalism by giving such a massive concession, stripping radicals of a major talking point and so helping to keep the peace at home.
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@Swagnarok
Talk about seeing the silver linings on a turd lol.
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@Swagnarok
I agree that he was hard on communism, but he was super naive. He thought we had a detente with the Russians and they proceeded to crush the revolts of their satellite state, Hungary. Near the end of his presidency, he halted bombing of Vietnam just to try to help Humphrey win. Seemed like he cared about his party more than foreign relations. Also, he is a major reason that our spending is out of control today. It is easy to create new spending programs like social security, but it is nearly impossible to take it away. He and FDR are to blame on this matter. Getting rid of radical talking points was to help his party. Richard Nixon ran on a platform to reduce wasteful government spending and won by a decent margin, showing that most Americans hated what the Great Society did to our country.