My List Of America’s Top Ten Worst Presidents

By Chuck Baldwin 
March 16, 2023

(We cannot find a single selection with which we would disagree, except maybe the order of ranking — especially that of GHWB Bush and his dumbbell spinoff who could not have been legitimately elected president had his name been Roosevelt or Kennedy.)

To be sure, it’s quite a challenge to try and pick America’s top ten worst presidents when so many qualify for the distinction. But then again, I am personally quite convinced that the ones who made my list truly deserve their ignoble entry.

So here goes: America’s top ten worst presidents.

1. Abraham Lincoln (Republican)

Without an ounce of doubt in my mind, Abraham Lincoln is America’s absolute worst president. He did not free a single slave; but what he did do was begin the process of enslaving free men. It is no hyperbole to say that Lincoln truly governed as a dictator, not as a President.

Virtually every single problem we are having today (and have had ever since Lincoln’s presidency) with an overbearing, encroaching, authoritarian federal government in Washington, D.C., came as a result of Abraham Lincoln’s presidency. EVERY SINGLE ONE!

Abraham Lincoln destroyed the Washington/Jeffersonian model of American government and replaced it with an imperial White House. His own statements prove that he cared absolutely nothing for the black race and was indeed himself a racist—unlike many leaders of the Confederacy, such as Robert E. Lee, Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, etc., who publicly and adamantly spoke in support of the end of slavery and never said anything remotely derogatory or racist against the black people.

Beyond that, in his first inaugural address, Lincoln actually supported an amendment to the U.S. Constitution proposed by Ohio Congressman Thomas Corwin (which would have been the 13^th Amendment) that said,

No amendment shall be made to the Constitution, which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish, or interfere within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.

In other words, the amendment would have forever guaranteed the right of people to own slaves.

Lincoln violated every constitutional restraint on the office of the President possible. He used the Union army to invade independent sovereign states, and he invaded the State legislature in Maryland, kidnapping and incarcerating the legislators to prevent them from voting on secession. He used force to bully and intimidate other State legislatures in the North to keep them from supporting southern independence. He authorized Union forces to hunt down and kill or imprison “Copperheads” (individuals who supported southern independence in the North.)

While Lincoln forced black men from the North to serve in the Union army in segregated units, southern blacks were fighting voluntarily side-by-side with the white men—in the same units as the white men. And what most history books fail to mention is that there were reportedly over 300,000 slave owners fighting in Lincoln’s Union army during the Civil War. (Source: History of the United States, by John Ford Rhodes, Volume 4, page 344)

Lincoln’s so-called Emancipation Proclamation was an attempt to give the North moral justification for continuing his unconstitutional and immoral war of aggression against the South by issuing an edict to a nation that had already seceded (the Confederacy) and in which he had no authority, while leaving the institution of slavery completely intact among the states in which he did have authority (the Union). Lincoln was also hoping that his proclamation would incite southern blacks to insurrect against the southern states. However, this goal was never remotely accomplished.

England’s William Wilberforce had already shown how slavery could be peacefully ended. The institution of slavery was already dying in the United States. There was absolutely no reason why over 600,000 Americans had to die in Lincoln’s War of Aggression. Abraham Lincoln cared nothing about freeing slaves; what he cared about was enslaving free and independent states to an all-powerful, dictatorial federal government.

There really wasn’t a “bad” president before Lincoln. But with Lincoln as a model, and with the constitutional restraints against an imperial presidency left torn in shreds, we haven’t had very many “good” presidents since him. In fact, without Abraham Lincoln, the nine “worst” presidents below would probably have never become President.

I highly encourage readers to read the excellent book, The Real Lincoln by Thomas DiLorenzo.

2. Woodrow Wilson (Democrat)

Woodrow Wilson took Lincoln’s vision of subjugated states to a global level. In one year, Wilson did more to destroy whatever vestiges of a free republic that were left after Lincoln’s administration than any President since. That year was 1913. It was a year that should live in infamy. Woodrow Wilson saddled the American people with the following:

February 3, 1913

This is the date when the 16^th Amendment was ratified, and the direct income tax and IRS were instituted. This was a flagrant repudiation of freedom principles. What began as a temporary measure to support the War of Northern Aggression became a permanent income revenue stream for an unconstitutional—and ever-growing—central government.

April 8, 1913

This is the date when the 17^th Amendment was ratified. This amendment overturned the power of the State legislatures to elect their own senators and replaced it with a direct, popular vote. This was another serious blow against State sovereignty. The framers of the Constitution desired that the influence and power in Washington, D.C., be kept as close to the people and states as possible.

For example, the number of representatives in the House of Representatives was to be decided by a limited number of voters. In the original Constitution, the ratio of “People of the several States” deciding their House member could not exceed “one for every thirty Thousand.” (Article. I. Section. 2. Paragraph. 3.) And when it came to the U.S. Senate, the framers also recognized the authority of each State legislature to select its own senators, thereby keeping power and influence from aggregating in Washington, D.C.

The 17^th Amendment seriously damaged the influence and power of the states by forcing them to elect their US senators by popular vote. The bigger the State, the less influence the State legislature has in determining its U.S. senator. Senators who answered to State legislators, each answering to a limited number of voters, were much more accountable to the “Citizens of the several States” than those who were elected by a large number (many times numbering into the millions) of people. For all intents and purposes (at least in the larger states), U.S. senators are more like “mini-Presidents” than representatives of sovereign states.

December 23, 1913

This is the date when the Federal Reserve Act was passed. This Act placed oversight of America’s financial matters into the hands of a cabal of private international bankers, who have completely destroyed the constitutional principles of sound money and (for the most part) free enterprise. No longer would the marketplace (private consumption, thrift, growth, etc.) be the determinant of the U.S. economy (which is what freedom is all about), but now a private, unaccountable international banking cartel would have total power and authority to micromanage (for their own private, parochial purposes) America’s financial sector. Virtually every recession, depression and downturn has been the direct result of the Fed’s manipulation of the markets.

1913 was not a good year for the United States. And Woodrow Wilson was our second worst President.

3. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Democrat)

F.D.R. was America’s first socialist President. His “New Deal” was actually a “Raw Deal.” He was the President that did the yeoman’s share of work in preparing the United States to reject American independence and embrace socialism—complete with the gargantuan list of federal alphabet agencies designed to promote and enforce the socialist agenda. What Woodrow Wilson had failed to accomplish with the attempted League of Nations, Roosevelt accomplished by laying the framework for the United Nations, which came into fruition under his successor Harry Truman.

Roosevelt was also the man responsible for aiding and abetting communism in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. I think it is also accurate to say that F.D.R. purposely goaded Japan into war. I further believe he made sure that the defenses that should have seen the Japanese attack coming were not operational. Not to mention his unconscionable internment of Japanese Americans during the war.

Abraham Lincoln gave America an imperial presidency. Woodrow Wilson gave America globalism. F.D.R. gave America socialism.

4. Lyndon Baines Johnson (Democrat)

L.B.J. was F.D.R. on steroids. He took American socialism to heights Roosevelt could have only dreamed of. Johnson’s “Great Society” permanently ensconced a welfare/entitlement society into the fabric of America, which has resulted in the destruction of both our economic system and the family unit.

And without a doubt, L.B.J. is an international criminal and traitor to America. Along with his Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Johnson conspired with the Israeli government to sink the U.S.S. Liberty. And when Johnson realized that the Israelis were unable to sink our ship (due to a divine miracle of God) and Americans would be alive to tell the truth about what happened, he led a conspiracy of silence within both the government and media to cover up his murderous treason—a conspiracy of silence that exists to this very day.

If you have not already read the true story of the U.S.S. Liberty (co-written by the ship’s survivors), I urge you to get the book Remember The LIBERTY! 

Lyndon Johnson is also responsible for the Gun Control Act of 1968, which is the grandfather of ALL of our modern gun control laws. As a U.S. Senator from Texas, Johnson is also the man that successfully gagged and muzzled America’s pastors and churches with the passage of his amendment to the 501c3 section of the Internal Revenue Code. Of course, Johnson also took America into the unconstitutional war in Vietnam. And I personally believe that L.B.J. was a conspirator to John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Lyndon Johnson was a terrible President and an awful human being.

5. George W. Bush (Republican)

Lincoln gave us the imperial presidency; Wilson gave us globalism; F.D.R. gave us socialism; L.B.J. gave us welfarism, gun control and cowardly churches; and G.W. Bush gave us a burgeoning Police State, a total surveillance society, perpetual war and Neocons.

What Bill Clinton and Al Gore could not do, G.W. Bush did with ease: shackle the United States with the hugely misnamed and tyrannical USA Patriot Act. He also gave us the Department of Homeland Security, the Military Commissions Act and the indefinite detention sections of the NDAA. Bush also expunged Posse Comitatus in America. He illegally invaded two sovereign nations, Iraq and Afghanistan. He created the “preemptive war” doctrine that still guides America’s foreign policy today. His policies and actions directly contributed to the rise of Islamic terror groups such as ISIS and the invasion of illegal immigrants in Europe and the United States. The phony “war on terror” is G.W. Bush’s war.

G.W. Bush and his presidential successors have killed more people in their various and sundry wars of aggression than Abraham Lincoln. Plus, G.W. Bush’s failure on 9/11 is of seismic proportions. Either his administration was totally inept in preventing and/or responding to 9/11 (especially Saudi Arabia’s and Israel’s potential involvement) or, if one accepts the conspiracy theories, elements within his administration actually conspired to facilitate the attacks on 9/11. Either way, Bush’s performance on 9/11 was dismal at best or traitorous at worst.

Virtually every unconstitutional tool that Barack Obama used in his disastrous presidency was handed to him on a silver platter by G.W. Bush.

6. Barack Obama (Democrat)

Barack Obama is America’s first Muslim President and the first to not be born of an American citizen or in the United States as required by the U.S. Constitution. Anyone who believes Obama was born in Hawaii is intellectually challenged.

Obama’s single greatest administrative disaster is his socialized healthcare plan, known as Obamacare. Without a doubt, this system is a death sentence to America’s future healthcare. Generations of Americans yet to come will curse the day Barack Obama and the members of Congress that assisted him were allowed to create this medical monstrosity.

Obama was also the laziest President in history. He took more vacations, played more rounds of golf and spent more taxpayers’ dollars on vacation trips than any President before him. But, to me, it’s a good thing he was so lazy. Think of the damage he could have done if he wasn’t.

7. William Jefferson Blythe Clinton (Democrat)

Until Donald Trump came along, Bill Clinton was the only President to be impeached besides Andrew Johnson. Perjury is a serious crime, and if the Republicans in the Senate had had any man-stuff, they would have removed him from office. But perjury was not all Clinton was guilty of.

Clinton’s cozy deals with the Communist Chinese and the bribes paid to him by foreign governments are well documented. Bill Clinton was probably the most corrupt President since U.S. Grant.

Another major stain on the Clinton record is the way his government murdered over one hundred innocent men (most of them elderly), women and children outside Waco, Texas. Then again, the Clinton body count is probably much higher than that. The people who ran afoul of Clinton’s good graces and ended up mysteriously dead number in the scores.

8. George Herbert Walker Bush (Republican)

G.H.W. Bush is the granddaddy of the modern Neocons. He is the first U.S. President to publicly call for a global “New World Order.”

In reality, the administrations of Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama were nothing more than one, long, continuous administration. There really was not any policy change of substance in the White House during those administrations—party affiliation notwithstanding.

Bush I is also responsible for the government murders of Vicki and Sammy Weaver near Ruby Ridge, Idaho. Along with the Clinton administration’s murder of the Branch Davidians near Waco, Texas, the Bush-sponsored murders of the Weavers have done more to make Americans distrust and despise their central government than anything since the Boston Massacre in 1770.

9. Harry Truman (Democrat)

Truman was America’s first Zionist president. The ethnic cleansing, slaughter and genocide of millions of Palestinian people by the Israeli army can be laid directly on the doorstep of Harry Truman.

I strongly urge folks to read Ilan Pappe’s blockbuster book The Ethnic Cleansing Of Palestine.

And never forget that Truman is the only national leader in world history to use atomic (nuclear) weapons—and he chose to use them against civilian populations.

10. (Tie) Richard Nixon (Republican) and Joe Biden (Democrat)

Watergate was the tip of the iceberg for Nixon. He would have been impeached had he not resigned, for sure. Nixon makes my list because of his coziness with Communist China’s Butcher of Beijing (Mao Tse-tung) and for forever taking America off of the gold standard. Nixon could probably be identified as a Neocon, if we had known what they were back then. For example, Nixon gave us the likes of Henry Kissinger.

It’s really hard to articulate the imbecilic presidency of Joe Biden. By every discernable measurement, Biden’s rating is 0, as in ZERO. Biden’s usage of the Covid scam in an attempt to eviscerate American Liberty, shutter businesses and put the lives of millions in jeopardy is unconscionable and should be regarded as an act of war against humanity. And his proxy war against Russia in Ukraine qualifies Joe Biden as one of the most evil warmongers in U.S. history, right up there with, well, Abraham Lincoln.

There you have it: my list of America’s top ten worst presidents.

© Chuck Baldwin