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No doubt about it, America's had some really marginal presidents as it seems we often choose mediocracies to run the place including some exceptionally inept and venial individuals as seen by Trump, Harding, Pierce and Andrew Johnson, among significant others. Various polls stay pretty consistent with the top 10 but variances do occur as one moves toward the bottom feeders like Buchanan, considered by many to be the worst until Trump came along.

 James Buchanan, who served as president from 1857 to 1861, is often considered by historians to be the worst U.S. leader because of his actions in the lead-up to the Civil War. 

Credit...National Archive, via Newsmakers

With this in mind, yours truly's take on presidential rankings would put W near the bottom based on his disaster known as shock and awe, the worst strategic initiative this country has ever done, aided and abetted by the weapons of mass destruction lie. Lyndon Johnson and the nadir of Nam also comes to mind as this catastrophic endeavor also was started by the Gulf of Tonkin lie even though Johnson's push for civil rights via his Great Society programs elevates his status to some degree. 

Even conservatives from Atlanta, where Mr. Cooper lives, have had it with Mr. Trump, he said. “He has tarred and feathered himself, and I think it will blemish him for a long, long, long time.”

Douglas G. Brinkley, professor of history at Rice University and a member of the advisory panel for C-SPAN’s Presidential Historians Survey, said that Mr. Trump “was a bad president in just about every regard.”

“I find him to be the worst president in U.S. history, personally,” Mr. Brinkley said, “even worse than William Henry Harrison, who was president for only one month. You don’t want to be ranked below him.”

Mr. Brinkley brought up Richard Nixon, the only president to resign in disgrace.

“At least when Nixon left, he put the country ahead of himself at the last minute,” Mr. Brinkley said. “Now he looks like a statesman compared to Trump.”

Any questions?