McClanahan's criteria for judging the worst or best presidents was based on their ability to uphold their oath of office, how well did they defend the Constitution? These 5 presidents are the worst because they violated their oath of office. When a president takes office, he takes an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States. What does that mean? Well, that's the Constitution as ratified in the original Constitution: we don't have elected kings. Now, of course, Alexander Hamilton said he wanted that, but we didn't get that. "An elected king" was not ratified; in fact, one of the arguments against the Constitution is that it created an elected king, but those who said it never would. Even reading Alexander Hamilton's Federalists 69 he says "No, the American president will never be an elected king, it's not designed that way." So that's the Constitution we got, but typically the men that are considered the best act as dictators or kings or tyrants, and the ones that are considered the worst are generally those who follow the Constitution.
#5 HARRY S. TRUMAN
4:00. Harry Truman was so aggressive, we didn't have a peace treaty on the war. We had to end it through essentially a Congressional resolution because Harry Truman was blocking any attempt to have a real peace treaty with Germany or Japan. Also, Harry Truman, when the war was over, the United States attempted to demobilize. Harry Truman didn't let it happen; in fact, we just kind of rolled all these big massive unconstitutional government programs into something else and then called it something else. The United States has never gone off of wartime footing since World War II, and a lot of that is due to Harry Truman. A lot of the stuff was unconstitutional. We know it. Harry Truman nationalized the steel industry. Harry Truman attempted to arrest blue-collar workers for opposing his policies. Where have we seen this before in the modern era? Well, let's see, it's called mandates. So Harry Truman was doing things that were completely out of line. He's got his Fair Deal, "everyone deserves a fair deal," which was a massive expansion of federal programs, unconstitutional Federal programs. Harry Truman in so many ways is the personification of the Progressive Left: a) centralized power, b) come up with unconstitutional programs, c) be a warmonger, d) got us involved in Korea, the first time the United States had gotten into a major undeclared war and it's in Korea? Come on. This guy was one of the worst presidents in American history bar none. He makes the top five because he is so bad.
#4 LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON, LBJ
5:36. All right, coming in number four is another democratic warmonger, Lyndon Baines Johnson, another guy that is a . . . people try to give him credit for the Great Society which, of course, is massively unconstitutional. He's pushing that legislative agenda. They'll also try to give him credit for things like civil rights legislation and they'll give him a pass because of that, but we know Johnson wasn't really interested in real civil rights. What he really wanted was too ensure the ascendency of the Democratic Party and maintain power, and that's exactly what happened. He took one group of people, African Americans who had voted Republican for a long time, and made them Democratic voters because he thought that was the way forward. So was he really committed to civil rights or not, that's an open question. But the guns and butter policies of Lyndon Baines Johnson are some of the worst in American history. His War on Poverty didn't end poverty, hasn't ended it at all. His engagement in Vietnam cost tens of thousands of American lives and this is all under the guise of strong centralization, major centralization in American history. So Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society and the Vietnam War are two disastrous things; it's no wonder that Johnson, who assumes office after Kennedy's assassination, is essentially out in 1968. Because he knows he's not going to be reelected, so the man is out and we've got he's followed up by Richard Nixon, who's also really bad but not anywhere near as bad as Lyndon Johnson. So if you want to look at number four in terms of unconstitutional powers and abuse abusing power, Lyndon Johnson is your guy.
#3 WOODROW WILSON
7:15. Coming in at #3 is a man who did a lot to change the way we think about the executive office in the 20th century, and that would be Woodrow Wilson, the man who got us involved in World War I, the first time in American history that Americans are going to be fighting in Europe in a major war, that's Woodrow Wilson. Also Woodrow Wilson and his legislative programs, he provided the blueprint for the New Deal and the unconstitutional measures used by the general government during World War II. This guy was terrible when it came to defending his oath; he didn't do it at all. He's a progressive and Woodrow Wilson thought it was the job of the progressives to change the nature of government. Wilson, in fact, said as much. He said, you know, the Constitution is not something that should get in our way, right. The Constitution is something that we can use to our advantage. Now, Wilson at one time was very much a strict constructionist, but he saw that as an obstacle to good effective, efficient government, so from that point forward after he became president of Princeton and he was governor of New Jersey, Woodrow Wilson certainly decided that unconstitutional authority was was the best kind of authority and an aggressive foreign policy was the best kind of foreign policy. So if you want to look at the beginning of the American age and World War 1 and the American Empire, it certainly started before that with the Spanish-American War, 1898, but World War I really put the United States front and center on the world stage and that was thanks to Woodrow Wilson. And you wouldn't have had the New Deal without Wilson and Wilson's domestic policies. This guy was awful and if you look at him defending his oath, he did a very poor job.
#2 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
8:58. Coming in at #2, this is the one that's going to infuriate a lot of people but it's true: the second worst president in American history is Abraham Lincoln. Now I could have put him number one; as a matter of fact, I could have put any of these people number one, but Lincoln did so much to create the modern Imperial presidency. Now, Lincoln had precedence: he had Andrew Jackson and he also had George Washington. Why Jackson and Washington, those are good presidents. What are you saying? Lincoln was a good president. Anyone who engages in a war that kills a million Americans is not a good president. Lincoln could have chosen to have peace but he chose War instead. In fact, historians pointed this out for years. It's only been recently that we've had this idolization of Lincoln to the point of making him a demigod. There's a very good book by James G. Randall, Constitutional Problems Under Lincoln, 2012. Everyone recognized Lincoln's dubious constitutional tactics. People understood that Lincoln was violating the Constitution, his opponents knew he was violating the Constitution. Heck, Lincoln himself even admitted at times, "I think I'm violating the Constitution. It doesn't matter." But if you want to point to presidential powers, war powers, and how they are abused, you've got to go back to Abraham Lincoln. There's a guy that said, "Look, I don't care if it's constitutional or not; it's best to designed to subdue the enemy." And that of course became the basis of every single presidential act when it came to unconstitutional military power, you can't go beyond Lincoln for that. So Lincoln did a lot to create this national government, destroying State powers. We go from a federal republic to a national Empire. I mean this is the Lincoln Administration in a nutshell, and I think that you can't get around the fact that Lincoln is a disaster constitutionally in terms of defending his oath. His opponents said it, and we should all recognize that.
#1 FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT
10:51. Coming in at number one the worst president in American history, Franklin Roosevelt, King Franklin, the only man to serve 4 terms, which broke precedent. George Washington had established precedent; he only served 2 terms. Franklin Roosevelt elected 4 times, died in office very early into his 4th term. Regardless, really a man who transformed the way we think of the modern Executive Branch. Here's a guy who assumes office in 1933 and essentially admits openly in his inaugural address that he's going to be a dictator and that's what he does. So the New Deal which Roosevelt essentially authored the Roosevelt administration. He threatened the Supreme Court, so they'd bend to his will. He gets the United States involved in World War II, which there was a question, did it have to be involved in World War II? So all these unconstitutional things and, of course, all the programs that were put into effect and solidified by World War II, the creation of the military-industrial complex, all of that is because of King Franklin and FDR's Administration. This guy is absolutely horrible in defending his oath, yet he's often elevated to the status of a great president. You can't get around the fact that people loved FDR. He's right up there at the top, always ranked near the top with Lincoln, of course, and George Washington. I could say that George Washington is a great president in many ways. Of course, in my 9 Presidents Who Screwed Up America and Four Who Tried to Save Her, 2018, I made the case for Washington who had some problems as well but . . . . Franklin Roosevelt is the worst president in American history bar none.
Who are McClanahan's 5 Best Presidents? His criterion? Based on defending their oath of office. If they did a good job of defending the Constitution, they are going to be in this 5 Best.
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