Has there been a more unpopular president in the US then our current one?

Question

I read an article stating that the 43rd president was the worst ever.

Answer 1

Johnson was MUCH more unpopular in his heyday...explaining why he didn't even run for a second term.

Civil--that's not true, look it up. You can't have 3 terms but you can have up to 10 years in office if you are taking over an unexpired term. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_B._Johnson

Answer 2

Adams was very unpopular due to a smear campaign by Jefferson over Adams pursuing a peace treaty with France which Jefferson said was not possible.

Jefferson capitalized on the unpopularity of Adams that his smear campaign created to get voted in as president.

Funny thing is, Ambassador Ben Franklin got the peace treaty signed well before the election and had just arrived back in the states with the treaty right before the election.

Word of the treaty never reached the people and the people voted in Jefferson as president to take us to war.

Ironically the peace treaty with France enabled Jefferson to make the Louisiana Purchase from France more than doubling the US territory.

Answer 3

Actually, historically speaking...Carter had the lowest (due to double digit interest rates, tripling gas prices, the 444 days that Iran held American Hostages), followed by Lincoln (The Civil War which killed hundreds of thousands of Americans, and the Emancipation Proclamation was not that popular with most of the North), then GW Bush (which I blame a lot of it on the Media)...I see where someone above me said Lincoln was a great President...but when he was in office, most of the people in the Union, hated him...(All the people in the South hated him)...that is why someone put a sky light in his head...so we'll actually see in about 20 years or so what History thinks of GWB...

EDIT: Meg, I am a Historian and most of the other Historians I know (me too) feel that how Bush is viewed depends on how the War on Terror comes out...the past 8 years is a current event...

Answer 4

Abraham Lincoln was so unpopular, several states left the Union entirely.

Bear in mind when looking at these popularity polls that they don't go back very far historically.

Also note that the President's approval rating is higher than that of Congress.

Answer 5

One of our worst presidents would have to be Richard M. Nixon. Nixon was our 37th president and he was the only president to ever resign from office. He resigned from office on Aug.9,1974 after serving 2,026 days as president because of the Watergate scandal.

Answer 6

There have been a lot of other Presidents with lower ratings....but I don't think there has ever been a lower rating than this Democratic controlled Congress. If it gets any lower we'll have to start using negative numbers.

Answer 7

Lincoln was positively hated in much of the North because of his persistance in continuing such a costly and destructive war without any progress. Many people thought the South should have been allowed to secede.

He was reviled then as much as Bush is now.

Even then, the NY Times didn't support war - it was "Mr. Lincoln's War" to them.

Answer 8

Although George W. Bush's presidency is in colossal historical disgrace and most historians feel he will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history there are others. (Three-fourths of those historians who gave Bush a negative rating -- reached back way before Nixon to find a president they considered as miserable as Bush. )

The others: (maybe not quite so bad - but almost). Andrew Johnson, Harding, Hoover - Nixon.

Answer 9

The worst was Woodrow Wilson he gave us all the problems we have today followed by Carter, then Clinton.

The greatest, Washington, Lincoln, Reagan and FDR who saved the Navy and Marines from those knuckleheads in the Air Force

Answer 10

Yes, there has. There have been more unpopular presidents, and worse presidents. Carter for both examples comes to mind for me.