In the race to the bottom for the title of worst American president, the same few sorry names appear at the end of almost every list, jockeying for last place. …
“I already feel that he is the worst,” said Ted Widmer, professor of history at the City University of New York, noting that as bad as Buchanan was — and he was very bad indeed — he was “not as aggressively bad as Trump. … Andrew Johnson and Nixon would be the two others in the worst category, and I think Trump has them beat pretty handily, too,” he added. “He has invented a whole new category, a subbasement that no one knew existed.” …
Sean Wilentz, a professor of American history at Princeton University, said that Mr. Trump was the worst president in history, hands down. “He’s in a whole other category in terms of the damage he’s done to the Republic,” said Mr. Wilentz, citing the radicalization of the Republican Party, the inept response to the pandemic and what he called “the brazen, almost psychedelic mendacity of the man.” CONTINUED
Sarah Lyall, New York Times