{"id":161436,"date":"2026-08-25T07:44:50","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T15:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/08\/25\/is-trump-only-the-worst-president-or-is-he-the-worst-american-ever\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T07:44:50","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T15:44:50","slug":"is-trump-only-the-worst-president-or-is-he-the-worst-american-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/08\/25\/is-trump-only-the-worst-president-or-is-he-the-worst-american-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Trump Only The Worst President \u2014 Or Is He The Worst American \u2014 Ever?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
(Photo by Win McNamee\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The pandemic was good for at least one thing: It prompted some old law school buddies and me to begin meeting occasionally by Zoom.\u00a0Although the pandemic has ended, the calls have not.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of those calls prompted today\u2019s column.\u00a0A few weeks ago, one of my buddies said:\u00a0\u201cI don\u2019t think Donald Trump is merely the worst president ever.\u00a0I think you could make an argument that he\u2019s the worst American ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eureka!\u00a0I\u2019m always up for a challenge.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with the easy part \u2014 \u201cworst president ever.\u201d\u00a0 Where shall we begin?<\/p>\n

Maybe Trump\u2019s criminal and legal record?<\/p>\n

Trump is the first president in history to have been convicted of multiple felonies.\u00a0He\u2019s also the first president to have been found liable for civil fraud, sexual assault, and defamation.\u00a0He\u2019s also the first to have been impeached twice by the House of Representatives.\u00a0And he\u2019s the first to have been criminally indicted for the mishandling of classified government documents and obstructing government efforts to retrieve them.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s an awful lot of firsts.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s more.<\/p>\n

Most presidents, while in office, at least pretend to represent the whole country and to promote national unity.\u00a0Not our man Trump.\u00a0He tweets about the \u201cDumocrats,\u201d thrives on demonizing blue cities, withholds catastrophe relief funds from states that didn\u2019t vote for him, and otherwise delights in creating cultural cleavages.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

And the empathy! Former FBI Director and Special Counsel Robert Mueller died? Trump was \u201cglad he\u2019s dead.\u201d Former President Joe Biden is suffering with cancer? Trump told reporters not to feel too sorry for Biden, because he was a \u201cvicious person.\u201d<\/p>\n

The man is filled with concern for both country and humanity. (Hey, Trump likes Putin, who\u2019s got \u201ca lot of great charm and great pride<\/a>.\u201d And Trump \u201cfell in love<\/a>\u201d with Kim Jong Un. Jeff Epstein was a \u201cterrific guy<\/a>.\u201d And he wishes Ghislaine Maxwell \u201cwell<\/a>.\u201d So there\u2019s that.)<\/p>\n

How about handling crises? Trump handled COVID-19 like a pro, comparing COVID to the seasonal flu and insisting in early 2020 that the country would be open for business by Easter. Trump didn\u2019t want cruise ships to dock in the United States, for fear of increasing the number of COVID diagnoses on his watch. Trump promoted quack cures for the disease and undermined public health responses in the name of partisan politics.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s just disease.<\/p>\n

Surely he did better with the crisis of, say, war.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

We first attacked Iranian nuclear sites during a period of stalled diplomacy. Reasonable minds could differ over the desirability of those attacks. But you couldn\u2019t disagree about phraseology. Trump insisted that it was incorrect to say that those attacks had merely substantially undermined Iran\u2019s nuclear weapons program; one had to say \u201cobliterated\u201d to convey the full extent of the damage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And then Trump attacked Iran again, with the stated purpose of destroying the already obliterated nuclear weapons program. Or regime change, or to prevent imminent threats to the United States, or \u2014 I don\u2019t remember any more. It\u2019s so exhausting, and it\u2019s been nearly six months.<\/p>\n

But now the war\u2019s over! Or not. And the Strait\u2019s closed! Or not. And we\u2019ll bomb Iran back into the Stone Age! Or not. And we\u2019ll negotiate! Or not. And the military\u2019s been destroyed. Except Trump will run away in a catering truck \u2014 taking the pretty blonde with him, but leaving the secretary of state behind.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So Trump\u2019s been a bad president.<\/p>\n

But worst American ever?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s some serious competition here: The traitorous Benedict Arnold. Presidential assassin John Wilkes Booth. Jim Jones (of drinking the Kool Aid to the tune of over 900 people dead at Jonestown). Steven Paddock (who blew away 58 people from that upper-story room in the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Did Trump do anything that could compare?<\/p>\n

Rape\u2019s bad.<\/p>\n

Fraud\u2019s bad.<\/p>\n

But I need something worse; I need something to compete with real villainy.<\/p>\n

What else?<\/p>\n

Hmmm.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s undermining trust in American institutions, by labeling the press the \u201cenemy of the people.\u201d There\u2019s sowing distrust in the United States government, by spewing massive amounts of false information and insisting that truth \u2014 How big was the crowd on Inauguration Day? Who won the 2020 election? \u2014 is secondary to personal loyalty to the president.<\/p>\n

But for one to believe that Trump was the worst American ever, one would have to believe even worse things than that. One would have to believe that Trump sowed distrust in American elections, by spreading unverified claims of voter fraud. Or that Trump incited a crowd to storm the Capitol in the hope that he could overturn the result of the 2020 election.<\/p>\n

Worst American ever?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m afraid I didn\u2019t convince myself.<\/p>\n

Nathan Bedford Forrest<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 slave trader; Confederate general; in command at the Fort Pillow Massacre where nearly 300 Union soldiers were slaughtered; and, after the war, the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan \u2014 was the worst American ever.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s number two.<\/p>\n

\n

Mark\u00a0Herrmann\u00a0spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and later oversaw litigation, compliance and employment matters at a large international company. He is the author of\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>The Curmudgeon\u2019s Guide to Practicing Law<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0(affiliate links). You can reach him by email at\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>inhouse@abovethelaw.com<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

The post Is Trump Only The Worst President \u2014 Or Is He The Worst American \u2014 Ever?<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
(Photo by Win McNamee\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The pandemic was good for at least one thing: It prompted some old law school buddies and me to begin meeting occasionally by Zoom.\u00a0Although the pandemic has ended, the calls have not.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of those calls prompted today\u2019s column.\u00a0A few weeks ago, one of my buddies said:\u00a0\u201cI don\u2019t think Donald Trump is merely the worst president ever.\u00a0I think you could make an argument that he\u2019s the worst American ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eureka!\u00a0I\u2019m always up for a challenge.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with the easy part \u2014 \u201cworst president ever.\u201d\u00a0 Where shall we begin?<\/p>\n

Maybe Trump\u2019s criminal and legal record?<\/p>\n

Trump is the first president in history to have been convicted of multiple felonies.\u00a0He\u2019s also the first president to have been found liable for civil fraud, sexual assault, and defamation.\u00a0He\u2019s also the first to have been impeached twice by the House of Representatives.\u00a0And he\u2019s the first to have been criminally indicted for the mishandling of classified government documents and obstructing government efforts to retrieve them.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s an awful lot of firsts.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s more.<\/p>\n

Most presidents, while in office, at least pretend to represent the whole country and to promote national unity.\u00a0Not our man Trump.\u00a0He tweets about the \u201cDumocrats,\u201d thrives on demonizing blue cities, withholds catastrophe relief funds from states that didn\u2019t vote for him, and otherwise delights in creating cultural cleavages.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

And the empathy! Former FBI Director and Special Counsel Robert Mueller died? Trump was \u201cglad he\u2019s dead.\u201d Former President Joe Biden is suffering with cancer? Trump told reporters not to feel too sorry for Biden, because he was a \u201cvicious person.\u201d<\/p>\n

The man is filled with concern for both country and humanity. (Hey, Trump likes Putin, who\u2019s got \u201ca lot of great charm and great pride<\/a>.\u201d And Trump \u201cfell in love<\/a>\u201d with Kim Jong Un. Jeff Epstein was a \u201cterrific guy<\/a>.\u201d And he wishes Ghislaine Maxwell \u201cwell<\/a>.\u201d So there\u2019s that.)<\/p>\n

How about handling crises? Trump handled COVID-19 like a pro, comparing COVID to the seasonal flu and insisting in early 2020 that the country would be open for business by Easter. Trump didn\u2019t want cruise ships to dock in the United States, for fear of increasing the number of COVID diagnoses on his watch. Trump promoted quack cures for the disease and undermined public health responses in the name of partisan politics.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s just disease.<\/p>\n

Surely he did better with the crisis of, say, war.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

We first attacked Iranian nuclear sites during a period of stalled diplomacy. Reasonable minds could differ over the desirability of those attacks. But you couldn\u2019t disagree about phraseology. Trump insisted that it was incorrect to say that those attacks had merely substantially undermined Iran\u2019s nuclear weapons program; one had to say \u201cobliterated\u201d to convey the full extent of the damage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And then Trump attacked Iran again, with the stated purpose of destroying the already obliterated nuclear weapons program. Or regime change, or to prevent imminent threats to the United States, or \u2014 I don\u2019t remember any more. It\u2019s so exhausting, and it\u2019s been nearly six months.<\/p>\n

But now the war\u2019s over! Or not. And the Strait\u2019s closed! Or not. And we\u2019ll bomb Iran back into the Stone Age! Or not. And we\u2019ll negotiate! Or not. And the military\u2019s been destroyed. Except Trump will run away in a catering truck \u2014 taking the pretty blonde with him, but leaving the secretary of state behind.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So Trump\u2019s been a bad president.<\/p>\n

But worst American ever?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s some serious competition here: The traitorous Benedict Arnold. Presidential assassin John Wilkes Booth. Jim Jones (of drinking the Kool Aid to the tune of over 900 people dead at Jonestown). Steven Paddock (who blew away 58 people from that upper-story room in the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Did Trump do anything that could compare?<\/p>\n

Rape\u2019s bad.<\/p>\n

Fraud\u2019s bad.<\/p>\n

But I need something worse; I need something to compete with real villainy.<\/p>\n

What else?<\/p>\n

Hmmm.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s undermining trust in American institutions, by labeling the press the \u201cenemy of the people.\u201d There\u2019s sowing distrust in the United States government, by spewing massive amounts of false information and insisting that truth \u2014 How big was the crowd on Inauguration Day? Who won the 2020 election? \u2014 is secondary to personal loyalty to the president.<\/p>\n

But for one to believe that Trump was the worst American ever, one would have to believe even worse things than that. One would have to believe that Trump sowed distrust in American elections, by spreading unverified claims of voter fraud. Or that Trump incited a crowd to storm the Capitol in the hope that he could overturn the result of the 2020 election.<\/p>\n

Worst American ever?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m afraid I didn\u2019t convince myself.<\/p>\n

Nathan Bedford Forrest<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 slave trader; Confederate general; in command at the Fort Pillow Massacre where nearly 300 Union soldiers were slaughtered; and, after the war, the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan \u2014 was the worst American ever.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s number two.<\/p>\n

\n

Mark\u00a0Herrmann\u00a0spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and later oversaw litigation, compliance and employment matters at a large international company. He is the author of\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>The Curmudgeon\u2019s Guide to Practicing Law<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0(affiliate links). You can reach him by email at\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>[email\u00a0protected]<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Photo by Win McNamee\/Getty Images) The pandemic was good for at least one thing: It prompted some old law school buddies and me to begin meeting occasionally by Zoom.\u00a0Although the pandemic has ended, the calls have not.\u00a0\u00a0 One of those calls prompted today\u2019s column.\u00a0A few weeks ago, one of my buddies said:\u00a0\u201cI don\u2019t think Donald […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":161377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-161436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/trump-debate-GettyImages-2171255004-3tQNQ6.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}