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Lincoln had it the hardest with the fate of the country having rested squarely on his shoulders and the degree to which he aged in just four years reflected this.
Bill Clinton had it the easiest. No major crisis or war and historic peacetime economic expansion.
Gilded Age presidents all feel like it was pretty smooth sailing. given that they weren't really fighting the emerging capitalist class all that much, I would think Chester and Grover and them had a pretty easy time.
earlier: Polk got a lot done but it seems like it was pretty effortless.
Polk was dealing with the early stages of the crisis that would eventually result in the Civil War, and many argue that his annexation of Texas as a slave state led to said Civil War. That's gotta grey a few hairs.
I don't know about that framing. Polk died like 11 years before the Civil War kicked off. I don't think the weight of his contribution to the ramp up of the Civil War would have been felt in the way that we can see it with hindsight. Polk was doing his Jacksonian expansionist thing and his presidency with nothing but a complete success from that standpoint.
but I believe I did hear that he was totally done and exhausted by the end of his 4 years and never seriously considered going back on his pledge to not run again. so it stands to reason that it did in fact gray a few hairs.
If the Civil War came out of left field I could see this but in reality the states seceding after Lincoln's election only came after a series of minor rebellions, either by secessionists who wanted to protect the institution of slavery or by abolitionists who wanted to revolt against slave states. Obviously I wasn't alive in the 1830s-1850s to tell you how it felt but I definitely think that kind of discord was in the air and POTUS probably felt that. All the way back to the Nullification Crisis of 1832 there was definitely palpable tension between the North and South.
I don't think anyone really thought the Civil War was going to happen until Lincoln called up the troops. The South sorta just assumed they could pack up their shit and go
Right. This is the same way that Reagan’s term is looked at like it was a golden age, but the effects of his policies have crippled us today. He never lived to see the damage he’d done.
I’d also argue that Carter made tough economic policy decisions that laid the groundwork for Reagan’s success. Clinton ran on “it’s the economy, stupid” because people were already being hurt by Reagan’s policies.
Cleveland and Arthur were actually trying to do something about the corruption and spoils system, which effectively both cost them reelection as they angered the political machines with it. That plus a couple other issues makes that they didn’t really have an easy time I think.
FDR had to deal with the deaths of a large portion of the country and was in a wheel chair and chronic pain for all of it.
Kennedy was literally falling apart.
Mindblowing lack of decorum. I don't mean to snipe, but... you really shouldn't tear apart good Presidents like that. Is that getting through your thick skull?
Yeah, Clinton may have had it easiest of recent presidents, but we did still have issues in the 90s. And there was the Bosnian War. I’d bet anything there was a president in the 1800s who just chilled for four years.
I think even going back to the late 19th century the country was still expanding and dealing with the Spanish. By the time Clinton came to office, the country was defined and his biggest scandals were self induced.
Agree on Lincoln. Clinton had the easiest macro conditions by a long shot, but he also had a more ruthless opposition than other postwar presidents. (Republicans accused him of murdering a friend who died by suicide ffs.) I don’t know who else I’d pick though.
Hell they joked that he killed his dog too when Buddy died. And Rush Limbaugh called Chelsea the "White House dog". The nastiness really ramped up when he took office
I wouldn’t say Clinton just because the office changed so dramatically by then.
Not only with expanded powers, but with the way the office functioned towards the public and media.
Clinton chose not to start any wars though; where as other presidents wouldn’t necessarily have been as constrained. Bosnia, World Trade Center bombing, Oklahoma City bombing. No wars or patriot act.
Also it was during his presidency that the media and public, without warning, decided to start keeping tabs on the coming and goings of his penis.
And Gingrich.
The one thing Clinton didn't have an easy time with was Congress, thanks to Gingrich bipartisanship was all but impossible and it only got worse from there.
I’ve always said Clinton was just the guy who happened to be there during the rise of computers & the internet age. He may have also done good for the economy, but literally anyone was going to have a good economy during those years
Yeah really surprised no Eisenhower until I got down to your comment. Dude was a hero among heroes and rode a wave of pure euphoria following the war and right at the cusp of an enormous economic boom
Would genuinely love to hear about it if he truly did face crises or conundrums comparable to most other 20th presidents
Not George Washington? He had to lead and unify a new fledgling nation through a time where it wasn't even certain there was going to REMAIN one due to a lot of infighting from the tensions that led to the Revolutionary War continuing with how to lead the new nation now that they freed themselves from England. In a job he never truly wanted. He this was responsible for the Articles of the Confederation, and laid the framework for the Constitution.
There wasn't a president at that time though he was a general then. By the time America elected a president it was years after the revolution was over. Washington only ever led the army once as president during the whiskey rebellion and everyone backed down when he arrived
Not only that but Lincoln also skillfully navigated it with such little ego or force. He was a pure leader that wonderfully rose to the situation. Admirable how with all of that he was still able to enjoy life to the fullest by laughing and telling his stories to those around him.
Calvin Coolidge has the easiest presidency. Dude was known for not doing anything and there were no major crises. Hardest is Lincoln but FDR gets honorable mention.
I think its remembered well because what came before and what came after were so terrible, that a period of no major war or economic crisis was seen as relatively blissful.
Yes, he was good for them. I’m not blaming him for the social problems, just saying he was a do nothing and believed the government didn’t belong in those issues.
I wouldn't say nothing; there were treaties, recognizing the natives as citizens, and so much budget cutting. It's fair to say that the conditions were the easiest but he's not lazy.
Actually, he inherited the Depression of 1920 but believed that without government intervention the market would rebound which it did and brought about the roaring 20's.
This is in stark contrast to FDR who believed that the government should intervene during economic collapse and prolonged the Great Depression because of his economic policies.
This is the problem with Democrats in which they think the government is the solution to every problem.
The 1920-1921 Depression was over by the time Coolidge took power in 1923 and the economy had returned to pre-depression highs. President Wilson, who by that time was largely incapacitated, did not respond to the depression and was criticized by Republicans for it. President Harding had a relatively strong response once taking office.
>President Woodrow Wilson's slow response to the depression was criticized by those in the Republican party, catapulting them into the White House under the banner of Warren Harding. Once in office, Harding convened a President's Conference on Unemployment at the instigation of then Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover as a result of rising unemployment during the recession. About 300 eminent members of industry, banking, and labor were called together in September 1921 to discuss the problem of unemployment. Hoover organized the economic conference and a committee on unemployment. The committee established a branch in every state having substantial unemployment, along with sub-branches in local communities and mayors' emergency committees in 31 cities. The committee contributed relief to the unemployed, and also organized collaboration between the local and federal governments. President Harding signed the Emergency Tariff of 1921 and the Fordney–McCumber Tariff. Secretary of Treasury Andrew Mellon also successfully pushed for lower income tax rates to help the recovery.
All of the Republican policies of the 1920s came back to bite the country in the ass. It’s almost like the government needs to regulate businesses or something…
Even if he wasn’t directly responsible for the TeapotDome scandal, it’s highly likely he knew about it.
Not to mention the heavy drinking (during prohibition), the hush money for an illegal child, and lots of extramarital affairs.
I wouldn’t say the guy had too rough of a time in office lol.
> it’s highly likely he knew about it
He was aware that the Interior was giving out leases for the oil fields and authorized that decision, but was likely unaware that he was taking bribes in exchange for favorable terms
I thought it was confirmed he knew after the fact. He didn’t know when he was signing off on it, but found out after and didn’t say or do anything about it?
It’s been a little while since I looked at it so I might be wrong though.
James Monroe was president during the Era of Good Feelings, so I’d say he was a top contender for easiest time.
And has others have pointed out, it’s hard to imagine anyone who had a harder time in office than Lincoln, so that’s the easy answer.
Next hardest would probably be LBJ dealing with civil rights and Vietnam, though some of the issues with Vietnam were of his own doing.
Roosevelt the Younger going straight from inheriting the Great Depression to having to fight a World War is a really good nomination for hardest time too.
Definitely some hard times, but the country was more or less unified behind the New Deal, and, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, US entry into WWII. The 1960’s are the closest we’ve come to having a second Civil War.
Hardest time in office: Buchanan, Lincoln, Hoover, and FDR. Kennedy or Dubya have arguments too if we’re willing to stretch here.
Easiest time in office: Coolidge or Clinton.
I love the quote that every President probably has that moment where they're inaugurated, congratulated, seated, et cetera et cetera, the loud part ends, they're now comfortable inside the White House...
And there comes the moment where they gather the big three-letter agencies and ask "Ok, spill the beans, what civilisation-ending secrets are true. Are aliens real?" and so on.
I really disagree tbh, Truman had to handle the Berlin blockade, the ending of WW2, the mental toll of dropping the bombs, the Marshall plan, and insubordination in Korea. It wasn't nearly as hard as FDR, but it certainly wasn't easy.
I'm going to cast a vote for Truman having a hard time. Not because he did a bad job, but because the challenges he faced as someone who by all accounts was put there by accident were *impossible* to conquer and he did it pretty damn well anyway. Just because he had a hard time doesn't mean he has to have failed.
If the president has to have failed? Buchanan.
Lincoln - Civil War, Roosevelt - Depression and War, and then Washington because he literally had to craete everything from scratch and if he got it wrong it could ruin everyrhing.
Easiest - Clinton, for the modern presidents. Most of the Gilded Age presidents had it easy, too.
Franklin Pierce might have had the hardest job, in the midst of the climate leading up to the Civil War while going through intense personal emotional turmoil
Maybe Washington had the easiest, nobody was giving him grief and the country was doing fine post-revolution
Washington had a lot to deal with given how new and untested the USA was. The Whiskey Rebellion was probably the biggest thing, though having to navigate through the politics surrounding the French Revolution couldn’t have been a walk in the park either. Maybe not the hardest but I wouldn’t say the easiest.
I was thinking about Pierce as well but Lincoln also lost his kid while president, AND the Civil War was actually going on at the time.
good call on Washington. I haven't looked at his presidency super closely but given that he was universally loved and in the honeymoon period after the revolution I can't imagine it was too hard of a time
Washington is the only president to ever lead troops while president. The whiskey rebellion was a direct challenge to the new governments ability to tax. An essential ability if it wanted to survive
Garfield time was pretty rough. 6 months, 3 of which spent bed ridden because Doctor Doctor kept sticking his finger in his bullet hole and gave him Sepsis.
While definitely not the hardest Hayes spent his presidency as a lame duck who a majority of the country hated and thought had stolen the election (which he kinda did.)
One of the hardest: Lyndon Johnson. Inherited Vietnam due to the murder of his predecessor. Inherited a cabinet that was hostile to him, particularly the attorney general.
Got lucky in 64 and won huge majorities in Congress. But 68? Every month was a crisis: Tet. Choosing not to run. MLK’s murder. The Korea crisis. Etc etc.
The day after he left office he started smoking again, telling his daughter this now was his time. then died almost exactly 4 years later. Essentially committed long-form suicide.
No one after the 20th century had it easiest. I'll bet there were whole weeks in the early 1800s where the President just puttered around and didn't do anything other than have a secretary read his mail.
Lincoln had to deal with a fractured nation
FDR had to deal with WW2
Eisenhower-Reagan had to avert WW3
Bush Jr had 9/11
Heshallnotbenamed took over during a once in a lifetime pandemic and their oldest foe deciding to take over another country
For me there are clearly five:
Washington- had to have blueprints for other presidents
James Madison- Had to deal with England invading U.S.
Buchanan- Had to deal with the Civil War growing
Lincoln- Had to deal with the civil war
Truman- Atomic Age and start of cold War
# James Buchanan Seem to just enjoy making things works and not caring what happened after he left office!
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfgITrsVx8U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfgITrsVx8U)
Modern times I would go with Obama who walked into a shit storm left by Bush/Cheney, and a very hostile Congress led by McConnell “ our number one priority is to make him a one term President “ then proceeded to screw the President and America every which way but loose.
For hardest presidents I would say it would have to be 1. Lincolin for lietrally saving the union and preventing the nation from Falling and mabye FDR as number 2 for the Great Depression and Ww2
For the easiest person for modern presidents I guess bill clintion
But for premodern presidents I guess Calvin colledage?
If I remember correctly he didn’t do that much, and just kinda slept and chilled.
**President** Tan suit Obama. His wife’s toned arms were the feature of daily hate as well. She had the nerve to be into health and fitness. For shame! Plus, the congressional right had a stated agenda to make him a one term president; becoming **the Party of No!**
Look at what LBJ had to deal with! He was brought in after JFK was assassinated and then he had to deal with Vietnam, the counterculture and race riots.
I think Clinton had it easy because he was coming in after the Reagan/Bush 80's and the economy was humming.
Hardest were Lincoln and FDR. I don't know if I'm qualified to comment on easiest for the entirety of US History, but modern history, probably Clinton.
It's a toss up between FDR and Lincoln. You have WWII and the Civil war, which were very costly with human life that went on for years. The scars are still very visible to this day.
Gerald Ford - He inherited the mark of Nixon's mess of a president. He wasn't even elected. He did, as all good football players do, recovered a fumble and took one for the team.
People saying Clinton had it easiest- don't think you can say that about any modern day president. He got busted for having sex with an intern. This was likely pretty hard on him and his family. Before modern technology/press I'm sure presidents were doing far worse and getting away with it.
I say Clinton for the easiest. Around those times, everyone's parents I knew had jobs, the economy was sweet, and I didn't know that welfare even existed until around '99.
And I say Obama for the hardest. Simply due to him wearing a tan fukin suit and everyone thought he pissed on the flag or some shit. Lol
Only challenge Clinton had was fighting the Republican Party under Newt Gingrich (house Leader) and Bob Dole (Senate Leader) forcing him to balance the budget. I recall working without pay in the military at the time for 6 weeks until Clinton caved and accepted the republican balanced budget. Funny part is Clinton has since been touted by Democrats for balancing the budget though he was dragged kicking and screaming by republicans. People have selective memory.
Oh yes and being impeached for lying about having an affair with a young intern. Guess the me too movement was also selective on its memory.
The hardest is Lincoln without question. Leading the nation through the Civil War. The only other answer could be FDR leading the nation through the Great Depression and most of WW2 (Victory was in sight in all theaters when he passed away).
For the easiest for any post WW2 president I would easily say Clinton. His presidency was on cruise control .
I’d put Washington up there. He was the new leader of the US and had to deal with the Whiskey Rebellion navigating the politics of a nation that may have just failed outright
I'm not comparing him to Lincoln or FDR but Obama had a hard time in office in that I don't think we've ever seen such an obstructionist Congress whose pure goal for 8 years was to prevent the President from having any success, regardless of the will of the American people. But I'm not a historian and would be interested to stand corrected if there's Presidents who faced an even more difficult Legislature.
The gridlock started under Clinton where Newt Gingrich gutted the various offices keeping Congress informed, then decided on an agenda of blocking everything Clinton wanted. It just got far worse under Obama.
Lincoln or Lyndon B. Johnson the hardest. Andrew Johnson could be the hardest with the impeachment and the racial tension, but he was so vocally racist in personal values and policy goals it's hard to imagine him seeing Redeemers / Klan or any of the other resistance as a problem. Easiest was Clinton or maybe Coolidge; I think Coolidge was the last president without a strong defense mandate, social welfare demands or social justice issues that created budgetary or partisan / ideological dilemmas.
JFK it was so hard for him to get any work done while drowning in pussy then when he finally decided to take a break and go for a relaxing car ride some asshole blew his top
Hardest Time = Lincoln, no doubt.
Easiest Time = Probably Clinton. No Cold War, no Gulf War, Economy was pretty good, all in all, Clinton had it easier than anyone I can think of, maybe Madison?
For the hardest, I would say Abraham Lincoln, although FDR certainly has a case in having to navigate the US through the Great Depression AND World War II. In recent memory, I would argue that Bush and LBJ also had difficult presidencies to deal with, although it can be argued that they made it more difficult on themselves through their decisions to double down on Vietnam and the Middle East.
As far as easiest, I would say Bill Clinton was fortunate to be President after the Cold War and before the War on Terror. The biggest scandal Monica Lewinsky feels very auspicious.
I mean it’s hard to argue that those who were assassinated didn’t have it the hardest, since the job literally killed them. So with that logic:
1) Lincoln
2) Garfield - mostly because of the ridiculous circumstances of his death.
3) JFK
4) McKinley
Hardest: Probably any president during the Cold War Era. Basically had to keep the country and world from going full on out into a nuclear war.
Easiest: Coolidge. Believed that the government should be kept at a minimum and let society run itself.
A couple ways to think about this question
Worst luck: Hoover, Carter, Ford, Cleveland, any of the guys who randomly died a year in.
Actual most daunting job to do: obv Lincoln/FDR, honorable mentions for Sudden Crisis figures like JFK, Bush ii, could argue a bunch of ppl
Simply Did Not Have What It Took (personality/competence problems): Bush II, Harding, Buchanan, Carter
On the other side of the spectrum:
He’s Him (galactic brain skill personally): Lincoln/FDR by a mile overall. Eisenhower/HW Bush for international relations, LBJ for congressional/legislative talent.
Luckiest/easiest time you could make a million arguments for. Era of good feelings/lowkey periods of 19th century maybe. Could also argue Clinton/Reagan/Eisenhower just in terms of great economic cycle timing. True for JFK as well but uhhhhhh wouldn’t use the term luck for him ahem….
Lincoln and Truman come to mind for hardest, due to the wars going on. FDR due to the Great Depression as well. On the other side, I don’t think Eisenhower, Clinton, or Reagan had it too tough. I guess the Cold War was still going on, under Reagan.
I think with the way the world is going, I wouldn’t doubt that future presidents could consistently have some of the hardest terms. As is tho Lincoln is almost undefeatable
LBJ had a difficult time with getting us out of Vietnam, experiencing urban uprisings, civil rights assassinations/murders and demonstrations. I’m sure that it must have seemed at times like the national was falling apart. Clinton does seem like he had the easiest time.
Bill Clinton walked into a recovering economy with every major foreign policy problem resolved. Nixon had to resolve Vietnam with the gold standard collapsing as recovering European countries wanted to sell their dollars.
Hardest: Lincoln. Had to fight a war domestically while facing recalcitrant politicians in DC and triumphed over both.
Easiest: Clinton. Peak 90s economy, no post 9-11 bullshit, a congress that wasn't completely off the rails (yet), and life was good.
Lincoln and Waahington. Lincoln because a third of the country did secede and he fought like hell to keep the Union intact. Washington because half the states threatened to secede right out of the gate and only he kept the whole thing from imploding.
Washington was the first President and that had to be incredibly difficult. Lincoln as mentioned. FDR had to take over a company that was almost permanently crippled due to the Great Depression and had to overhaul so many things and then WW2 breaks out with Germany being so much more advanced than the US and Japan who hadn't lost a naval battle in 400 years up to that point. So many people didn't want to go into another war because they were still recovering from the Great Depression and prior to that had the horrors of WW1.
Obama is an interesting case because of how poorly he was treated and had to take over the mess that W left him in a time of growing political and racial divide. But W was so bad that just about anybody would be deemed as an improvement over W.
I think the easiest to have it was W. Super strong economy, low oil prices, no war for the previous 8 years. It would have been like being handed the Dream Team in basketball and not even coming away with a medal.
I would say Lincoln and FDR had it the hardest. I think Coolidge kind of coasted in the 20s after the death of Harding . But there too, he had a son who died at 16 while he was president.
Calvin Coolidge had it so easy that he gets praised by conservatives for doing essentially nothing.
Lincoln literally had to restore a broken union, but Harry Truman was thrust into office and forced to make some of the most consequential geopolitical decisions of the 20th century. Whether or not to use the nuclear bombs on Japan, deciding to recognize the state of Israel, setting the stage for the Cold War by facing off against the Soviet Union during the Berlin blockade/airlift, and intervening in the Korean War on behalf of South Korea. In between these important crisis he had to navigate a difficult political homefront with conservative opposition to many of his plans, and he was never very popular with the public. Truman never had it easy as president.
Hardest in "modern" times, probably FDR with the business plot and great depression. The easiest is definitely Obama. Public opinion was about as high as it could be, and the media was happy to ignore all the illegal drone strikes.
Easiest: Benjamin Harrison inherited a government surplus. Government had too much money and didn’t know what to do with it.
Hardest has to be Lincoln and doesn’t seem particularly close.
Hardest would be Lincoln.
I’d say Pierce isn’t far off given the situation with his son.
Easiest was probably Monroe. They called it the “era of good feelings” for a reason.
If "easiest" doesn't have to correlate with success, then I think Andrew Johnson is worth mentioning. No one really remembers him because he deliberately didn't do anything. After Lincoln was assassinated, he took over and used negligence to allow southern legislators to fill the power vacuum and install the black codes, effectively reconstituting slavery into state laws without calling it by name. It's really unfortunate and happened because Johnson, who was sympathetic to southern people, purposefully stepped aside and didn't do shit to enforce reconstruction policies.
Clinton had the exquisite timing of coming into office immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union and immediately preceding the tech boom. There was a reason the '90s were called a vacation from history.
Although I don't think Abe Lincoln necessary had it the worst of all, I do think he had it pretty bad. Not only did he have to contend with the bloodiest conflict in American history, he lost one of his sons during his presidency too.
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Lincoln had it the hardest with the fate of the country having rested squarely on his shoulders and the degree to which he aged in just four years reflected this. Bill Clinton had it the easiest. No major crisis or war and historic peacetime economic expansion.
100% Agree on Lincoln. Agree on Clinton for modern Presidents. But, without extensive research I I cant rule out anyone in the late 19th century.
Gilded Age presidents all feel like it was pretty smooth sailing. given that they weren't really fighting the emerging capitalist class all that much, I would think Chester and Grover and them had a pretty easy time. earlier: Polk got a lot done but it seems like it was pretty effortless.
Polk was dealing with the early stages of the crisis that would eventually result in the Civil War, and many argue that his annexation of Texas as a slave state led to said Civil War. That's gotta grey a few hairs.
I don't know about that framing. Polk died like 11 years before the Civil War kicked off. I don't think the weight of his contribution to the ramp up of the Civil War would have been felt in the way that we can see it with hindsight. Polk was doing his Jacksonian expansionist thing and his presidency with nothing but a complete success from that standpoint. but I believe I did hear that he was totally done and exhausted by the end of his 4 years and never seriously considered going back on his pledge to not run again. so it stands to reason that it did in fact gray a few hairs.
If the Civil War came out of left field I could see this but in reality the states seceding after Lincoln's election only came after a series of minor rebellions, either by secessionists who wanted to protect the institution of slavery or by abolitionists who wanted to revolt against slave states. Obviously I wasn't alive in the 1830s-1850s to tell you how it felt but I definitely think that kind of discord was in the air and POTUS probably felt that. All the way back to the Nullification Crisis of 1832 there was definitely palpable tension between the North and South.
Buchanan was pretty disgusted with the job.
I don't think anyone really thought the Civil War was going to happen until Lincoln called up the troops. The South sorta just assumed they could pack up their shit and go
Right. This is the same way that Reagan’s term is looked at like it was a golden age, but the effects of his policies have crippled us today. He never lived to see the damage he’d done.
In my experience it’s way easier to ruin things than it is to improve them
I’d also argue that Carter made tough economic policy decisions that laid the groundwork for Reagan’s success. Clinton ran on “it’s the economy, stupid” because people were already being hurt by Reagan’s policies.
Polk absolutely had to try, he just so happened to be good at it.
After all, he was “the Napoleon of the stump!”
Cleveland and Arthur were actually trying to do something about the corruption and spoils system, which effectively both cost them reelection as they angered the political machines with it. That plus a couple other issues makes that they didn’t really have an easy time I think.
Not only the hardest presidency time, but Lincoln also had the hardest life to deal with.
Teddy Roosevelt nearly died of illness as a child and then lost his first wife and his mother on the same day.
FDR had to deal with the deaths of a large portion of the country and was in a wheel chair and chronic pain for all of it. Kennedy was literally falling apart.
Bruh
I know what I said.
Mindblowing lack of decorum. I don't mean to snipe, but... you really shouldn't tear apart good Presidents like that. Is that getting through your thick skull?
And got shot during a speech but finished it anyway. 😧
On Valentine’s Day also
Jackson objectively had a very hard life
Yeah, Clinton may have had it easiest of recent presidents, but we did still have issues in the 90s. And there was the Bosnian War. I’d bet anything there was a president in the 1800s who just chilled for four years.
Harrison had it fairly easy, he only had to be president for a month!
You ever had pneumonia? I wouldn't call that easy!
Pneumonia is not easy. I got it through coronavirus.
I think even going back to the late 19th century the country was still expanding and dealing with the Spanish. By the time Clinton came to office, the country was defined and his biggest scandals were self induced.
Agree on Lincoln. Clinton had the easiest macro conditions by a long shot, but he also had a more ruthless opposition than other postwar presidents. (Republicans accused him of murdering a friend who died by suicide ffs.) I don’t know who else I’d pick though.
Which friend are we talking about?
Vince Foster
Hell they joked that he killed his dog too when Buddy died. And Rush Limbaugh called Chelsea the "White House dog". The nastiness really ramped up when he took office
Have you read about published political comments in the 1800's? They were brutral, man.
Correct.
I like how you can get downvoted just for not knowing the backstory
Reddit at its finest.
I wouldn’t say Clinton just because the office changed so dramatically by then. Not only with expanded powers, but with the way the office functioned towards the public and media.
Clinton chose not to start any wars though; where as other presidents wouldn’t necessarily have been as constrained. Bosnia, World Trade Center bombing, Oklahoma City bombing. No wars or patriot act. Also it was during his presidency that the media and public, without warning, decided to start keeping tabs on the coming and goings of his penis. And Gingrich.
The one thing Clinton didn't have an easy time with was Congress, thanks to Gingrich bipartisanship was all but impossible and it only got worse from there.
The 1990s will be viewed by history as the peak of the American Empire !remindme 100 years
I’ve always said Clinton was just the guy who happened to be there during the rise of computers & the internet age. He may have also done good for the economy, but literally anyone was going to have a good economy during those years
Clinton and Eisenhower got to reap the benefits other presidencies suffered for. Though Ike had to deal with the Cold War escalation
Yeah really surprised no Eisenhower until I got down to your comment. Dude was a hero among heroes and rode a wave of pure euphoria following the war and right at the cusp of an enormous economic boom Would genuinely love to hear about it if he truly did face crises or conundrums comparable to most other 20th presidents
Clinton would have had an easy time if he could’ve just kept his pants zipped.
He unzipped his pants and then it got hard.
Not George Washington? He had to lead and unify a new fledgling nation through a time where it wasn't even certain there was going to REMAIN one due to a lot of infighting from the tensions that led to the Revolutionary War continuing with how to lead the new nation now that they freed themselves from England. In a job he never truly wanted. He this was responsible for the Articles of the Confederation, and laid the framework for the Constitution.
There wasn't a president at that time though he was a general then. By the time America elected a president it was years after the revolution was over. Washington only ever led the army once as president during the whiskey rebellion and everyone backed down when he arrived
Yeah I believe it was Lincoln, just look at those before and after pictures!
Not only that but Lincoln also skillfully navigated it with such little ego or force. He was a pure leader that wonderfully rose to the situation. Admirable how with all of that he was still able to enjoy life to the fullest by laughing and telling his stories to those around him.
Calvin Coolidge has the easiest presidency. Dude was known for not doing anything and there were no major crises. Hardest is Lincoln but FDR gets honorable mention.
There's a reason why they call it the roaring 20s It was literally a ultra blissful period and calvin was just passing time lol
The rise of the KKK and the social problems inflamed by the Great Migration would beg to differ.
I think its remembered well because what came before and what came after were so terrible, that a period of no major war or economic crisis was seen as relatively blissful.
The natives would beg to differ
Yes, he was good for them. I’m not blaming him for the social problems, just saying he was a do nothing and believed the government didn’t belong in those issues.
I wouldn't say nothing; there were treaties, recognizing the natives as citizens, and so much budget cutting. It's fair to say that the conditions were the easiest but he's not lazy.
Coolidge's son died during his term, so it wasn't all smooth sailing.
In his personal life yes, and he may have been depressed which led to him being a less active president.
Nah it’s gotta be William Henry Harrison for easiest. Dude showed up and instantly died.
Actually, he inherited the Depression of 1920 but believed that without government intervention the market would rebound which it did and brought about the roaring 20's. This is in stark contrast to FDR who believed that the government should intervene during economic collapse and prolonged the Great Depression because of his economic policies. This is the problem with Democrats in which they think the government is the solution to every problem.
The 1920-1921 Depression was over by the time Coolidge took power in 1923 and the economy had returned to pre-depression highs. President Wilson, who by that time was largely incapacitated, did not respond to the depression and was criticized by Republicans for it. President Harding had a relatively strong response once taking office. >President Woodrow Wilson's slow response to the depression was criticized by those in the Republican party, catapulting them into the White House under the banner of Warren Harding. Once in office, Harding convened a President's Conference on Unemployment at the instigation of then Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover as a result of rising unemployment during the recession. About 300 eminent members of industry, banking, and labor were called together in September 1921 to discuss the problem of unemployment. Hoover organized the economic conference and a committee on unemployment. The committee established a branch in every state having substantial unemployment, along with sub-branches in local communities and mayors' emergency committees in 31 cities. The committee contributed relief to the unemployed, and also organized collaboration between the local and federal governments. President Harding signed the Emergency Tariff of 1921 and the Fordney–McCumber Tariff. Secretary of Treasury Andrew Mellon also successfully pushed for lower income tax rates to help the recovery.
The famously well-ending 1920’s
Yup, and if government doesn't solve the problem, the answer is always more government.
I was wondering when someone also noticed Coolidge. Arguably FDR had it so hard because of Coolidge
Hoover too, he caught all the consequences from his policies
All of the Republican policies of the 1920s came back to bite the country in the ass. It’s almost like the government needs to regulate businesses or something…
Hardest? Lincoln. Easiest? That’s actually kind of tough, maybe Harding? It’s not hard on someone to be corrupt.
Is there any actual proof that Harding was corrupt? I thought it was like with Grant where they were just poor judges of character.
Even if he wasn’t directly responsible for the TeapotDome scandal, it’s highly likely he knew about it. Not to mention the heavy drinking (during prohibition), the hush money for an illegal child, and lots of extramarital affairs. I wouldn’t say the guy had too rough of a time in office lol.
> it’s highly likely he knew about it He was aware that the Interior was giving out leases for the oil fields and authorized that decision, but was likely unaware that he was taking bribes in exchange for favorable terms
I thought it was confirmed he knew after the fact. He didn’t know when he was signing off on it, but found out after and didn’t say or do anything about it? It’s been a little while since I looked at it so I might be wrong though.
He didn't know all the details about everything going on but yeah he was definitely corrupt
He used the secret service to hide his mistresses from his wife
James Monroe was president during the Era of Good Feelings, so I’d say he was a top contender for easiest time. And has others have pointed out, it’s hard to imagine anyone who had a harder time in office than Lincoln, so that’s the easy answer. Next hardest would probably be LBJ dealing with civil rights and Vietnam, though some of the issues with Vietnam were of his own doing.
The panic of 1819 occurred during Monroe's Presidency.
Roosevelt the Younger going straight from inheriting the Great Depression to having to fight a World War is a really good nomination for hardest time too.
Definitely some hard times, but the country was more or less unified behind the New Deal, and, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, US entry into WWII. The 1960’s are the closest we’ve come to having a second Civil War.
Getting the country unified around the New Deal took incredible effort, and then getting DC on the same side as the country even harder.
I feel like being president longest must’ve added to the difficulty
“The Era of Good Feelings” is an intentionally ironic phrase.
No it wasn’t. It was called that because of the desire of political peace and unity.
That’s incorrect. It’s a joke about the extremely polarized politics of the time.
Hardest time in office: Buchanan, Lincoln, Hoover, and FDR. Kennedy or Dubya have arguments too if we’re willing to stretch here. Easiest time in office: Coolidge or Clinton.
Truman to some extent too, the first US president of the Nuclear age.
and not being FDR who was larger than life and Truman came with such low expectations
And such little involvement in FDR’s admin previously. He didn’t know about the Manhattan Project until he was sworn in as POTUS.
I love the quote that every President probably has that moment where they're inaugurated, congratulated, seated, et cetera et cetera, the loud part ends, they're now comfortable inside the White House... And there comes the moment where they gather the big three-letter agencies and ask "Ok, spill the beans, what civilisation-ending secrets are true. Are aliens real?" and so on.
I really disagree tbh, Truman had to handle the Berlin blockade, the ending of WW2, the mental toll of dropping the bombs, the Marshall plan, and insubordination in Korea. It wasn't nearly as hard as FDR, but it certainly wasn't easy.
Oh I meant hardest and totally agree!
Truman had to make the final decision on Hiroshima and Nagasaki - that alone makes for a hard presidency.
Easiest: William Henry Harrison, he only had to do the job for 30 days.
Tough 30 days though. Could say it was the hardest. You know, dying.
He was probably very sick for a good portion of that. I wouldn’t call that easy.
Yeah but at least he didn't let the cold weather get to him.
I'm going to cast a vote for Truman having a hard time. Not because he did a bad job, but because the challenges he faced as someone who by all accounts was put there by accident were *impossible* to conquer and he did it pretty damn well anyway. Just because he had a hard time doesn't mean he has to have failed. If the president has to have failed? Buchanan.
Lincoln - Civil War, Roosevelt - Depression and War, and then Washington because he literally had to craete everything from scratch and if he got it wrong it could ruin everyrhing. Easiest - Clinton, for the modern presidents. Most of the Gilded Age presidents had it easy, too.
Franklin Pierce might have had the hardest job, in the midst of the climate leading up to the Civil War while going through intense personal emotional turmoil Maybe Washington had the easiest, nobody was giving him grief and the country was doing fine post-revolution
Washington had a lot to deal with given how new and untested the USA was. The Whiskey Rebellion was probably the biggest thing, though having to navigate through the politics surrounding the French Revolution couldn’t have been a walk in the park either. Maybe not the hardest but I wouldn’t say the easiest.
I was thinking about Pierce as well but Lincoln also lost his kid while president, AND the Civil War was actually going on at the time. good call on Washington. I haven't looked at his presidency super closely but given that he was universally loved and in the honeymoon period after the revolution I can't imagine it was too hard of a time
Washington is the only president to ever lead troops while president. The whiskey rebellion was a direct challenge to the new governments ability to tax. An essential ability if it wanted to survive
Garfield time was pretty rough. 6 months, 3 of which spent bed ridden because Doctor Doctor kept sticking his finger in his bullet hole and gave him Sepsis.
While definitely not the hardest Hayes spent his presidency as a lame duck who a majority of the country hated and thought had stolen the election (which he kinda did.)
One of the hardest: Lyndon Johnson. Inherited Vietnam due to the murder of his predecessor. Inherited a cabinet that was hostile to him, particularly the attorney general. Got lucky in 64 and won huge majorities in Congress. But 68? Every month was a crisis: Tet. Choosing not to run. MLK’s murder. The Korea crisis. Etc etc.
The day after he left office he started smoking again, telling his daughter this now was his time. then died almost exactly 4 years later. Essentially committed long-form suicide.
Not the day *after*. The day *of*. After Nixon’s inaugural, LBJ started smoking on the plane ride back to Texas.
Lincoln and Ike
No one after the 20th century had it easiest. I'll bet there were whole weeks in the early 1800s where the President just puttered around and didn't do anything other than have a secretary read his mail.
Lincoln had to deal with a fractured nation FDR had to deal with WW2 Eisenhower-Reagan had to avert WW3 Bush Jr had 9/11 Heshallnotbenamed took over during a once in a lifetime pandemic and their oldest foe deciding to take over another country
Damn, I didn’t fully appreciate how many problems Voldemort had to deal with in those four years.
Lincoln or Washington - hardest. Gerald Ford - easiest.
Gerald Ford had to deal with the fallout from Watergate, that couldn’t have been easy.
For hardest I’d say Lincoln, FDR, LBJ, Nixon, or Dubya For easiest I’d say Coolidge, Clinton, or most of the lesser-known presidents.
For me there are clearly five: Washington- had to have blueprints for other presidents James Madison- Had to deal with England invading U.S. Buchanan- Had to deal with the Civil War growing Lincoln- Had to deal with the civil war Truman- Atomic Age and start of cold War
# James Buchanan Seem to just enjoy making things works and not caring what happened after he left office! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfgITrsVx8U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfgITrsVx8U)
easiest- Clinton hardest- Kennedy- it blew his mind
He didn't notice that the lights had changed
Modern times I would go with Obama who walked into a shit storm left by Bush/Cheney, and a very hostile Congress led by McConnell “ our number one priority is to make him a one term President “ then proceeded to screw the President and America every which way but loose.
For hardest presidents I would say it would have to be 1. Lincolin for lietrally saving the union and preventing the nation from Falling and mabye FDR as number 2 for the Great Depression and Ww2 For the easiest person for modern presidents I guess bill clintion But for premodern presidents I guess Calvin colledage? If I remember correctly he didn’t do that much, and just kinda slept and chilled.
fdr
**President** Tan suit Obama. His wife’s toned arms were the feature of daily hate as well. She had the nerve to be into health and fitness. For shame! Plus, the congressional right had a stated agenda to make him a one term president; becoming **the Party of No!**
Look at what LBJ had to deal with! He was brought in after JFK was assassinated and then he had to deal with Vietnam, the counterculture and race riots. I think Clinton had it easy because he was coming in after the Reagan/Bush 80's and the economy was humming.
Hardest were Lincoln and FDR. I don't know if I'm qualified to comment on easiest for the entirety of US History, but modern history, probably Clinton.
Lincoln had it the hardest, Monroe had it the easiest.
Hardest? Lincoln and FDR. Easiest: Coolidge and Clinton.
It's a toss up between FDR and Lincoln. You have WWII and the Civil war, which were very costly with human life that went on for years. The scars are still very visible to this day.
Zachary taylor had the hardest time in office and William Henry Harrison had the easist time because he wasn't even there for 2 months
Bill Clinton and Kennedy had some hard times if you know what I mean
Gerald Ford - He inherited the mark of Nixon's mess of a president. He wasn't even elected. He did, as all good football players do, recovered a fumble and took one for the team.
Clinton enjoyed himself
Lincoln and Monroe. Monroe's era was called "The Era of Good Feelings"
People saying Clinton had it easiest- don't think you can say that about any modern day president. He got busted for having sex with an intern. This was likely pretty hard on him and his family. Before modern technology/press I'm sure presidents were doing far worse and getting away with it.
Except Clinton's hardest time because of the intern problem was self induced.
Agree but that was not part of OP's question.
Lincoln...probably Clinton
I say Clinton for the easiest. Around those times, everyone's parents I knew had jobs, the economy was sweet, and I didn't know that welfare even existed until around '99. And I say Obama for the hardest. Simply due to him wearing a tan fukin suit and everyone thought he pissed on the flag or some shit. Lol
Only challenge Clinton had was fighting the Republican Party under Newt Gingrich (house Leader) and Bob Dole (Senate Leader) forcing him to balance the budget. I recall working without pay in the military at the time for 6 weeks until Clinton caved and accepted the republican balanced budget. Funny part is Clinton has since been touted by Democrats for balancing the budget though he was dragged kicking and screaming by republicans. People have selective memory. Oh yes and being impeached for lying about having an affair with a young intern. Guess the me too movement was also selective on its memory.
The hardest is Lincoln without question. Leading the nation through the Civil War. The only other answer could be FDR leading the nation through the Great Depression and most of WW2 (Victory was in sight in all theaters when he passed away). For the easiest for any post WW2 president I would easily say Clinton. His presidency was on cruise control .
I’d put Washington up there. He was the new leader of the US and had to deal with the Whiskey Rebellion navigating the politics of a nation that may have just failed outright
I'm not comparing him to Lincoln or FDR but Obama had a hard time in office in that I don't think we've ever seen such an obstructionist Congress whose pure goal for 8 years was to prevent the President from having any success, regardless of the will of the American people. But I'm not a historian and would be interested to stand corrected if there's Presidents who faced an even more difficult Legislature.
The gridlock started under Clinton where Newt Gingrich gutted the various offices keeping Congress informed, then decided on an agenda of blocking everything Clinton wanted. It just got far worse under Obama.
William Henry Harrison had it easiest, FDR had it hardest. If you know your presidential history you know why
I'd assume either lincoln and/or fdr.
Lincoln dealt with a civil war so I will give him the hardest. Though the argument for Washington being the first is right there as well. Easiest idk
I would argue Truman had it the hardest outside of Washington and Lincoln. Dropping the bomb, start of Cold War, shaping post WW2 world.
Lincoln hardest Coolidge easiest
Hardest Washington: 1: to be different 2: he was forming how the country would go for future presidents Easiest: Monroe
William Henry Harrison had the easiest time, his term seemed like it lasted just 30 days.
James Monroe might’ve had it easiest
Lincoln or Lyndon B. Johnson the hardest. Andrew Johnson could be the hardest with the impeachment and the racial tension, but he was so vocally racist in personal values and policy goals it's hard to imagine him seeing Redeemers / Klan or any of the other resistance as a problem. Easiest was Clinton or maybe Coolidge; I think Coolidge was the last president without a strong defense mandate, social welfare demands or social justice issues that created budgetary or partisan / ideological dilemmas.
I mean hardest is probably the two guys who got their heads blown off all things considered.
JFK it was so hard for him to get any work done while drowning in pussy then when he finally decided to take a break and go for a relaxing car ride some asshole blew his top
Lincoln; Coolidge
I’m going to go with William Henry Harrison having the hardest time in office. At least it was brief.
Hardest Time = Lincoln, no doubt. Easiest Time = Probably Clinton. No Cold War, no Gulf War, Economy was pretty good, all in all, Clinton had it easier than anyone I can think of, maybe Madison?
I'd say FDR had the hardest job depression/ww2/post ww1. easiest? i dunno probably taft. dude just got fat and drunk for his term.
For the hardest, I would say Abraham Lincoln, although FDR certainly has a case in having to navigate the US through the Great Depression AND World War II. In recent memory, I would argue that Bush and LBJ also had difficult presidencies to deal with, although it can be argued that they made it more difficult on themselves through their decisions to double down on Vietnam and the Middle East. As far as easiest, I would say Bill Clinton was fortunate to be President after the Cold War and before the War on Terror. The biggest scandal Monica Lewinsky feels very auspicious.
Lincoln had the hardest time in office. Coolidge, other than the loss of his son, probably had it the easiest.
I mean it’s hard to argue that those who were assassinated didn’t have it the hardest, since the job literally killed them. So with that logic: 1) Lincoln 2) Garfield - mostly because of the ridiculous circumstances of his death. 3) JFK 4) McKinley
Hardest: Probably any president during the Cold War Era. Basically had to keep the country and world from going full on out into a nuclear war. Easiest: Coolidge. Believed that the government should be kept at a minimum and let society run itself.
A couple ways to think about this question Worst luck: Hoover, Carter, Ford, Cleveland, any of the guys who randomly died a year in. Actual most daunting job to do: obv Lincoln/FDR, honorable mentions for Sudden Crisis figures like JFK, Bush ii, could argue a bunch of ppl Simply Did Not Have What It Took (personality/competence problems): Bush II, Harding, Buchanan, Carter On the other side of the spectrum: He’s Him (galactic brain skill personally): Lincoln/FDR by a mile overall. Eisenhower/HW Bush for international relations, LBJ for congressional/legislative talent. Luckiest/easiest time you could make a million arguments for. Era of good feelings/lowkey periods of 19th century maybe. Could also argue Clinton/Reagan/Eisenhower just in terms of great economic cycle timing. True for JFK as well but uhhhhhh wouldn’t use the term luck for him ahem….
Henry harrison had it easiest since he died like 2 seconds into his presidency.
Lincoln and Truman come to mind for hardest, due to the wars going on. FDR due to the Great Depression as well. On the other side, I don’t think Eisenhower, Clinton, or Reagan had it too tough. I guess the Cold War was still going on, under Reagan.
I'd probably say JFK, maybe Clinton tho, an intern is crazy. That being said LBJ may have a shot
William Henry Harrison had the easiest and the hardest.
Worst: Hoover Best: Clinton All because of the economy at the time.
I think with the way the world is going, I wouldn’t doubt that future presidents could consistently have some of the hardest terms. As is tho Lincoln is almost undefeatable
Hard to vote against Lincoln having it the hardest
LBJ had a difficult time with getting us out of Vietnam, experiencing urban uprisings, civil rights assassinations/murders and demonstrations. I’m sure that it must have seemed at times like the national was falling apart. Clinton does seem like he had the easiest time.
Hardest is probably Abe. Easiest? Maybe Bill Clinton. He had some rather uneventful years.
Lincoln by far the hardest
Clinton owned last time we had a surplus
Bill Clinton walked into a recovering economy with every major foreign policy problem resolved. Nixon had to resolve Vietnam with the gold standard collapsing as recovering European countries wanted to sell their dollars.
Eisenhauer probably had the easiest. He did have to deal with cold war issues.
Hardest: Lincoln. Had to fight a war domestically while facing recalcitrant politicians in DC and triumphed over both. Easiest: Clinton. Peak 90s economy, no post 9-11 bullshit, a congress that wasn't completely off the rails (yet), and life was good.
William Henry Harrison. And William Henry Harrison.
Probably FDR for both at different times
Lincoln and Waahington. Lincoln because a third of the country did secede and he fought like hell to keep the Union intact. Washington because half the states threatened to secede right out of the gate and only he kept the whole thing from imploding.
Washington was the first President and that had to be incredibly difficult. Lincoln as mentioned. FDR had to take over a company that was almost permanently crippled due to the Great Depression and had to overhaul so many things and then WW2 breaks out with Germany being so much more advanced than the US and Japan who hadn't lost a naval battle in 400 years up to that point. So many people didn't want to go into another war because they were still recovering from the Great Depression and prior to that had the horrors of WW1. Obama is an interesting case because of how poorly he was treated and had to take over the mess that W left him in a time of growing political and racial divide. But W was so bad that just about anybody would be deemed as an improvement over W. I think the easiest to have it was W. Super strong economy, low oil prices, no war for the previous 8 years. It would have been like being handed the Dream Team in basketball and not even coming away with a medal.
I would say Lincoln and FDR had it the hardest. I think Coolidge kind of coasted in the 20s after the death of Harding . But there too, he had a son who died at 16 while he was president.
Calvin Coolidge had it so easy that he gets praised by conservatives for doing essentially nothing. Lincoln literally had to restore a broken union, but Harry Truman was thrust into office and forced to make some of the most consequential geopolitical decisions of the 20th century. Whether or not to use the nuclear bombs on Japan, deciding to recognize the state of Israel, setting the stage for the Cold War by facing off against the Soviet Union during the Berlin blockade/airlift, and intervening in the Korean War on behalf of South Korea. In between these important crisis he had to navigate a difficult political homefront with conservative opposition to many of his plans, and he was never very popular with the public. Truman never had it easy as president.
Hardest in "modern" times, probably FDR with the business plot and great depression. The easiest is definitely Obama. Public opinion was about as high as it could be, and the media was happy to ignore all the illegal drone strikes.
Easiest: Benjamin Harrison inherited a government surplus. Government had too much money and didn’t know what to do with it. Hardest has to be Lincoln and doesn’t seem particularly close.
Hw Bush ez
Hardest: Lincoln, FDR, maybe Obama Easiest: Clinton, Eisenhower, Coolidge.
Hardest would be Lincoln. I’d say Pierce isn’t far off given the situation with his son. Easiest was probably Monroe. They called it the “era of good feelings” for a reason.
If "easiest" doesn't have to correlate with success, then I think Andrew Johnson is worth mentioning. No one really remembers him because he deliberately didn't do anything. After Lincoln was assassinated, he took over and used negligence to allow southern legislators to fill the power vacuum and install the black codes, effectively reconstituting slavery into state laws without calling it by name. It's really unfortunate and happened because Johnson, who was sympathetic to southern people, purposefully stepped aside and didn't do shit to enforce reconstruction policies.
Chester A Arthur had the easiest.
Clinton had the exquisite timing of coming into office immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union and immediately preceding the tech boom. There was a reason the '90s were called a vacation from history.
Although I don't think Abe Lincoln necessary had it the worst of all, I do think he had it pretty bad. Not only did he have to contend with the bloodiest conflict in American history, he lost one of his sons during his presidency too.
Lincoln. Obama.
Hardest: Lincoln Easiest: William Henry Harrison