Which President should not have been elected President and why?

Answer 1

A highly subjective question. And a bit unclear.

There were four Presidents who lost the popular vote, but "won" either by being selected by the House of Representatives (John Quincy Adams) or by getting more electoral votes (Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, George W. Bush).

So perhaps one could argue that one of these four should "not" have been "elected".

Or perhaps the question is speaking of who had the worst impact on our history, and so should not have been elected to cause such harm. However, opinions will greatly vary on that, and many credible arguments could be made.

For instance, Abraham Lincoln decided that a war that cost both sides 600,000 lives was better than simply eminent domaining the slaves, paying fair market value, and promptly emancipating them. So maybe he should not have been elected. Or perhaps Harry Truman, who killed the second greatest number of civilians in WWII, after Adolf Hitler. (The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, when demonstration blasts off the coast might have ended the war as quickly.)

So we'll not find any agreement on one person on that basis.

Practicality? Well, William Harrison served thirty days or so before he died. So it could be argued that we should not have elected him as it was a waste of time.

Anti-intellectual snobbery? Then we should not have elected Dr. Woodrow Wilson, the only President who had a doctorate - and as a side note, was racist.

Pointless and esoteric bigotry? Then take your pic, we've had a Catholic, a single man, a fat man...perhaps from some people's perspectives, certain of those should not have been elected.

From an anarchic perspective, George Washington should not have been elected, and we should have stayed with the Articles of Confederation, and had nothing to with the Constitution.

We could go on and on. I'm afraid that there is no one specific President that we could make a better case for than all the others. I know that many are thinking "George W. Bush", for having his election scandals...but as a studier of history, I can assure you that nothing worse happened than had already happened in the John Kennedy election farce.

There is simply no basis for naming one over another. The closest we could come is the collective list of the four not popularly elected.