BUT MUH FREEDOMS and uhhh SMALLER LESS INTRUSIVE GOBERMENT

Bush was the worst by far. One could say Reagan was the worst though in the sense that once conservatives inflicted their damage during his reign, they never looked back. After Reagan, moderate Republicans like Ford and Eisenhower were pretty much a thing of the past.

as his idiot, monster creation. They are bookends no matter how you switch them around.

Reagan served up the ideas and Shrub put them into practice. Both dumb as rocks.

There's a science fiction time travel out there Time On My Hands by Peter Delacorte. In it, an American travel writer is given a time machine provided he will use it to go back and make sure that Ronald Reagan, who was clearly the worst president ever, would not become president. It's a very good book, and I read it the first time around when it came out, in 1997. I had already known that Reagan was the worst President we'd ever had.

Then I reread it a few years ago. After Bush. While it's still as good a book, it's my opinion that Bush is so very much worse than Reagan that the novel's underlying premise, prevent Reagan from being elected, just doesn't have the emotional force that it originally did.

Great book. I recommend it to one and all.

between Raygun and Shrub.

All too many of the truly evil individuals in Shrub's administration "cut their chops" in Raygun's. They were slightly contained on the foreign policy front in the latter half of the Raygun Admin although their actions/policies in Afghanistan, Central America, the USSR and the Middle East ultimately laid the groundwork for the messes that exist in those areas now - and that's not even including the debacle of Iran-Contra. On the economic, social policy and environmental fronts, however, they were equally as bad, if not worse, although they did manage to avoid causing a global recession. Just barely ....

By the time those same individuals resurfaced in Shrub's administration, they had perfected their strategies on all fronts. Shrub also inherited the Congressional crazies that Newt Gingrich brought in from 1994 as well as too many DINOs and otherwise compliant Dems. With Shrub's total lack of interest in anything other than getting back at Saddam Hussein on Daddy's behalf, the radicals ran amok.

Shrub's administration was a total, absolute and complete disaster on all fronts. So, all things considered, Shrub by a nose perhaps, IMO.

It all started with Reagan, and the voters who, by voting for him out of ignorance,right-wing philosophy , racism, and/or just plain stupidity and gullibility (confusing affability for "niceness" and character) , sent our country down this path .And Shrub (along with our economic and political decline) was the ghastly, inevitable result.

Hard to decide who's worse. Both men were lazy and ignorant; both had dangerous political views. We are still paying for the mistakes of both.
As a California who also had to endure him as governor, I've had Reagan's number for a long time. Reagan is in some ways more dangerous because more people were (and apparently still are) fooled by him. Shrub is more obviously incompetent, and our country was more obviously at the brink of disaster after his so-called leadership. So Shrub seems more obviously the Worst President Ever. But, again, it all started with Reagan, and his fans.
As someone upthread said, they're bookends.
Will we ever recover from the effects of our decades-long disease?

He went from good, better,best to the king of them all(in their opinion of course). As I recall during her terms it was the first time me and my husband both were on the verge of losing our jobs as both companies we were with were selling out--getting out leaving many out of work and them taking off with the cash. Meanwhile Saint Ronnie still took his naps while Nancy dealt with the stars every morning. The country started taking an evil turn about that time and too few even realized it. Today as we look back we know it and "they" still wish they could put ol' Ronnie's head on Mount Rushmore(preferably in front of the others!)

1. Cut taxes for the rich and raised taxes on the middle class seven times in eight years.
2. Tripled the National Debt.
3. Iran Contra
4. Vetoed the Anti-Apartheid Act.
5. Spent billions supporting the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden.
6. Increased the number of unemployed and underemployed.
7. Ignored AIDs.
8. Waged a war on unions.
9. Raided the Social Security Trust Fund.
10. Spawned a generation of TeaPublicans bent on destroying the government of the United States.

Yes... Yes he was.