Beyond Trump: The competition for 'Worst Politician in America' just got ruthless

Today I’m going to ask you to make a difficult decision: name the worst elected official in America today, other than Trump.

The point of this exercise is not for you to become any more discouraged with American politics but to highlight that Trump is hardly the only horrendously awful elected official in America. A second purpose is to name (and shame) elected officials who deserve to be better known for the horrible things they’ve said and done. Finally, it’s to stimulate a candid discussion about why voters have chosen these loathsome people (and why eligible voters who wouldn’t have chosen them don’t vote).

It’s been difficult to pare the list down. I’ve had to eliminate Ted Cruz because two other finalists are from Texas, and I didn’t want to make this solely about the Lone Star State. I’ve also eliminated members of the House Freedom Caucus because there’s no meaningful way to differentiate their bigotry and fanaticism from one another. I’ve included Marjorie Taylor Greene, who’s technically no longer a public official — she resigned from Congress on January 5 — because her influence continues, and she’s now talking about forming a third party.

So here are the finalists for the worst elected official in America today, other than Trump:

1. Vice President JD Vance

Vance has as few principles as his boss, which is to say none. In 2016, he was an outspoken critic of Trump (whom he privately likened to “America’s Hitler”) and is now his most loyal defender.

During Vance’s recent visit to the Nixon Library, he defended Nixon for the Watergate scandal that ended his presidency. “I think that his historical legacy is enjoying a bit of a renaissance — but I think deservedly so,” Vance said of Nixon. “If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story. Like, the idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy.” It was the “deep state that took down Richard Nixon” — not Nixon’s serious crimes.

In his new autobiography, Vance writes that it was “boneheaded” of him to call Kamala Harris and several other prominent Democrats “childless cat ladies.” But when his remark resurfaced during his early days as Trump’s running mate, he refused to apologize or express regret for it and charged that the Democratic Party is “anti-family and anti-child.”

He is also a virulent nativist. He insisted during the 2024 campaign that the pets of Americans residing in Springfield, Ohio, were being “abducted and eaten” by Haitian immigrants “who shouldn’t be in this country.” When confronted with irrefutable evidence to the contrary, Vance said, “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

2. Ken Paxton, Texas Attorney General

Paxton is now running for the U.S. Senate. Few politicians have had as checkered a career. In 2015, Paxton was indicted on state securities fraud charges relating to activities before taking office;he pleaded not guilty. The charges were dismissed a decade later, after Paxton fulfilled a pretrial agreement for restitution to the victims, ethics training, and community service.

In 2021, Paxton aided Trump in his efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election, filing an unsuccessful case in the Supreme Court and speaking at the rally Trump held on January 6, 2021, that preceded the attack on the U.S. Capitol. During the Biden presidency, Paxton pursued legal action against the administration 106 times.Paxton supports a total ban on access to abortion.

In May 2023, Paxton was impeached by the Texas House of Representatives by a vote of 121–23, leading to his suspension.The articles of impeachment included allegations that Paxton gave preferential treatment to a political donor who bribed him, misapplied public resources, made false statements against whistleblowers, obstructed justice in the securities fraud trial against him, and made false statements regarding his financial interests. After the vote, he was suspended from office. In September 2023, the Texas Senate voted 16–14 to acquit Paxton, ending his suspension.

3. Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene

Greene represented Georgia’s 14th Congressional District from 2021 until her resignation in January 2026; she says she is now laying the groundwork for a third political party.

Greene has promoted Islamophobic, antisemitic, and white supremacist views, including the white genocide conspiracy theory that claims Democrats and Jews have plotted to bring immigrants to America to vote against white Christian candidates. She has also promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory, claiming that a secret cabal of Satan-worshiping elites operates a global child sex-trafficking ring. She has also promoted “Pizzagate,” a debunked theory that top Democrats ran a similar ring out of a Washington, D.C., pizzeria.

She has amplified other conspiracy theories that allege government involvement in mass shootings in the U.S., that implicate the Clinton family in murder, and that suggest the 9/11 attacks on the United States were a hoax.

Before running for Congress, Greene supported calls to execute prominent Democratic Party politicians, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. As a congresswoman, she has equated the Democratic Party with Nazis and compared Covid safety measures to the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust (later apologizing for this comparison). During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Greene promoted Russian propaganda and praised Vladimir Putin. She identifies herself as a Christian nationalist.

A vocal advocate of Trump during his first presidency, Greene promoted his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, aided and supported his attempts to overturn it, and called for the results of the 2020 election in Georgia to be decertified. In response to her endorsements of political violence, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to remove Greene from all committees (she was appointed to new committee roles in January 2023). She broke with Trump over the Justice Department’s handling of files tied to late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Trump’s decision to attack Iran, and the longest-ever government shutdown.

4. Texas Governor Greg Abbott

Of all America’s governors, Abbott stands out for his white Christian nativism. As attorney general, Abbott successfully advocated in the Supreme Court for the Texas State Capitol to display the Ten Commandments and unsuccessfully defended Texas’s ban on same-sex marriage. He was also involved in numerous lawsuits against the Obama administration, seeking to invalidate the Affordable Care Act and reverse the administration’s environmental regulations. As governor, Abbott has maintained Texas’s total ban on abortions, sought more lenient gun laws, and supported additional funding for police and law enforcement.

During the Covid pandemic, Abbott opposed face mask and vaccine mandates and blocked local governments, businesses, and other organizations from implementing their own. He signed into law a ban on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion offices at Texas’s public colleges and universities. Abbott concedes that the climate is changing but doesn’t believe human activity is the major cause.

He has also prioritized fighting illegal immigration, making Texas the first state to decline refugee resettlement. He directed his administration to transport undocumented immigrants from Texas to Washington, D.C. On September 15, 2022, Abbott sent two buses with mostly Venezuelan immigrants to the residence of Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington, D.C.In November 2025, Abbott declared the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations to be “foreign terrorist organizations and transnational criminal organizations.”

After Trump’s failed attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, Abbott made it more difficult for Texans to vote — eliminating 24-hour polling and drive-thru voting, banning the sending of applications for mail-in ballots, and allowing partisan poll watchers to move more freely at polling places.

So, today’s difficult Office Hours question: Who’s the worst elected official in America? Please choose from the list, or add your own nominee in the comments.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.