W Nostalgia
Donald Trump is a horrible human being, a cancer on the republic who threatens its sheer existence. He is absolutely the worst president in American history, jumping the high bar of Andrew Johnson and Buchanan.
We can say this without also revising our opinion of George W. Bush, who was never a real competitor to be the worst president of all time, despite what liberals were saying in 2008, but who is surely a bottom 10 president without question. There is now a growing liberal nostalgia for Bush. This is pretty sickening. Bush was not only grossly incompetent and incapable, but he was also a pretty awful human being. Just because he paints pretty pictures and lives the life of an old money elite in retirement doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t remember his own personal nastiness as president, not to mention the people he appointed, the policies he enacted, and, oh yeah, Iraq. More broadly, liberal nostalgia for respectable Republican daddies is a real problem, leading to the constant whitewashing of Actually Extremely Conservative Dwight Eisenhower, Reasonable Moderate George H.W. Bush, and Official American Hero John McCain.
George W. Bush was an atrocity. Never forget.