On Friday’s Real Time Bill Maher offered what some have referred to as a mea culpa for demonizing past Republican presidents and nominees. He specifically called out the demonization of GWB, McCain, and Romney as unfair and incomparable to the real danger posed by someone like Trump. The point he was trying to make was that by claiming the sky was falling because of Bush, or a possible President McCain, the credibility of the Left was weakened.
My immediate reaction as I watched this was “Well, I guess that makes sense. Mitt Romney wasn’t one of the four horsemen like Trump.” However, now that I’ve considered this a bit more, I find that I disagree with his assertion.
It is true that Trump is a danger to the Republic, and to the world. It is true that he is by far the least qualified person to run for President in what, 100 years? 150? It is true that he’s dangerously unstable, a misogynist, and generally a selfish creep who would actually do to the office of the President all of the things that the GOP nutters believed Clinton did in the 90’s.
But, just because the modern GOP managed to nominate someone as truly awful as Trump, we shouldn’t let his badness cast a flattering light on those who came before him. GWB lied us into an expensive and destructive war, costing us blood and treasure. He steered the economy into the greatest negative credit event since the Great Depression. This hurt millions of people, at home and abroad.
Those two things may not make him the fascist that Trump is, but it’s pretty fucking awful in its own right. Certainly not deserving of a “well, he wasn’t as bad as Trump.” He was as bad, just in different ways.
And we should not allow future GOP assholes to compare themselves favorably to Trump and say “It’s ok, you can vote for me and feel good about it.” Just because herpes isn’t as bad as pancreatic cancer doesn’t mean I want either of them.
If they want to compare themselves to another Republican, they should use Lincoln as their model, not the orange shitgibbon.
