But then they forget all the bad that came from the Bush administration. (patriot act, torture, wars of aggression, rounding up & detention of Americans because they were Muslims, lot of deaths, his cabinet picks didn't exactly make the world better, etc..)
For me, it isn't a case of which one is worst. I see them both as symptoms.
It's overwhelmingly true that Trump's corruption is more out of control and his ignorance is dangerous.
But that isn't to say that Bush didn't favor his cronies. He did.
Trump would torture and not cloak it in language people would "debate" - and in that manufactured debate pretend it's a matter of opinion, making it easier to view it as an intellectual exercise of opposing opinions and not what it was/is - the actual torturing of people. The cruel, abusive treatment of another human - all the while the thumping of chests goes on about how "no one is above the law" and "we are the human rights" people, and "we're the good guys".
Trump's approach strips away much of those filters, though people will still hide behind them,
Trump's heavy hand is akin to blunt force trauma, while Bush was more practiced - more likely to build a self-serving fiction around his actions.
Trump lies - straight out lies - acts of commission. Bush was deception through paltering, as well as lies of commission and omission.
Bush was easier to digest on a day to day basis than Trump is...but that isn't really saying much. Not for me, anyway. Bush made me sick every day he was in office - and he still does.
The hits kept coming under Bush - but Trump wields a sledge hammer.
The GOP base was bad but not as devoted to Bush as they are to Trump. That's very bad. Worse.
The GOP is now what it has been becoming for years (and Bush aided that becoming, as did his father, Reagan, Nixon) - we saw it happening - and a lot of people behaved in a manner that downplayed that becoming (respect the other side!). Their corruption, their greed, their willingness to use race as a campaign strategy, their attacks on the poor, on immigrants, on women, on POC, on the LGBT community, against science and education - treated as rhetoric instead of what it really was - the riling up of the very worst in people and turning them against our form of government. They were attacking our very democracy, our institutions. They were always attacking our government and our institutions.
People want to believe that if the bad people are out of office that the bad has stopped - but bad laws made by bad leaders all too often remain in place. Bad policy - the same. Criminal decisions are still impacting people's lives.
And the ideas behind their actions - the lies, the falsehoods, the utter garbage - are still believed. Are still accepted as truth.
Look at Haspel - how people spoke in terms of hindsight during her hearing and how, now that America no longer allows torture, etc..
But the facts are America outlawed torture long before Bush came to office and it was illegal the entire time he was in office - to include waterboarding. Haspel knew it was illegal. She lied any time she called it "technically legal".
Calling torture by another name doesn't make it any less torture.
But, by splitting that hair, it not only gave the guilty a way out - it gave America and Americans a way out - of accountability. It made it easier to forget - easier to push it to the back of the mind. And, apparently, it wipes the slate clean for some - because they're still asking "How did we get here?".
Sorry for being so long winded.
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