General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: "We hate Donald Trump like you hated President Obama." [View all]JHB
(37,158 posts)The right's had a veritable industry in demonizing people for decades: some specific like Dan Rather and John Kerry, some general like hippies and feminists. Republicans found it useful to foster it in the 70s and 80s as one of the ways they worked to pry apart the Democratic coalition. Some of them found it financially useful, and had cottage industries thumping these drums.
In 1991 Bill Clinton was the most "conservative" among the potential Democratic candidates: the pro-business governor of a right-to-work state who was OK with the death penalty and talked of welfare reform. The standard republican strategy of attacking Democrats for being anti-business, soft on crime, and big on giveaways to "special interests" (at the time, a dog-whistle for unions and minorities) would fall flat. Even "soft on defense" wouldn't work when the Soviet Union had just collapsed. Plus he came with Hillary, who if anther Dem won the nomination and then the presidency would be a top contender for attorney general.
The Bush campaign and conservatives responded by making them avatars of everything they hated about the 60s and 70s. Dope-smokin', draft-dogin', Hippie Bill and radical-feminist Hillary. Two big targets to hose down with bile.
Once Bill won and took office, the tactic turned into a business model. Stop him from doing anything "liberal" by keeping him always on the defensive, and if he could be brought down, so much the better: Payback, in their minds, for Nixon. It grew and grew and grew until the illegitimacy of the Democratic president became the flag around which Republicans rallied.
So no, I don't think the hatred of Obama was due to what we said about Bush. Conservatives just dusted off the playbook they used against Clinton, and they already had it primed enough that they didn't need any ramp-up time, they could hit the ground running with the same fervor that led the Republican House to impeach Bill even knowing that the Senate would shoot it down. All that, with racism added to supercharge it.