It's worse than that, I've brought this up before but my 86 year old grandma considers Trump to be the greatest President of her lifetime. Not FDR, not Eisenhower, not JFK, not LBJ, not even Reagan (though she was a hardcore Democrat during his presidency). I figured that even if you liked Trump, there was no way that he could be considered the greatest President to a rational, sane person, but clearly I was giving Republicans and their brainwashed minds too much credit.
Studies like this beg the question as to how this country is going to survive when Trump is out of office, and these people still persist. This fanatical devotion is completely unlike anything that a stable republic can handle.
Hmmm...? Why aren’t Republicans saying nonsense like this about Democrats?
How is that nonsense? It may be anecdotal, but it's the truth about my grandma and how she, a very informed person, mind you, who isn't "historically ignorant;" let her cognitive dissonance take precedent over obvious, more logical, and rational perspective. What has Trump done that is objectively beneficial or important to the nation in any way? His legacy is going to be based entirely out of his toxicity.
You can make an equivalency between this and Trump supporting Republicans all you want, but I believe Xingkerui said it best here:
Yes, there is ignorance in the Democratic Party as well (historical revisionism as well.) Doesn't make the ignorance on the right excusable, especially since Obama is an infinitely better person than Trump.
I would add though that I can understand what may be some reasons why Democrats may hold Obama in higher esteem than Washington, whether I agree with them or not.
For one thing, Obama being the first black President is undeniably important to a significant portion of the party and may be as important to them as founding the country itself.
Furthermore, some Democrats may be growing cynical about the role the Founders played in our country. In seeing how our country's institutions are handling an executive like Trump, I can't blame any Democrats for thinking that the Founders' lack of foresight about the Constitution and how it would translate into the future would end up being a net negative for their legacies. Anyway, I've come to believe that idolizing historical figures is a mistake, but it's an aspect of our country that is so ingrained in our culture, that it leads to people like Trump wanting to pursue the Presidency, in part for the glory that tends to come from it. The Founders were people too, and all people are flawed. It's not wrong to acknowledge that and keep it in mind when forming an opinion on them, no matter how important they were to the country...which is presently in free-fall anyway.
Can I also just point out that when even someone as anti-Trump as Old School Republican finds himself insisting on defending even the most ignorant Republican voters, that it doesn't instill much confidence in myself that history won't repeat itself and put us right back in this same situation after another Republican President gets elected after eight years of a Democratic President. The same impulse to checkmate "libs" is unfortunately endemic to most Republicans it seems, no matter how much they may pride themselves on being above the worst facets of Trumpism. The false equivalencies can't help but be drawn. That does not bode well for a sustainable, less polarized future in our country. The pre-2016 divisions are going to come back as the Old School Republicans of the country renew their kinship with the reactionary Trump fanatic and share an interest in opposing the next Democratic President to an extent that ignores Trump and the incontestable negativity that he fostered. The next Democratic President, no matter how flawed, or potentially justifiably deserving of it, is going to get the Obama treatment also, but even worse and without any regard for how there is no way that they can be anywhere near as bad as Trump. Mark my words! Our country's political culture is doomed to be in a constant vicious cycle.
