As someone who lived during Bush Jr's reign, I respectively disagree. The common talking point during the Bush years was that "Bush is just an idiot. The real evil mastermind behind it all is Cheney." These cringey political comics are representative of the political class's attitudes towards Bush and Cheney (CW: cringey political comics):
I remember a political comic from like 2007 or something that just had a shitty drawing of Cheney's face with the words "the real reason why we shouldn't impeach Bush." So, ostentatiously progressives were already playing defense for Bush even in like 2007. Bush wasn't rehabilitated so much as Bush always had lib apologists frantically going, "B-b-but Cheney! B-b-but Rumsfeld!" coming up with any excuse to deflect Afghanistan and Iraq away from Bush. All those memes of Bush's face next to a chimpanzee or "I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully" also reinforce the idea of Bush being stoopid and easily bamboozled by the diabolical Cheney. Shows like The Simpsons and South Park also played up the idea of Bush good but dumb, Cheney smart but evil.
Once you understand this, Bush's "rehabilitation" was inevitable.
As for Trump, nah the political class fucking hates Trump for breaking political kayfabe and disrupting the farcical kabuki theatre that is electoral politics. Trump's legacy among the political wonks is going to be worse than Nixon at this point.
As someone who lived during Bush Jr's reign, I respectively disagree. The common talking point during the Bush years was that "Bush is just an idiot. The real evil mastermind behind it all is Cheney." These cringey political comics are representative of the political class's attitudes towards Bush and Cheney (CW: cringey political comics):
https://media.cleveland.com/darcy/photo/29ggjfdarcyjpg-3ba6f1934d6ea25c.jpg
https://impeachforpeace.org/impeach_bush_blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/cartoon217.jpg
https://bostonglobe-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/resizer/0Jtw_nAfJ5eCUqelRxQzhDunC0E=/506x0/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-bostonglobe.s3.amazonaws.com/public/OED4JPXYW4I6HIPVBB2X7GHZGM.jpg
Here's some cringey political comics during Obama's presidency, still playing up to "Bush is a puppet of Cheney" (CW: more cringey political comics):
http://image.al.com/home/bama-media/width620/img/opinion/photo/15078341-standard.jpg
https://image.cagle.com/64613/750/64613.png
I remember a political comic from like 2007 or something that just had a shitty drawing of Cheney's face with the words "the real reason why we shouldn't impeach Bush." So, ostentatiously progressives were already playing defense for Bush even in like 2007. Bush wasn't rehabilitated so much as Bush always had lib apologists frantically going, "B-b-but Cheney! B-b-but Rumsfeld!" coming up with any excuse to deflect Afghanistan and Iraq away from Bush. All those memes of Bush's face next to a chimpanzee or "I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully" also reinforce the idea of Bush being stoopid and easily bamboozled by the diabolical Cheney. Shows like The Simpsons and South Park also played up the idea of Bush good but dumb, Cheney smart but evil.
Once you understand this, Bush's "rehabilitation" was inevitable.
As for Trump, nah the political class fucking hates Trump for breaking political kayfabe and disrupting the farcical kabuki theatre that is electoral politics. Trump's legacy among the political wonks is going to be worse than Nixon at this point.