Ex-conservative brutally blasts Trump as worst president in U.S. history

Donald Trump's efforts to arouse hate and undermine elections make him the worst president in U.S. history, according to a Washington Post columnist.

Jennifer Rubin, a self-described ex-conservative, writes that the 45th president and his MAGA mantra pines to return to a golden age back in time.

"Wielding nostalgia for a bygone era — one that is invariably mischaracterized — is a favorite weapon for fascist movements (Make America Great Again), harking back to a time before their nation was 'polluted' by malign forces," she writes.

But Rubin contends too many are experiencing selective amnesia, propping up the good and erasing the bad of the 1950s, an era to which conservatives would like to see the nation return.

"The past was simply not 'better' by any objective standard," Rubin writes.

"Poverty, child mortality, deaths from virtually any major disease, workplace injuries, high school dropout rates, etc., were all much worse in the 1950s," writes Rubin. "Also, kids got polio, Jim Crow was in full swing, gays had to be in the closet and no one had cellphones, home computers or microwave ovens. Very few people had air conditioning or could afford to fly."

The main driver of her piece is that those that may believe the sun rises and sets in Trump don't realize that no other president has come close to testing democracy's resiliency more than Trump.

"What we have not had before is a president who rejected democracy, attempted to retain power by force and wound up indicted on 91 criminal counts," according to Rubin. "So yes, four-times-indicted Donald Trump was worse than every president who preceded him.

"The resulting venom, violence and loss of faith in elections have taken a heavy toll on our democracy."