I’m going to speak honestly about something that has been on my mind for a long time.

I have lived through the presidencies of Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama, Biden, and now Donald Trump again. In all those decades, I have never seen a president scrutinized, criticized, and attacked the way Donald Trump has been.

Every president faces criticism. That’s part of democracy. But what we’ve seen with President Trump has gone far beyond normal political disagreement. From the moment he announced his candidacy, he has been under a level of constant, 24/7 media scrutiny that no modern president has experienced. Every word he speaks is dissected, every action is questioned, and every policy is immediately attacked before it even has a chance to succeed or fail.

What makes this stand out even more is the contrast with how other presidents were treated.

When President Obama said “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,” and millions of Americans later found that wasn’t the case under the Affordable Care Act, the controversy was reported, but it did not become a never-ending national scandal.

When President Clinton faced impeachment over the Monica Lewinsky scandal, it was serious and widely covered, but his family was largely kept out of the crossfire in the same way we see today. In fact, as I recall, liberals suggested that he shouldn’t be judged by his private life.

When President George W. Bush made the decision to invade Iraq based on intelligence about weapons of mass destruction that later proved inaccurate, there was criticism and debate, but the level of personal hostility and constant ridicule directed at the presidency was still nowhere near what we see today.

Even earlier presidents faced major controversies, from Watergate during Nixon’s presidency to Iran-Contra during Reagan’s, but those events were still treated as specific investigations, not as a nonstop campaign of personal attacks day after day.

With President Trump, however, the criticism has often gone far beyond policy disagreements. It has included relentless attacks on his character, his motives, and even his family. The First Lady has been mocked publicly. His children have been insulted and dragged into political fights. That simply wasn’t the norm in American politics for most of our history.

Another example is tax reform. For decades, politicians from both parties promised to simplify the tax code and reform the system. It was a campaign promise repeated election after election. Yet when President Trump pushed forward with tax reform, it became months of nonstop criticism and predictions of disaster before the policy was even fully implemented.

This kind of environment makes it nearly impossible for any president to govern effectively. Instead of allowing policies to be debated on their merits, the conversation often turns into constant outrage and personal attacks.

You don’t have to agree with everything any president does. That’s the nature of a free country. Americans should absolutely debate policies, question decisions, and vote for leaders they believe in.

But there was once a basic understanding that we could disagree politically while still respecting the office of the presidency and the democratic process.

I, like millions of Americans, voted for Donald Trump because we believed he would challenge the political establishment and fight for our interests. Whether people supported him or not, he was elected to lead the country, and that office deserves a level of respect that seems to have disappeared from much of our public conversation.

We were once a stronger nation when we debated our differences without turning politics into pure hatred. Those days are unfortunately gone. Liberalism has ruined any chance of that. They are on the wrong side of nearly every issue. They have to lie and pretend to be moderate during the election cycle, then switch to far left afterward.

Respect for the presidency. Respect for the country. Respect for each other.

That’s something America should never lose.

God Bless America.