Former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) blasted the Republican Party in a recent interview for trying to “destroy” President Barack Obama.

“I don’t want to use the word ‘patriotism’ too much, but the right likes to use it all the time,” he told GQ magazine. “It is not patriotic to decide to destroy a new president who was duly elected by an overwhelming margin. It is un-patriotic to resolve to destroy that presidency. If you care about this country, you help him.”

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said last year that the “single most important political goal” of “every active Republican in the country” was to make Obama a one-term president.

Feingold, a prominent progressive Democrat who was defeated in 2010 amid a wave of tea party Republicans, said the expectations for Obama’s presidency were absurd and wrong.

“They expected him to be something he couldn’t possibly be given his level of experience,” he said. “It was impossible to ask him to be all the things that people poured into him.”