Conservative George W. Bush Is Now Too Liberal for His Party

[mystery-ak]

 Mar. 20, 2021
Conservative George W. Bush Is Now Too Liberal for His Party
By Ed Kilgore

It’s well-known that there’s no love lost between Donald J. Trump and the Bush family. They (with the exception of Texas pol George P. Bush) were conspicuously missing from the ranks of Republican leaders who happily or dutifully endorsed the mogul in 2016 or in 2020. And in a new interview with the Texas Tribune, the 43rd president makes it abundantly clear he is miles away from the 45th on a wide range of issues. But he also shows he’s far from the prevailing mood in the party he led for eight years.

George W. Bush (who congratulated Joe Biden for his victory the very day the TV networks called the presidential race for him) emphatically rejected the idea that the 2020 election was “stolen,” said the January 6 Capitol riot left him “sick to my stomach,” and dismissed Trumpism with the words: “History and the United States has shown these populist movements begin to fritter over time, and so I’m optimistic about democracy.”

W. went on to say he thought Biden was “off to a good start,” and professed himself “pleased” at the new president’s first couple of months in office. This is decidedly not a common sentiment among Republicans today. Nor is his outspoken support for a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, which he manages to advocate without fulminating about border security. Indeed, Bush just published a new book about the immigrant experience in America, and wants the problems associated with the system to be depoliticized, which is hard to imagine after the last four years.

CNN’s Chris Cillizza read the interview and thought it was remarkable how far the GOP had drifted in the 12 years since Bush left office. But I think Cillizza is understating the significance of the gap between W. and Trump’s party. George W. Bush wasn’t just any old Republican: When nominated and elected in 2000, he was very much the candidate of the conservative wing of the Republican Party, the man who (as Robert Novak influentially put it) may have been the biological heir to George H.W. Bush but was the ideological heir of Ronald Reagan. He was backed in his unexpectedly difficult fight for the presidential nomination by every major figure in the conservative movement and in the Christian right. And until his popularity flagged during his second term, conservatives were pleased with his presidency; there wasn’t a peep of dissent from them when he ran for reelection in 2004.

more
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/03/george-w-bush-is-too-liberal-for-the-republican-party.html

[roamer_1]

Bush family is NOT Conservative.

[HoustonSam]

This line, alone, should clarify how little credibility anyone can attach to the linked article :

"The 2016 Trump rival who drew more movement conservative support than Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, has become a systematic Trump sycophant, and was one of the noisiest of the 2020 election coup participants."

But wait, there's more :

"The ancient three-legged stool of free-market economics, national security toughness, and social conservatism is now off balance; today’s conservatives are preoccupied with “wokeness” and “cancel culture,” and a racist zest for law and order and closing the borders."

Free speech is a doctrinaire pre-occupation, and the law is an instrument of racism.......

This is simply an effort to generalize the persecution of Trump more broadly to persecution of anyone who can be labelled "conservative", such that "conservative" becomes an epithet.  Whether or not someone *is* conservative will matter no more than whether or not someone *is* racist when they are labelled a such.

[roamer_1]

This line, alone, should clarify how little credibility anyone can attach to the linked article :

"The 2016 Trump rival who drew more movement conservative support than Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, has become a systematic Trump sycophant, and was one of the noisiest of the 2020 election coup participants."

But wait, there's more :

"The ancient three-legged stool of free-market economics, national security toughness, and social conservatism is now off balance; today’s conservatives are preoccupied with “wokeness” and “cancel culture,” and a racist zest for law and order and closing the borders."

Free speech is a doctrinaire pre-occupation, and the law is an instrument of racism.......

This is simply an effort to generalize the persecution of Trump more broadly to persecution of anyone who can be labelled "conservative", such that "conservative" becomes an epithet.  Whether or not someone *is* conservative will matter no more than whether or not someone *is* racist when they are labelled a such.

... And thus, as predicted, Conservatism becomes the bag-holder.

[Fishrrman]

Read the title.
Then, scroll down and read the source of the article.

[mountaineer]

No one at NY Mag has a clue what it means to be conservative, obviously.

[Sled Dog]

Boy Bush was never a conservative.

Period.

He wanted amnesty for the invaders.
He wanted the government to get involved in church charities.
He nominated his freakin' secretary (or whatever she was) to the Supreme Court.   Who certainly couldn't have done worse than Roberts, it's true.
He failed to nuke Mecca after 9-11, and couldn't beat Trashcanistan in a pissing contest, let alone a war.
He refused to point out that the military did indeed find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq because he didn't want to confront the lying media with their lies.
He was a bleep, 100%.

[skeeter]

Psst NY Mag... W was too liberal for his party back then, too.

[240B]

Bush family is NOT Conservative.

People who think any Bush is conservative are so far - far Left, that saying God Bless America or even Merry Christmas makes them break down in tears.

It says more about the author than it does about Republicans. The fact that this magazine believes that Leftwing Bush and his Leftist family are the hallmark of conservatism, just shows how far Left the magazine is. All of the Bush family friends are all Globalist Leftists. That is why they hate Trump.

[bigheadfred]

 

People who think any Bush is conservative are so far - far Left, that saying God Bless America or even Merry Christmas makes them break down in tears.

It says more about the author than it does about Republicans. The fact that this magazine believes that Leftwing Bush and his Leftist family are the hallmark of conservatism, just shows how far Left the magazine is. All of the Bush family friends are all Globalist Leftists. That is why they hate Trump.

 

[roamer_1]

People who think any Bush is conservative are so far - far Left, that saying God Bless America or even Merry Christmas makes them break down in tears.

It says more about the author than it does about Republicans. The fact that this magazine believes that Leftwing Bush and his Leftist family are the hallmark of conservatism, just shows how far Left the magazine is. All of the Bush family friends are all Globalist Leftists. That is why they hate Trump.

That's right/ Pappy bush was a stalwart of the globalist Republican Moderate wing.... And the apples did not fall far from the horse.

[corbe]