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There is a certain strain of conventional political wisdom exploited by the likes of Bush. It prizes optics over action, appearances over reality. Bush was a soft-spoken president, a nice enough seeming man, and typically politically correct. Well-coiffed and gimlet-eyed, he resembled a screenwriter’s conception of an American president.
And he caused far more harm to the country and planet than Trump has so far, and maybe ever will. It was under Bush that America invaded Iraq, murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians, and destabilized the Middle East so thoroughly that it may take the entire 21st century to recover.
More than 4,000 American soldiers died. He stocked his cabinet with warmongering neoconservatives far more cunning and apocalyptic in outlook than any of the amateurs who populate Trump’s gang. These were men who dreamed of civilization-annihilating wars and found a president willing to transform their dreams into crackling reality.
The blood on Bush’s hands will never dry. Under the guise of spreading democracy, his administration brought suffering to the world and strangled civil liberties at home. The Patriot Act ushered in a dystopian national security state that was maintained by Obama and bequeathed to Trump. Bush’s economic policies, along with failures by Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, fed the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression.
Trump may be more bumbling and unseemly than Bush, but if he avoids waging war on such a horrific scale, he will have averted true catastrophe. Like John McCain, who never met a foreign conflict he didn’t want American troops to die in, Bush is one of those statesmen who has acquired a new shine in the age of Trump, welcoming to pundits in the context of such disorder.
Because of Trump’s chaos, there is a fetish these days for military men. Democrats hope the generals can stage a coup, restore order, and some stern-faced strongman with good table manners and an affinity for land wars can occupy the Oval Office. He will take chummy phone calls from Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. He will dream anew of “nation-building” …
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Ross Barkan, Guardian
