"When Cicero spoke, people said 'How well he speaks,' but when Demosthenes spoke people said, 'Let us march.'
We remember George H. W. Bush.
Donald Trump is getting out of Argentina early. He says it is so he can mourn.
It isn't George H. W. Bush's party anymore.
George Bush enlisted on his 18th birthday. He saw real combat and was shot down. He survived. He married young and stayed married to Barbara for 72 years. He supported free trade, immigration access, budget discipline. His fateful political error was to choose to raise taxes to cover a budget deficit, putting hard duty before political advantage. Hard duty. Bush communicated establishment. Duty. Sacrifice. Civility. Bush communicated elevation and aspiration.
What happened to the GOP electorate between 1991 and 2016?
I cite the GOP electorate because Republican voters had every opportunity to choose a different candidate. If they wanted an articulate businessperson, they had Carly Fiorina. If they wanted an bright young Senator they had Marco Rubio. If they wanted a Christian conservative they had Ted Cruz. If they wanted solid competent experience as a legislator and executive they had John Kasich. Or one of 12 other choices.
Trump demolished them all. The GOP went populist.
(There is a school of thought that whomever the Democrats picked after an 8 year run of Democratic presidents, the Republicans had an edge. It was their turn, and people were ready to give the other team a chance. It happens regularly. and indeed happened to Bush 41. His re-election was the 12th year of Reagan-Bush and it had gotten very old. Hillary Clinton confirmed the notion of same-old, same-old, because she was dynastic and a policy plodder. Hillary Clinton could have won, and were she a better natural candidate who communicated some kind break from the past perhaps would have won, but Hillary was Hillary.)
Gingrich set the stage for Trump. Gingrich led a revolution in political discussion. He weaponized language and taught others to weaponize it and it worked. Don't say your opponent is mistaken, say he is disgusting. Don't call a position weak, call it pathetic. The language was more vivid and therefore memorable. It stuck in people's minds. It sharpened ideological differences. Congress began operating on a Tuesday-Thursday cycle. Leave your family at home and don't spend weekends with congress people of the other Party, Gingrich advised the new members of the Class of 1994. Rush Limbaugh and AM talk radio found an audience of smack down political entertainment. Cable news developed, social media developed, twitter grew. People got the news they liked.
Republicans had two decades of hearing a very different tone in political communication. Political talk that demonstrated civility became conflated with wishy washy political prattle. Sober, establishment virtues communicated by George H.W. Bush, and his sober, establishment way of talking about government policy came across as weak. Trump called Jeb Bush "low energy" and people agreed with Trump.
Trump demonstrated the power of celebrity and personality over policy. Trump reversed course on multiple elements of the George H.W. Bush and GOP policy, including trade, immigration, fiscal discipline. People heard Trump and they liked what they heard.
Trump was no George Bush 41. Trump gives audiences smack down, and GOP audiences like it.
1 comment:
Interesting, Tump mourning HWB...that's a good one!
If one counts time by how the Progressive movement has fared since FDR you can see a "two steps forward, one step back" progression where each Progressive step forward meets a more aggressive push back. Eisenhower, Nixon, Regan, Bush, Trump...each one representing a more Regressive constituency, and employing tactics that cater to them.
All indications are the U.S. will now continue to become a more Democratic Socialist society, but I think Progressives have learned that the Democratic part is the important one. I hope so, because the next backlash could be very ugly indeed.
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