Earlier this week, S.E. Cupp wrote in the New York Daily News about how much she misses George W. Bush. Bush, she says, “looks better with each passing day,” and the reason, according to her, is Donald Trump.
Cupp noted that George W. Bush “left office with a 33% favorability rate, according to Gallup. By the time the [Miss Me Yet?] billboards were up in 2010, it had only recovered to the mid-40s. But in the years since, Bush has nearly doubled his popularity. A CNN poll from January 2018 has his approval at 61%. In just the two years since Trump became the Republican nominee for president, that number has climbed six points.” The public’s improved perception of Bush after leaving office was predictable, but Cupp suggests throughout her piece that Trump is responsible for Bush’s favorability improving so dramatically.
What Cupp failed to acknowledge is that Bush’s favorability was on an upward trend during the Obama years, and had reached positive territory in 2014… before Trump even announced his presidential campaign. Yet, the only mention of Obama in the entire article was in the opening sentence. While George W. Bush is a beneficiary of Trump Derangement Syndrome, that doesn’t change the fact that his favorability was improving before Trump, and would have continued to improve without him.
Bush’s improved public image has less to do with Trump than it has to do with the fact that the current Republican president (or presidential nominee) will always be the devil incarnate to the left, and it’s politically expedient to vilify the titular head the of the GOP as the worst ever while also feigning nostalgia for “the good old days” when a more palatable Republican was president or was nominated by the party as their presidential nominee.
So why should we care that Democrats call Trump “Hitler” and “Not My President” and long for the days when Bush (whom they called “Hitler” and “Not My President”) was in office? Does anyone believe this to be a genuine appreciation or just politically expedient reckoning? They don’t miss Bush now because Trump is Trump, they miss Bush now because he’s no longer in power and they got eight years of Obama.
You know, the group that’s overwhelmingly Republican?
But keep posting stuff like this. It looks good up until a dem president is elected and everyone on the right complains he’s a socialist, or plays the race card or hates America.
Every person on the Left who claims to miss Bush always qualifies it with something like "He was an awful president, but at least he respected the rule of law (or rejected outright Islamophobia, or understood certain American values, or etc etc etc)."
No liberals are saying that they now prefer Bush to Obama or that they now think his policies were sound and his political choices astute and his foreign policy wise. They're saying "at least he wasn't a criminally vicious narcissist like Trump."
That ridiculous editorial shows only one thing, which is that the Right is in a headlong race to the bottom and beyond.
I never hated Bush, I just thought Rove and Wolfowitz were asshats and they had Bush's ear at the time.
Plus, the Bush and Obama family photos over the last few years are incredibly endearing. Every time I see them goofing off in a photo, I remember that there are still human beings in politics.
hepcat wrote: ↑Sun May 20, 2018 6:53 am
You know, the group that’s overwhelmingly Republican?
But keep posting stuff like this. It looks good up until a dem president is elected and everyone on the right complains he’s a socialist, or plays the race card or hates America.
Rip wrote: ↑Sun May 20, 2018 4:12 am
Defense of white power?
He's a good kid and you are ruining his life just like you did the Bush years.
I so see analogs in that... Whatever that is of "the Left" all up in arms when over murders in which Bush defended both sides were to blame. No wait they were all fawning over Madonna for 8 years. Or when took endorsements David Duke or all of the "Now that Trumps in power we're gonna take back our country" people.
You got me.
I'll give you one thing, the news apparently decided to try and make a thing of nazi banking. I'll be honest, of all of the shit against him, I don't remember that at all. Not even one mention. Maybe it was a thing....
Not to mention that the Republicans have been on a rightward slide since Reagan. Why is it surprising that people would look back more favorably when exposed to the current insanity?
gbasden wrote: ↑Sun May 20, 2018 3:11 pm
Not to mention that the Republicans have been on a rightward slide since Reagan. Why is it surprising that people would look back more favorably when exposed to the current insanity?
Perspective is everything. I used to think Bush was dumb as a turd but compared to what we have now, he's smart as shit.
