Housekeeping:
When I started this newsletter it’s primary purpose was to accompany my podcast, Shepherd’s Musings. For the last few months, the few of you that have been subscribed to this Substack feed have been getting the full transcript of each podcast episode so you can see all of the sources that inform what I’m saying along with graphs, videos, and pictures that are relevant to the story.
This week I’m beginning a transition of sorts.
I’m going to start using this newsletter to write more pieces, many that are shorter than the standard episode I put out, covering stories that don’t make it into the show or that can stand alone in an essay. This change is coming with a bit of a rebrand; the newsletter is now called Oasis (presumably the place the shepherd of Shepherd’s Musings is trying to find in the ideological desert).
I will continue to publish the podcast transcript for the next few episodes but will do my best to focus on the standalone pieces so I am not spamming all of you.
Thanks for your attention.
-Roei
One thing that has troubled me in the era of Donald Trump is how easily and quickly many have tried to redeem George W. Bush and downplay his destructive time in office.
There have already been a few moments where W has resurfaced that brought him praise including a well-produced video statement released in early May where he called for unity in this troubling time. Many Democratic Party politicians, apparatchiks, and cheerleaders were quick to highlight this as an example of decent and honorable leadership, while vaguely but fondly harkening back to Bush’s time in office which was much less like the relentless reality TV presidency of Donald Trump.
David Sirota wrote a great piece reminding all of us just how horrible the Bush administration really was in light of the newfound rehabbing of the image of the once hated Republican president. I thought David’s piece was comprehensive enough in describing my general thoughts on the matter, but a recent story of some more misguided reverence from Democrats who apparently are hopeful that Bush will endorse Biden has made me want to unpack this dangerous phenomenon a bit more.
Prominent progressive Ro Khana (D-CA) was asked about the former president and this speculation around his stance in the upcoming election. He said “our task is to build the broadest coalition possible … I began my career in public service running against Bush’s war in Iraq in 2004. But no one doubts his commitment to tolerance and inclusiveness.”
He went further and argued that Bush was in a “different moral league” than Trump, particularly because of Trump’s “divisiveness” and “fearmongering” and that W’s endorsement “would help to highlight the enormous stakes in 2020 for our democracy.”
This quite frankly is a disappointing and concerning move from Representative Khanna particularly because of his strong credentials in progressive foreign policy. Some of you may remember the successful and historic effort Ro made with Bernie Sanders to get both chambers of Congress to pass a resolution invoking the War Powers Act to end our involvement in the genocide in Yemen via our relationship with Saudi Arabia. This seemed to confirm that he understood the deep systemic issues of the military-industrial complex and perhaps put him on the shortlist for a national security position in a progressive administration.
But now he is choosing to participate in the rehabilitation of the reputation of George W. Bush who, again, misinformed the public for months to start a never-ending war in the middle east that destabilized an entire region, ran up the deficit, and needlessly killed American soldiers and countless civilians, not to mention his administration’s flagrant use of torture. This man is a war criminal, we should not be seeking out his endorsement or trying to bring him into our coalition until we have held him accountable as a society for his lies, his crimes, and the devastation he is responsible for. How can I trust that you would stick to your progressive foreign policy principles when you were so quick to whitewash Bush’s failures for political convenience?
How is a man with that much blood on his hands and who left that much devastation in his wake in a “different moral league” than Trump? Was Bush not ‘divisive’ when he stoked cultural tensions pitting the country against each other over the issue of banning gay marriage in his re-election campaign in 2004 (which by the way is certainly a part of his record that proves he was by no means “committed to tolerance and inclusiveness”)? Was Bush not ‘fearmongering’ during the buildup to the war on terror which was based on lies and our fear of weapons of mass destruction?
They both seem pretty obviously contemptible to me.
Now I am by no means trying to minimize how destructive Trump’s behavior is, but there is no need for this preening with respect to Bush and his morality. It actually is quite damaging to the efforts of progressive movements who want to awaken a collective understanding of the failures which created the dire situation that led to Trump.
Sirota said it best:
Praising and normalizing George W. Bush is not a way to fix that deeper societal pathology that birthed the Trump presidency. On the contrary, rehabilitating Bush exemplifies and intensifies that pathology.
Ro could easily have made no statements regarding George Bush or he could have expressed a desire to hold Bush accountable while still being against Trump. As progressives, I thought we all agreed that it was more important to repair that pathology, so why are we reinforcing this short-term memory loss about disastrous politicians?
The answer, in a word, is “unity.”
The modern Democratic Party has tried to position itself as the non-confrontational party. They are the “big tent party” where one needs to be accepting of people across the spectrum. Party leadership has created a strict culture of inclusion to everyone of all races, genders, nationalities, but also to everyone on both sides of the aisle (except of course people on the progressive left, which was made clear in the recent primary). The GOP, they’re ‘divisive;’ they stoke culture wars and use hateful or insensitive rhetoric, but here in the blue team manor we learn how to be civil and polite. They feel the need to show that they can overcome the differences that put the red team and the blue team voters at each other’s throats for the last two decades so they can stand above the fray together.
Since the election of Donald Trump, they have welcomed in the “never-Trump” Republicans who also want to restore a sense of civility and decorum in Washington, where we avoid implicating other insiders, using divisive rhetoric, and being direct with the public. Bush has become a sort of symbolic figure of a past villain that we can now embrace and appreciate and apparently making vague rhetorical gestures to unity and agreeing that we need to get rid of Trump is enough to bring him into our good graces.
Now it seems another progressive politician has embraced this rhetoric and non-confrontational political strategy. I do admire and respect congressman Khanna, so for a moment, let me try to rationalize his logic in this situation.
Firstly, I would hope it wasn’t an actual embrace of Bush and a belief that he has done anything to prove his morality, especially given the fact that we have not even attempted to hold him accountable. I’d like to think that Ro remembers how destructive Bush was, especially since he rose to political prominence by opposing the war.
Perhaps its pure political strategy; it’s likely that Democratic political actors think that an endorsement from Bush would show Republican voters that they can actually get along with the GOP and that they are not intent on dividing us up like Trump. Ro doesn’t want to do anything to jeopardize the chance of victory for team Biden in the fall, he’ll say whatever it takes.
But it’s pretty obvious that Trump’s base is the GOP; he has incredibly high approval ratings from Republican voters and you may remember in 2016 he actually ran against Bush and the wars, so it’s clear that those Republican voters were ready to stop revering neo-cons like Bush. You really only are attracting more upper-class conservatives whose sensibilities are equally offended by Trump. Are those voters going to help you win Wisconsin and Pennsylvania?
So why is he really participating in this whitewashing? Why make a statement at all?
This statement was made so Ro could earn the “unity merit badge.” It signals to the scout leaders that he understands their idea of “unity” so that he is someone they are willing to tap up and give responsibility to when they earn power.
Your potential insider influence or the votes of the few older republicans who haven’t embraced the Trump cult are not worth glossing over a disastrous chapter of our history and normalizing leaders like Bush who are responsible for global instability, thousands of deaths, and the devastation of many working families. It does a disservice to us and our understanding of history and it prevents us from being able to ever question the troubling legacies of people like Obama. When we forget history we are doomed to repeat it, and a statement like this, however brief, is endorsing that memory loss.
I have to agree, again, with David Sirota who put it simply: “Bush and Trump are both monsters. If you want to criticize Trump -- which I encourage -- find a way to do it without touting or pining for the other monster.”
The fact that Ro folded to the party’s stance of pining for the less bombastic monster of the past, makes me seriously question his ability to be a progressive fighter that sticks to his principles and it gives me much less hope that true change will ever happen on the inside.