On Oct. 10, former President Barack Obama stepped back into the political fray.
Former President Donald Trump had spent weeks dominating news cycles with lies about Haitian-born immigrants eating neighbors’ pets in Ohio, lies about Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris being a Marxist, and still more lies about the 2020 election being rigged against him.
Maligned during his own presidency as a foreign-born infidel by Trump, Obama highlighted the latest bizarro act of the 2024 presidential campaign: how Trump, in the Hurricane Helene aftermath, “just started making up stories about the Biden administration withholding aid from Republican areas and siphoning off aid to give to undocumented immigrants” to score political points.
“And this has consequences,” Obama argued, “the idea of intentionally trying to deceive people in their most desperate and vulnerable moments. And my question is: When did that become OK?”
Like him or not, America’s first Black president remains our nation’s most eloquent present-day champion of American virtues and values. His remarks in Pittsburgh showed he had lost none of his keen insights about America at its finest, even as he sought to push back against America at its worst: the Make America Great Again juggernaut and its employment of conspiracy theories, racism, and hatred.
Yet Obama’s address not only begs reflection at this critical juncture in our history but invites questions, especially for those of us who have long lived in the stretch of Central Texas once known as “Bush Country”: Where is former President George W. Bush, amidst the most pivotal presidential election of our times? Will he, too, lend his unique influence, one way or the other, as a past president to guide fellow citizens?
Would his post-presidential influence matter to anyone?
For newcomers, it’s impossible to convey the pride Wacoans once had in Bush, whose nearly 1,600-acre ranch near Crawford transformed that small town into a tourist mecca complete with souvenir shops. The ranch was known as the Western White House, where the president hosted international dignitaries, then met with local and national press. Nearby Waco welcomed entourages from all over. Baylor University launched an ambitious campaign to land the Bush presidential library.
Upon settling in Waco in the summer of 2002, I found that many residents hoped the Bush presidential aura would end the city’s identification with Branch Davidians, whose crimes sparked a deadly shootout and standoff with federal agents in 1993 east of Waco.
I also concluded over time that the president’s people understood the public relations perils of any close association with Waco. In press releases and news events, they identified the Western White House with Crawford, a mostly white town of 750 that better fit a ruggedly individualistic, Reaganesque, riding-the-range persona that Bush clearly preferred.
In those days, Wacoans — particularly Republicans — took a dim view of any criticism of Bush. The only time my ordinarily gracious neighbor, former Waco mayor and decorated war veteran J.R. Closs, ever cross-examined me about my association with the Waco Tribune-Herald was after the editorial board endorsed Bush’s challenger, John Kerry, in the 2004 presidential election. I explained that I headed up the news department as city editor and had nothing to do with political endorsements.
Since then, the pride has flown. Paralleling the Republican Party, what was once “Bush Country” is now unrepentant Trump country. On the advice of Texas Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Trump selected Waco to formally launch his 2024 reelection campaign. During the March 25, 2023, rally at Waco Regional Airport, Trump debuted a big-screen video of his reciting the Pledge of Allegiance while the voices of January 6 insurrection detainees eerily sang the national anthem.
Since then, the Trump campaign has employed darker and darker imagery, bordering on out-and-out fascism.
When asked by Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on Oct. 13 about thousands of Chinese nationals living in the United States, criminal elements among immigrants in America, and the prospect of violence on Election Day, Trump insisted the “bigger problem is the enemy from within.” He made clear he wasn’t referring to illegal immigrants but “sick people, radical left lunatics.” However, he added reassuringly, “it should be easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or, if really necessary, by the military.”
Such statements — coming from an unprincipled figure who tried to invalidate 2020 presidential election returns through a phony electors scheme; who did little to stop rioters after they attacked the U.S. Capitol and brutalized police; who has vowed to be a dictator on Day One of his next presidency; who has argued for terminating the U.S. Constitution; all culminating with the notion of using military force to quell or corral fellow citizens with whom he differs — is unprecedented in U.S. history.
In an Oct. 14 MSNBC interview, retired Army Maj. Gen. Randy Manner said many Americans don’t grasp that Trump “is demonstrating the attributes of fascism every single day.”
Retired Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, signaled similarly grave concerns about Trump to the New York Times: “Looking at the definition of fascism, it’s a far-right authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy. So, certainly, in my experience, those are the kinds of things that he thinks would work better in terms of running America.”
Meanwhile, Trump continues to reject any suggestion that he bears at least some blame for the violence committed in his name on January 6. In an interview on Fox News with media expert Howard Kurtz, the former president not only justified those who marched on the Capitol as legitimate protesters but said “there was a beauty to it and a love to it that I’ve never seen before.”
And where is Bush?
Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist Cynthia Allen argues we should just let Bush be. “There’s something undeniably refreshing about a politician who recognizes that his or her role as an influencer should have a shelf life,” Allen wrote. “And after carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders for so many years while receiving mostly criticism for it in the media, it doesn’t seem unfair or unpatriotic for Bush to wish to live out his post-presidential days in apolitical peace.”
Maybe, though blaming the media for what historians and even Trump sycophants now conclude of the Bush two-term presidency is a little rich. Bush might also be exactly the wrong one to join Americans of principle, ranging from former Bush attorney general Alberto Gonzales to former congresswoman Liz Cheney, in their mission to defeat Trump. While the Bush presidency was not without triumphs, it displayed an astounding lack of insight, competence and focus in times of crisis.
In pursuing the 2003 invasion of Iraq on questionable intelligence, the Bush administration further inflamed the volatile Mideast. His administration’s political cronyism resulted in bungled relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Nor did the Bush presidency end well after wildly unregulated markets contributed to the disastrous Great Recession of 2008. Even the Waco Tribune-Herald foresaw serious trouble, blaming Bush in 2004 for “unsound fiscal choices at home, particularly leaning on unnecessary tax cuts in wartime that have driven the nation deeply into debt.”
And there’s the issue of whether Bush misread Russian President Vladimir Putin, including during the latter’s celebrated visit to Crawford in 2001, two months after the 9/11 attacks. Bush famously declared he looked into Putin’s eyes, finding him “very straightforward and trustworthy.” Such words now strike many as hopelessly naïve.
Bush’s presidency also revealed strains in the Republican Party, between those who recognized disagreement and debate are part of a clangorous democracy and those contemptuous of civility and mutual respect. For some of us, this became evident during anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan’s month-long peace vigil near Bush’s ranch in summer 2005, a national event inspired by the death of Sheehan’s son, Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, in a battle near Baghdad.
As supporters and opponents of the Iraq war “rallied, marched and simmered in the 101-degree heat” (to quote the Tribune), a Richardson, Texas, man carried a sign into a pro-Bush rally that read: “How to wreck your family in 30 days by bitch-in-the-ditch Cindy Sheehan” — a cruel allusion to Sheehan’s divorce. When an event organizer objected to the sign, a fight erupted. It’s hard to imagine such calls for restraint within the GOP in 2024.
In her Star-Telegram column, Allen argues “it is rather fun to imagine Bush in his library offices housed on the Southern Methodist University campus, characteristically chuckling to himself as he reads the daily paper, delighted to not be one of its regular subjects.” Bush has “said nary a word about the election, instead keeping his head down and his focus on the good work of his Dallas-based foundation and library.”
Rather fun? Good work? A key aim of presidential libraries is spinning presidential legacies into a more pleasing light to benefit their honorees. Thus his library busies itself in such exhibits as one on “Dining and Diplomacy” that offers a look at what Bush served to visiting dignitaries, including Putin at the Bush ranch in 2001: guacamole salad, mesquite-smoked peppered beef tenderloin, southern-fried catfish, fire-roasted potatoes with poblano peppers and grilled sourdough bread with onion butter.
True, Bush’s center in 2023 did participate in a mushy joint statement by 13 presidential libraries: “Our elected officials must lead by example and govern effectively in ways that deliver for the American people. This, in turn, will help to restore trust in public service.”
And the Bush Institute certainly tackles timely policy questions in its publication, The Catalyst. Yet in a recent Q&A, when asked about the raging divide in America, including “one party in the thrall of a self-declared dictator,” Bush proved evasive, even naïve, in his attempt at bothsidism: “It seems like our politics have become about self-preservation — anticipating some popular movement and either leading it or trying to head it off.” Huh?
Perhaps Allen and others who revel in Bush’s staying above the national furor are right. After all, many Bush associates have already made sufficiently clear their sentiments on Trump, including former Vice President Cheney, who said: “In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump.”
Recently, Bush’s daughter Barbara went even further — not only endorsing Harris for president, but knocking on doors for her campaign in Pennsylvania.
Scores of former national security and foreign policy officials who served in the administrations of Republican presidents or as Republican members of Congress have made clear they “expect to disagree with Kamala Harris on many domestic and foreign policy issues, but we believe that she possesses the essential qualities to serve as president and Donald Trump does not.”
And during a February 2024 forum at the Rancho Mirage Writers Festival in California, Bush political consultant Karl Rove said “we’re facing, as a country, a decision — and everybody gets to make it — as to what kind of leadership we’re going to have, and to me it is a mistake on the part of the Trump campaign to allow the president’s impulses to identify himself with the people who assaulted the Capitol, rather than people who stand for law and order.”
He went on to say that “what those people did when they violently attacked the Capitol in order to stop a constitutionally mandated meeting of the Congress to accept the results of the Electoral College is a stain on our history. And every one of those sons of bitches who did that, we ought to find ’em, try ’em and send ’em to jail.”
Such fiery words sit awkwardly with images of Bush enjoying an SMU volleyball match two weeks before the 2024 election, conjuring Samuel Adams’ observations as the revolution of 1776 ensued: “If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
Adams’ words might also be deemed “patronizing.” How dare he? Yet insights from those who have held or hold positions of responsible leadership can serve as useful guideposts in times of crisis and confusion. In an early October Pew Research survey of 5,110 adults, 72% of voters said if Harris loses, she’ll bow to law and tradition and acknowledge Trump’s electoral victory. Just 24% expect Trump to concede if he loses; 74% say he will not.
The pity is Bush is quite capable of championing American values for all his tongue-tied, aw-shucks Texas malapropisms. Of all the 9/11 addresses held across the nation on the 20th anniversary of the Islamist terrorist attack, of all the remarks appealing to our patriotism and better angels and demanding deeper reflection about the state of our union, Bush’s ranked at the very top.
Bush spoke at the monument erected in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where Flight 93 crashed after its passengers forcefully prevented hijackers from crashing the airliner into its reported target — the Capitol. Addressing the “anger, fear and resentment” of today’s politics, Bush stressed “growing evidence that the dangers to our country can come not only across borders but from violence that gathers within.”
“There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home,” Bush said. “But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit. And it is our continuing duty to confront them.”
And that, in the end, means ordinary citizens. During that same 9/11 observance near Shanksville, Gordon Felt, a special education teacher and the brother of Flight 93 victim Edward Felt, suggested the question was not so much how reverently we honor the fallen of 9/11, “but rather the question to be considered is: Are we worthy of their sacrifice?”
“Do we as individuals, communities and as a country conduct ourselves in a manner that would make those that sacrificed so much and fought so hard on September 11th proud of who we have become?” Felt asked. “Do we share the same willingness to sacrifice for others in little ways as well as large, to act when necessary for no other reason than to accomplish a noble goal, egoless and without other motivation than to do what is right?”
Those of us who fondly recall Bush’s “compassionate conservatism,” who recall his noble efforts to condemn threats leveled at American Muslims after 9/11, who recall his efforts at comprehensive but humane immigration reform (with Sens. John McCain and Ted Kennedy as allies) now wonder if Bush’s speaking out to safeguard democracy and head off the carnage and chaos of another Trump reign might prove a redeeming final act — or a massive waste of everybody’s time.
For better or worse, at this late date, the prospect is likely not even on the menu.
