Bush’s Actions Now Strongly Imply That Trumpers Are Not His People!

By Donald A. Collins | 6 October 2021
Church and State

(Credit: YouTube / screengrab)

On 9/11/21 former President George W. Bush made it clear the Trump GOP was trying to gain power by destroying our democracy.

You can recall his moving speech in which as CNN tells us, “he alludes to the US Capitol rioters when condemning violent extremists behind 9/11 attacks.” As he speaks at Shanksville on the marking of the 20th anniversary of those unforgettable attacks you may wish to read his entire speech here.

Read especially the paragraph beginning “In the weeks and months that followed” in which without naming the Trump GOP, Bush makes clear the path for a GOP renewal which I would summarize with the sentence “These are not our people.”

Bush no doubt must now have second thoughts about the bi-partisan surge of anger for a US response to Osama bin Laden’s 9/11 attacks by initiating that 20 year war in Afghanistan, but also how our subsequent behavior failed, as it did in Vietnam and with other “police actions.”

I suspect Bush also regrets the continuing bad advice from war hawks such as Dick Chaney, his Vice President and Don Rumsfeld, his Defense Secretary when that 3rd jet hit the Pentagon as the Afghanistan fiasco continued.

In addition Bush must now wince at recalling his failure to exercise the restraint of his father George H.W. Bush in dealing with Saddam Hussein on Iraq which naively put us in a disastrous two front war.

Doing that 2 front war has been historically poor strategy, as Hitler so dramatically proved in WWII as you can read here.

But to steal partially from Roman Mark Antony’s eulogy at Caesar’s funeral with my paraphrase with a reverse twist Bush implied strongly about Trump:

These are my words, not Bush’s but I bet he wouldn’t disagree. “I come not to criticize Bush, but to praise him” for his willingness to say to his party and to everyone in effect “These are not my people” and then to offer to fundraise for Chaney’s daughter Liz in her upcoming fight to keep her seat in Congress in 2022.

While Liz Chaney is not a Bush ideological clone, nor is Bush, or any other Republicans who are left with any morality or sense of honor for their country, the power center of the fallen GOP now morally destroyed by Trump, but Bush’s 9/11/21 speech picks up the main theme of good advice again echoing the opposite of Antony’s “But Brutus is an honorable man”. Read Antony’s eulogy here and enjoy its magical poetical symmetry and power which few orators ever attain.

Again, we hear in his 9/11 speech Bush eloquently crying out in effect, “these are not my people” nor do they represent a cogent way forward for the Grand Old Party.

Sadly, its honor has been conceded before and Lincoln’s legacy after the Civil War by ending for short political gain (getting their candidate elected President) in 1876 by ending reconstruction in the South. By withdrawing federal troops and allowing resumption of the Jim Crow era, the GOP initiated an era which lasted at least until 1954 when Thurgood Marshall argued the Brown vs the Board of Education case that overturned the “separate but equal” doctrine that kept all African Americans from education inferior to whites for generations.

As a nation we are far from putting racism behind us, not just for African Americans.

Again, the phase, actually my own interruptive phrase, NOT Bush’s “These are not our people” suggests that America still has enough believers in the importance of a balanced two-party system and decent moral behavior.

Aren’t we now keenly aware that Trump is leading his GOP down a no-win future demographic rabbit hole that is racist, elitist, and unacceptable? Legal pursuit by the House Commission of the coup he tried to engineer on January 6th should put the former President in jail.

As the House January 6th Commission proceeds, it appears that much information will link Trump with the insurrection as his key aides who were with him that day in the White House have been subpoenaed to testify. If these aides take the 5th Amendment against self-incrimination that surely won’t help convict Trump but it would not help his political stature either. He has been the Teflon politician today, but this could test that limit to a breaking point.

The 9/24/21 Washington Post reports that “Biden probably will release information about Trump’s Jan. 6 activities”. You can read the full story here.

It says in part, “Trump has said he will cite ‘executive privilege’ to block information requests from the House select committee investigating the events of that day, banking on a legal theory that has successfully allowed presidents and their aides to avoid or delay congressional scrutiny for decades, including during the Trump administration.”

Can Bush’s weak GOP wing recover power, even when Trump’s political fall takes place? Not if its new faces features people like the Governors of Texas and Florida.

Time for a New GOP Deal! So voters will want to know what its objectives and values are, as the Washington Post’s 9/25’s front page headline reads “Arizona ballot review commissioned by Republicans reaffirms Biden’s victory.”

You have made a start with your speech on 9/11 and with Liz Chaney, Mr. Bush, but knowing “These are not your people”, what’s your GOP wing do next? Yes, it may be very hard to prove the present crowd are not somehow still your people!

Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC, has spent over 40 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013, Trump Becoming Macbeth: Will our democracy survive? and We Humans Overwhelm Our Earth: 11 or 2 Billion by 2100?.

Full Speech: Pres. Bush Speaks At Shanksville 9/11 Ceremony

Trump World ‘Furious’ As House Jan. 6 Committee Issues Subpoenas

Bad News For Trump: Biden White House Working With House Jan. 6 Committee

Wave Of GOP Candidates Endorsing Trump’s Big Lie Threatens Future Elections

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