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W vs. Trump: Who Is the Real “Conservative?”
There was a long discussion after a Harvard Lunch Club podcast called the “Never Trump Edition” in which the conversation veered into a place I found interesting. There is a notion now on many Ricochet threads that asserts that Donald Trump is the “most conservative president in the White House since Eisenhower.”
So @drlorentz asked this question: “What good did GWB do during his tenure besides being NotGore or NotKerry?” I think that question deserves some exploration.
George W. Bush was definitely not as conservative as Ronald Reagan, but it seems to me that people have forgotten some of the things that he did that were very, very, very conservative.
For example, as the healthcare debate continues with no resolution in sight, I would remind my fellow Ricochet members that Health Savings Accounts came into being during W’s tenure.
How did those work?
Younger people could buy high deductible insurance plans in the healthiest stages of life, while putting aside tax-deferred money in a special account to meet future healthcare needs.
What was the idea there?
Instead of being disconnected from the cost of going to a doctor because of a plan that required a $10 co-pay, these people paid more bills out of their HSAs. This added a free market element to healthcare, which is ultimately what conservatives — per my understanding of what those are — believe is necessary to fix our God awful healthcare mess.
How did HSAs work in the real world?
I will never forget my son breaking his arm while we had a high deductible and a Health Savings Account. When I got the bill, I thought it was ridiculous. I went to our doctor’s office manager to discuss this. I whipped out my HSA card and said I’d clear up the bill right then, but I was paying it all outright, and the bill was too high. Couldn’t we talk about the charges?
She smiled and said, “You’ll pay right now? You know what? It’s your lucky day. We’re having a fire sale on broken arms. How about a 20% discount?”
YES!
So under Bush I got an HSA and more control over my family’s healthcare, whereas Donald Trump calls cuts to Medicaid “mean.”
To be honest, I’m not truly sure what it is Trump likes or doesn’t like about the current proposals for healthcare reform apart from the idea that he wants to sign something, but Bush did help with a conservative initiative there.
One of the things that completely flummoxed me about Obamacare is that it limited HSAs. (Whyyy?) Those would have allowed young people to save for the big costs when they were older, which might have eventually allowed us to think about reforming Medicare.
Do you remember when Trump signed an executive order to end the Johnson Amendment? Do you also remember that this executive order—while applauded for being in the right spirit—was so weak that the ACLU decided not to challenge it?
Well, I remember George W. Bush’s Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives, which allowed faith-based organizations to have access to federal funds. This is tied to the idea that religious organizations should not be discriminated against simply because the people who work within them wish to serve others because of their devotion to Jesus Christ. (The horror!) Isn’t that pretty conservative?
The first person Bush appointed to lead the OFBCI was none other than Don Willett, a judge who made Trump’s “short list” for the Supreme Court and is well known for how he uses Twitter to communicate with constituents. (I think Trump should take lessons from Don. That Willett feed is fabulous and a great example of how social media can be a positive workaround of the media without getting anyone in trouble.)
The ACLU bothered to sue over Bush’s program.
Speaking of the Supreme Court, one might recall that Bush appointed John Roberts and Samuel Alito.
I know, I know.
People have issues with the Roberts’ ruling on Obamacare, and these objections are principled objections for sure.
But Roberts has had an overall conservative approach to the law. His dissent on Obergefell is absolutely spot on. He is no Kennedy squish, that’s for sure.
Then there’s Samuel Alito. Goodness gracious. He’s almost in the Clarence Thomas camp, and Clarence Thomas? While a George H. W. Bush appointee, he is the most conservative judge on the Supreme Court.
So if Trump gets massive conservative cred for Gorsuch — as he should — we can’t forget Sam. Bush did that. And, uh, if Gore or Kerry had been elected? The court’s balance would look very different today.
Looking at entitlement reform, George W. Bush pushed to privatize Social Security. That was about conservative ideology. It didn’t happen, but Donald Trump has been clear on the fact that he won’t touch this program at all. I’m not sure how Trump gets “more conservative” points on that front.
For those of you who are now screaming about Medicare, I’ll say, yes. W had the Medicare expansion that got senior citizens free drugs. I’ll grant every day that bit of “compassionate conservatism” didn’t end up great, and Bush was horrible with restraining spending.
But isn’t the Medicare expansion kind of equivalent to pushing for more funds to combat opioid addiction? Or let me go a little further.
As an entitlement, how is Trump’s proposal to create paid parent leave ideologically different — or ultimately less expensive — than paying for some seniors’ drugs?
Per the reasoning behind W’s drugs and Trump’s babies, aren’t we kinda on the same “compassion” page when we get right down to it?
Then there’s foreign policy.
I don’t understand the complete amnesia people have about 9/11.
Did we as a people not want to lift W up on our shoulders and start weeping in gratitude when he stood atop the rubble of our buildings and put his arm around the fireman? When he took that megaphone within his own hand and spoke to all of us? Was that not W saying the United States is the greatest country on Earth, and we will not tolerate people attacking us?
Granted, during those years he made plenty of mistakes. I’m not denying this.
Perhaps he was sometimes too Wilsonesque with his speeches about spreading democracy around the world, but didn’t Reagan use some of the same sort of language?
On that front, I think some people say Trump is more conservative than Bush because his rhetoric is more about staying out of other countries. Trump is less neo-con, more paleo-con. (In general, I think that’s true.)
Yet these people go back to Eisenhower as the last “real conservative” before Trump, and I recall Ike meddled quite a bit in the affairs of other countries.
Do people mean something different?
So … Iraq again.
Wasn’t that a stable country when Bush left office? I mean, I kinda thought it was. Afghanistan? Not so much. Iraq?
George W. Bush took the advice of his commanders, which conservatives tend to think is a good thing to do, and pushed for the Surge, right?
Wasn’t it Obama who messed that whole thing up?
Then there’s North Korea.
Isn’t Donald Trump trying to work his way back to the same level of sanctions that Bush had?
Now, let me say, I love me some Mattis, but how is what Trump is doing that different from that which Bush did?
Some say Trump is “stronger” as people believe he’ll use force when necessary.
But people clearly thought Bush would use the military to do things. He did! People called him a “cowboy” in the press, which I always thought was funny because — well — who doesn’t like John Wayne?
So Bush made mistakes, but he also communicated strength.
By the way, George W. Bush was pretty popular as far as members of the military go. If anything, he’s become more popular with them because of how he has treated the men and women who have served. And, while Dan Rather may have derided Bush’s service, there is a bit of cachet in the fact that the man could pilot a plane. (As a sidenote, George H. W. Bush’s service cannot be derided at all, and I think that normally gets a bit of respect from conservatives.)
Then there was Iran.
Bush was pretty unequivocal about the Iranian regime being part of an axis of evil. Didn’t his policies help set up the Green Revolution, which — again — Obama squandered? (How is that Bush’s fault?)
Per Russia, after he got over gazing into eyes and thinking he knew “Putin’s heart” — Good Lord! — Bush had the sense to start lining up deals to increase our missile defense shield.
Isn’t that what Trump is doing now? Reviving what Bush had already done in Poland?
Look. I’m not trying to take away anything from Donald Trump in this post, but I don’t understand why so many people here sound like they work for the New York Times when talking about W.
Bush was more moderate than Reagan, more conservative than his father.
I’ll have to wait and see if Trump is “more conservative” than Bush. However, I think I’ve shown Bush was more than “Not Gore” or “Not Kerry” in ways that were more substantive than just being polite.
I hope I have anyway.
I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for W, and I don’t think his legacy in the pantheon of American presidents is anywhere close to being understood.
As for Trump?
He’s just started. We have a long way to go to understand the real impact of either of these men.
Published in Politics
Sure it’s fair. So how’s about his speech in Poland (linked above) or his other speeches. But no, it’s all about the tweets, right?
I think most people recognize the difference between tweets and speeches vis a vis presidential rhetoric. The tweets are dumb, that’s stipulated.
Aside: you probably should include a link to that HLC thread in your post for the benefit of others.
Sure!!! That’s part of the point. I don’t think we know what Trump is yet, and I think we are forgetting some of the things that Bush did that met with our great approval.
Then I don’t know what Trump is going to do to fix it?
We’re quibbling here. The current Senate majority is just two, and that includes the likes of Susan Collins and some other wobblies. That’s not a strong majority either. Strong is 60 votes.
Edit: I am going outside to enjoy some air. Be back later, guys, after the comment count exceeds a few hundred. ;)
If Trump has some GOP help and some organizational skills I expect him to eclipse W, albeit a mid to low bar.
If the soft coup works then I expect very little to be done and our country will reap what it sewed. Socialism.
I never said we shouldn’t care about the Poland speech. I heard lots of people on Ricochet applaud that speech, including @roblong, right? Heck. ABC reporters put out some good news stories, too, don’t they?
I know you know the tweets are dumb. Some people feel they are more damaging than I think some less skeptical Trump supporters think they are. Trump supporters get mad at that because they think it’s silly that Trump Skeptics think they aren’t clear eyed about some of these actions.
But in reverse, this doesn’t mean that Trump Skeptics don’t also think that the the Poland speech is good. Trump Skeptics get mad at that because they think it’s silly that Trump supporters don’t understand that they can criticize one action whilst finding another needs to be stopped.
Oh, heavens!!! My mistake. I’ll fix that right away. You know I love me some Clarence. We both hail from Georgia. That’s a little conservative mishmash in my head…
Here… You just did!!! Thanks. :)
I think skeptics and supporters are a bit more nuanced than in various debate forums.
Brilliant!!! Lois, thank you so much for writing this. I did end up answering some of the questions regarding Bush, but it is never enough for the Trump Fanatics.
A personal story about HSA’s: Before I was laid of from my insurance job of 32 years, I had a Health Saving Account. I remember I kept wishing that AIG would offer them. When they did, I was so happy. I had one ever since they offered them, and still have it, until it ends when my Severance Package does. It came in very handy over the years, especially when I had my Angioplasty.
If I can, though, I’d like to add one thing you left out: GW Bush had a wonderful idea on Social Security. This had bugged me all my working life, that they forced me to pay into it, and that it was a government plan. Well, Bush proposed to take 4%, and put it in a private plan. Just 4%. And you didn’t have to do it. You could elect to keep what already there. Once again I was excited. This was a major thing. And much in keeping with people like you and I want. But, of course, the Democrats lied about it, and killed. If there is one thing they can’t stand, it is something that they can’t control people with.
I also hate when other conservatives put Bush down. It isn’t right. I guess if you’re not mean, it doesn’t count!
Also: The First George Bush put Clarence Thomas on the Court. And he stuck with him, when all the usual suspects tried to smear Mr. Thomas. It would have been easy for Bush to turn tail and run. But he didn’t. This was a man we could be proud of!
Thanks for your piece, Lois. You came through like a champ!! :-)
Yes! I said that Trump has a majority that is similar to Bush’s majority. Totally. Obama had a much, much different situation with his majority.
I don’t really think we have a disagreement.
Maybe. For sure they can be. Sometimes they don’t seem to be to me.
I’m sure it has something to do with the medium.
Unless President Obama changed that completely, you should be able to take whatever money is left in that HSA with you until it is gone.
Yes. I totally muffed that one up. I’ve fixed it in the body of the article. It is a good thing to show that George H. W. Bush made a very important contribution to “conservatism” as well.
The Social Security thing is fleshed out in the thread, but yeah! I think we have to consider intentions at least to some degree if a man spends political capital… even if he loses.
We might get a twofer if Trump is impeached.
#NeverBush
Bush collaborated with the Russians.
This is totally unfair. What does count is that Bush put forward a conservative position that he believed in. He couldn’t help it if the Democrats wanted to lie, and succeeded in that lie.
It takes you a long time to even imply that you don’t like Mr. Trump. What Miss Line and I (and millions of others) are saying is that what you call tone is as important as policy. And while we are at it, much of what Trump has done is through Executive Order. They are fine orders, but if we get that woman Senator from Massachusetts (HEAVEN FORBID), or that one from California (AGAIN, HEAVEN FORBID), they could be undone in a nano-second. We need legislation. And one of the things I have been trying to get across is that Trump is not making it easy to impose his will on Congress, because of his nastiness, which is ego-driven!
George, do you really imagine that tone is “as important” as policies and appointments?
That’s risible. It really isn’t hard to name 50 democrats whose personal demeanor, professional ethics and tone are superior to Trump’s.
Would you really prefer any of them to Trump? Do you want Mark Warner naming three SCOTUS justices and 40-60 appeals court judges, allowing the DOJ harpies to harass every police department and K-20 in the country, and establishing a deep nearly inextricable climate change bureaucracy in DC?
Yes, policy and tone are important. In the same sense that oxygen and underwear are important.
How do you resolve this conflict in your argument? You assert, and I agree, that Bush is a fine man, modest, plain spoken and remarkably honest for a politician. He was unable to impose his will on Congress, with a 30 seat majority in the House and 55 GOP senators in 2005.
LBJ, a scoundrel, power-mad and an epic egomaniac, was able to impose his will on Congress from 1963 through 1968.
George, can you explain why Trump’s nasty ego-driven tone allowed him to win 46% of the GOP vote in the Florida primary while Rubio won 27%?
How did Trump win nearly 50% of the Arizona primary vote while uncle Kasich barely won 10%.
I would really appreciate some analysis here, and would prefer not to be called a Trump Fanatic, stupid, foolish, an uncaring libertarian or any of the other insults you polluted the previous thread with.
To be fair, Quake, if quality of SCOTUS judges is the prevailing marking for “good presidents,” then W. was pretty good.
We don’t know yet if Trump can get Congress to do his bidding.
I hope we never have another president sitting on his throne whilst talking to aides. LBJ definitely was a master of the Senate who then changed the society when he took over for JFK. He was also a one term president. (I’m not counting the bit of Kennedy’s term that he completed.)
Yes, yes, I know. There are all sorts of reasons wayyyyyyyy beyond crass behavior, which LBJ used sometimes as part of strategy as Trump does, but LBJ’s tone didn’t help him much, and we don’t remember LBJ fondly, do we?
No disagreement Lois. Even Reagan was only 1 for 3 on SCOTUS on many issues for me, and he was appointing justices when Roe was only 8 years old. Even there, in fairness, had we won the Bork fight, it might have been 3 for 3, given Bork’s intellectual gifts. (The inside history of Casey is heartbreaking.)
One lingering issue. You tend to note Bush’s positive conservative aspects as if many of the Trump supporters on Ricochet were once, in fact or spirit, Never Bush and were passively pushing for the election of John Kerry.
The parallel just is not there. That’s just a species of NT projection. Many of us have consistently supported establishment candidates — Nixon, Bush, Dole, Bush, McCain, Romney — but when a candidate who spoke more directly to the deplorables won the nomination the establishment had a nervous breakdown. Sure Trump is sui generis. But do you honestly think the reaction to a Tom Tancredo or Jeff Sessions nomination would have been much different?
As regards LBJ, again, I don’t see where tone and fond recollections matter. He completed and extended the New Deal and we have been tinkering with it for more than 50 years.
He’s slapping his knee and laughing somewhere other than heaven, I’d say.
They either count or they don’t. If W’s court appointments don’t count toward his record, then Gorsuch doesn’t count toward Trump’s.
No, she’s pushing back against the received wisdom that Bush’s entire legacy consists of Medicare Part D and the bank bailouts.
I don’t want to speak for Lois, but I can think of quite a few former Nevers, and even a few holdouts, who were strong Ted Cruz supporters (Jay Nordlinger, for one) so, yes, I think it would have been much different.
And he gained nothing in return.
That is true. The Putin Russians were the winners of that one.
This is why I’m NeverBush.
I’m only reacting to a narrative that I have seen on many Ricochet threads that implies–or states outright–that many people on Ricochet feel that Bush was not very good–really a sorta shill for the progressives?–and Trump is now much more conservative than W ever was because of…
I thought that deserved a little more examination as W was a president that–I’d presume–a high majority of people currently writing on Richochet supported for various reasons… Twice.
Anyway, I think Bush was one kind of president, and Trump is another, so I wanted to take the time to examine Bush more as a “conservative.”
I mean, I guess, the question of conservative street creed is especially interesting to me lately as I think the term “conservative” seems to have become more and more nebulous.
Understand, this is not meant to be an attack on Trump. That’s not why I wrote this piece.
I do think it is a defense of Bush, whom I admire and think is a bit underrated.
As for thinking some people are/were “Never Bush”, I guess the comment here serves as a reason I might have that impression? @quakevoter
NeverBusher since Feb 1999. Before that I merely disliked the Bushes, but I started disliking them well before 1986 when George Will identified George H.W. Bush as the original Donald Trump.
Umbra, I largely agree with Lois here. W’s record is mixed, and some of his failures were occasioned by earth shattering events and political pressures (particularly education and senior drug issues) which many of us conveniently put in the memory hole. Some were just characteristic of big spending GOP vote buying (without which maybe he loses Ohio in 20004) and if we are fair we’d ask who is proposing a budget deficit lower than $400 billion today other than Rand Paul? W’s personal modesty, honesty and masculine kindness are very appealing. My point is there was no Never Bush preening amongst the populist nationalist wing of the GOP and that is rather telling.
I was a Cruz supporter and campaign worker in CO and NY (not one for the resume). He has genuine constitutional principles, an IQ above 150 and an underappreciated sense of political timing and tactics. He is not naturally a forthright speaker or a populist and can’t really be classed with the Buchanan, Sessions, Santorum, Tancredo, Schlafly, Perot wing of the national party. On defining issues like immigration, education and trade he is a triangulator without Clinton’s rascal charm.
Any candidate from the nationalist populist wing of the party, especially one with any hint of America First sentiments, would have been treated shabbily by the DC GOP and conservative journal establishment, which despises the base Trump voter and makes cringing apologies for them continually.
I think while we have different opinions about the current administration for various reasons, there’s a lot of common ground on which people could build a new tent if people would simply speak with each other like this… without the continuous invective.
I’m not pointing fingers but saying in general that this is much better, right?