Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
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
Neither strikes me as an idiot. In fact, it’s much easier for me to believe that your dozen contacts have an incorrect assessment than it is for me to believe that an idiot can be elected and then re-elected POTUS.
As far as being conservative, I’m of the opinion that it’s not necessarily a set of ideas as much as it’s not leftism and not anarchy/libertarianism. Bush had some leftist tendencies, so far Trump doesn’t. We’ll see.
Fair enough!!! Then you’re intellectually consistent, and that’s about the only thing I ever ask of anyone. :)
The criticism of people who criticize Trump now can be loud per this “aiding and abetting the other side” logic. Since this happened to you when you opposed Bush, you know just how frustrating that can be.
I don’t think you’ve mentioned you’ve had that experience in a thread I’ve personally read, but there are thousands of comments on Ricochet, so I may have forgotten. Regardless, carry on? ;)
While I don’t agree with your assessment of Bush, I certainly don’t object to it!!!
I also think when less than 50 people have accomplished a certain goal, none of the people who have reached that goal could actually be idiots. They can be a lot of other things. Sure. But not that.
Now when President Obama won a second term, I thought some voters were a wee idiotic, but that’s a different story??? ;)
Two quotes that seem relevant here:
“I’m a politician which means I’m a cheat and a liar, and when I’m not kissing babies I’m stealing their lollipops. But it also means I keep my options open.”
Dr. Jeffrey Pelt (as played by Richard Jordan), The Hunt for Red October – the movie.
“[Bill Clinton is]… a brother from another mother”
George W. Bush, Dallas, July 13, 2017
Is that second quote kind of like the quotes here in 2007 that Trump gave Imus about how Hillary Clinton is a wonderful woman, and the Democrats are going to do a good job?
The problem with being intellectually consistent, though, is that the bad guys know what to expect. Sometimes it’s better to be dangerous and keep them guessing. See the quote below about keeping your options open.
@lois-lane
I do not know. One is 10 years old, the other is more recent. Perhaps the linked photo may shed some light on what GWB meant when he made his comment three days ago. I recall reading about the same line more than once before in a span of several years. I guess once one is a member of this exclusive club, certain, let’s call them, “deficiencies” are less import. On the other hand, the Carters seem to be more circumspect…
I think Bush and Clinton have a lot of very unique circumstances that might draw them together, though I don’t get it.
I think it’s well documented that Trump has also been very friendly with the Clintons over the years.
Perhaps after Trump is done with his career, you’ll see him on a stage, too, as part of the “presidents’ club”? Chelsea and Ivanka will start a clothing line together? Who knows?
Regardless, by 2007, Trump had plenty of information about Bill and Hill Scandals that would make me think if they bothered him he wouldn’t still be saying how wonderful they were.
Therefore, I don’t feel the personal relationship says much about Either Bush or Trump other than they are both part of a very small circle of elite people who run our country and who say things in the political arena for the “little people” (us) that they don’t always mean.
That doesn’t differentiate Bush from Trump though.
Trump was never on the outside of that circle.
On Trump’s intelligence, I think he’s the sort of person who is very good at getting other people to work out the details of what he wants done. I don’t mean that in a bad way (one day I want to be good at that too, nothing is more annoying than having to do every freaking thing yourself).
I think it’s also important to point out that the Boomers threw a lot of knowledge away. People say Scott Alexander is a social scientist genius, but if you listen to elites who are old enough you’ll find they know all of the same things. I’m not sure if Trump is quite old enough for that (as I recall, the Boomers started being born in 1947, and Trump was born in 1946), but there’s a good chance he is, and that he acquired quite a bit of knowledge from the early postwar New York elite, knowledge that isn’t easy to come by today.
This was one of my beefs with Rubio and Cruz. They were too young, and were clearly the product of our crappy post-60s higher education system. That’s not the level of education you want in a president. They need to know more. Just look at Obama; the man thought he was educated because he graduated from prestigious schools, and ended up being a complete idiot in office.
And this brings us back to the first quote. I would not be surprised at all by Chelsea/Ivanka clothing line. They keep their options open.
No they aren’t the same. In 2007 Trump lived and did business in NY and needed to make nice especially with Hillary. W doesn’t have to make nice with anyone, least of all the Clintons. On the other hand, I don’t begrudge collegiality within that small club of ex POTUS’s. But there is collegiality and then there is being genuine friends with a genuine man of low character.
Also, I’m from Georgia. I’m glad Jimmy builds houses in his free time, but Bill and George (and Barry, for that matter) are all whipper snappers compared to him.
Carter is H.W.’s contemporary, but I recall Carter as being rather insular.
Did he have a close relationship with any other ex-president from either party?
I think he’s in his 90s now.
Per that qualifier, I wouldn’t be friends with Bill, but I wouldn’t be friends with Trump either…
I can’t say why W is on such friendly terms with Clinton. Maybe it says something bad about him. Maybe it says something good about him.
You could play it either way.
I don’t think this relationship tells you anything about whether or not Bush–or Trump–is a “conservative.”
Sooooooo. Ted Cruz and Rubio had bad educations per when they were born?
What are you going to do when all the Baby Boomers are dead?
Not sure I follow you here.
This is why I joined the GOP.
Yep. It really is that simple.
Well, okay. But that doesn’t leave much hope for you for the future because The generations of which you speak aren’t immortal.
Fun Fact: Bill, George, and Donald are all the same age. 1946 was a good year, apparently.
Isn’t that funny?
I don’t think about Trump as being the same age of the other two. In my mind, W. is still outrunning his secret service detail. (Out of sight, he doesn’t age.) Though Bill was out there during the 2016 campaign, if I move too far from the 90s, I start to get old, so he’s in freeze-frame, too.
Regardless, Donald certainly seems to have had a friendship with the Clintons, which makes more sense if they are the same age. I can imagine some of the conversations he and Bill had on the golf course….
It’s well documented that Ivanka and Chelsea were/(are?) good friends as well. They would have been from very, very similar worlds, so why not?
My vision of the three of these men sitting on a stage after the Trump administration is over isn’t at all far fetched, though I do think they are very different sorts of people.
I remember reading letters between Hoover and Truman at some point while I was researching something. FDR wanted nothing to do with Herbert–no advice from the previous president–but Truman was happy to engage with him. They ended up being close friends, though they never agreed on politics.
What did that say about them?
I dunno. But there was something really hopeful about that relationship for me. We forget the venom that would have been directed at Hoover… the venom that was directed at Truman by the end of his time in the White House.
Yet history doesn’t remember either of them as it did within twenty years of either’s administrations.
That’s another thing that I’m saying here.
We don’t know how W.’s legacy will unfold as for as “conservative” assessments go. Donald Trump? He’s barely had time to burp.
We shall have to wait a little while and see.
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?
–Only after losing Congress and the Senate did W turn his eyes to winning the war in Iraq. After he led the country into a war based on nonsense, and let the war fester on for 5 years. His incompetence during this period is not something I would point to.
–I think my favorite story of W’s leadership comes from the book Days of Fire. Its around 2004-05. There is a national security conference to be held to decide how to win the war. Everyone is going to the there, Rice, Rumsfeld, the Kagans. All the top people of the national security apparatus. The President has cleared his calendar for the weekend. The first day is a review of the war, the second day will discuss options.
Sunday rolls around and Secretary Rice cant find the President. She goes and talks to Rumsfeld. He doesn’t know where the President is. Turns out at 3 AM W took off in a helicopter and eventually flew to Iraq to do a photo-op with Al-Maliki. He blew off his own War Council for a photo op. Rumsfeld was pushing for a drastic draw down of forces. We could have had the Surge 2 years earlier before Congress and the Senate was lost. And this person squandered it.
–Lets not even go into all the years losts because no one in his administration had thought about how to govern a country like Iraq and post occupation period. The less said about the CPA the better.
How quickly we all forget No Child Left Behind. A policy so disastrous that a bi-partisan Congress and Senate worked with Pres Obama to repeal it.
–As someone who was a NeverBush camp back in the 2000’s there was plenty of criticism going on. Go read Jerry Pournelle’s blog from 2002-2008 to see more of what I talk about.
W is what we in Canada would call a Red Tory. I summed up Red Toryism quite well a while back during our leadership to a few friends. “There is no problem government cant solve, as long as it’s a Conservative government.” The 8 years of W in a nutshell.
PS
Did he have a close relationship with any other ex-president from either party?
–Apparently he and Ford became close friends after they were both out of offices. Even agreeing to doing each others Eulogies. For more on this see Ex-Presidents Club.
Doesn’t this kind of prove my point? That “Conservative” principles are fine to defend when making some theoretical argument or when using them as a cudgel to beat up on a primary opponent, but when an actual crisis arises and a chance to put them in motion to demonstrate that they really are superior to Leftist approaches, they get chunked aside. You see how that can make folks see the ideology as a huge scam? If they are important enough to defend in a full magazine assault against a primary candidate you disagree with, why are they not important enough to try when a crisis arises?
Instead of giving 800 billion to the banks. They should have given 800 billion to the home owners. The banks would still get paid wouldn’t they.
Again, you are either not acknowledging the point or purposefully side-stepping it. Criticism is different than “greatest threat to Conservatism ever.” Let’s leave the Patriot Act aside for a moment, because I think you are correct, there are many different views on it within the Right. But imagine if it was Trump who signed McCain-Feingold and not Bush knowing what people like Jay Nordlinger, J-Pod, Rob Long, Kevin Williams, etc have written or said about Trump. Now ask yourself if that criticism is only relegated to criticism or does it rise to “OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!! WE ARE THROUGH!!!!” levels of hysteria? You in your heart know the honest answer to that, and yes I am automatically taking anything other than an affirmative answer in bad faith. (Sorry for the all caps, but I had to do it to prove the rhetorical point.)
Your second point is very valid and I fully admit to the bias it can create. Hindsight versus foresight is truly biasing things here. But then again, I am not arguing that Trump is a “Conservative.” I am arguing that he is breathing room between Leftist thug presidential administrations. The other part of my argument is that those bemoaning Trump’s non-Conservatism are discredited by their ability to basically “pfft” off Bush’s non-Conservatism. To say one was criticized yet still counted among the pantheon of Conservatives while the other is the quintessential threat to “Conservatism,” tells me that there is something else at work behind how one is treated over the other.
That at least could have been said to help real people as opposed to a bunch of rich liberals who made terrible investments and were worried about losing their second home in the Hamptons.
The people at NR are much, much, much more conservative than W. They consistently criticized him when he did things that went outside of the “conservative” box. Why? Many writers actually believe in these principles. Not all, mind. But many.
That does not take away the fact that W. also did conservative things for which he should be praised.
It should always be a case-by-case.
I am closely connected to the military, but I am not making a case here that Bush made no mistakes. I am making a case that if your criteria is ultimate outcome then the Iraq Bush left on the table was stable, and he listened to his commanders to push for the Surge when it was politically harder for him to do so. Perhaps he should have done that earlier. Okay! But he did it. He gets credit.
I will say I think that Bush was too loyal to Donald Rumsfeld to both his and that effort’s detriment, but I don’t want to re-litigate the Iraq War. Bush is–according to the polling that exists in publications like The Military Times and my own anecdotal experiences–very popular with the men and women who have served since 2001.
And yeah. I put a lot of stock in the opinions of those vets.
See comment 118.
I am not sidestepping anything.
Are you addressing the question of whether or not George W. Bush or Donald Trump is more conservative? Or are you just concerned with how some opinion writers address Donald Trump?
These are different things.
I am not arguing that George W. Bush is the most conservative president we’ve had in my lifetime.
I am saying that Bush is not given credit for those actions of his that were intrinsically conservative, and I don’t know what Donald Trump’s ideological legacy will be six months into his presidency. I find some of the pronouncements that he’s “the most conservative president since Eisenhower” a little… strange.
I’m not attacking either man, though I am defending one of them.
You did again in the previous comment. I know they criticized Bush. I probably have those back issues in my office at home. What I am saying is that their level of criticism was no higher than “that is not in accordance with Conservative principles,” but with Trump, despite everything that went on with the Bush administration that could be looked at as “not in accordance with Conservative principles,” they went a step further and said that Trump was an existential threat to “Conservatism.”
I am not saying one is more “Conservative” over the other because neither of them are “Conservative” as defined by folks like those at NR. Is “Conservative” implementing a vast array of Leftist policies while displaying proper WASP mannerisms, or is it rooted in policy prescriptions from a certain ideological perspective? To me that is the real question here.