Death of George HW Bush

Death of G. H. Bush
When George H. Bush he was hailed by many for leaving behind a legacy of kindness: it was a quality not often associated with the president during his lifetime but in Trump Presidency it seemed to stand out to many by way of contrast with the bombast and bullying tactics of the current president. Even Al Gore, who lost the 2000 election to Bush’s son W., had a touching anecdote to tell about George H. Bush. Gore said, “I remember when I gave my second and final concession speech in 2000, I was in the Secret Service car going back to the vice president's residence, and it was President George H.W. Bush calling me on the telephone and he was overcome with emotion and he said the kindest things. It was really a touching call” (Tatum, 2018). Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all had positive and touching things to say about George H. Bush. It was as though all were united in affirming what a good president looked like
What makes people respect a leader after death, regardless of partisanship, is usually their legacy. The legacy of George H. Bush was determined more by contrast than anything else, too. George H. Bush, for example, invaded the Middle East for but a brief time to drive Hussein out of Kuwait. George W. Bush and Obama both waged unending campaigns in the Middle East that made George H. Bush look tame by comparison. However, at the same time, much of the political establishment is opposed to Trump because he tends to go against the established political order and doctrines—so the representatives of the political establishment will take any and every opportunity to call out his weaknesses (i.e., lack of diplomacy, niceness, kindness) whenever possible—and the death of George H. Bush allowed for a perfect contrast to be made between a presidential president (Bush) and a non-presidential president (Trump).
Trump misses the mark on being canonized so to speak because he does not mind being gruff, blunt, and bullying. He relishes pumping his own ego and never admits to making mistakes. He routinely claims that his Administration is the best ever and that his Administration has accomplished more in two years than any other Administration in history. Trump’s followers also proclaim as much and approve generally of how he has handled his term thus far. However, those who are not of his base and do not count as supporters have not shown the same love for Trump as has been shown George H. Bush upon his passing. Bush lost to Clinton and Gore in 1992—and yet both had nothing but good things to say about Bush when he died. Gore told the anecdote about how kind Bush had been to call him when Gore lost to Bush’s son in 2000. There were no hard feelings. There was only empathy and respect.
It is hard to imagine that Trump will command the same kind of empathy and respect from his political opponents when he passes. It is unlikely that Hillary Clinton will sing Trump’s praises or that Bill Clinton will honor him with a eulogy. After all, Trump essentially said that Bill Clinton was a rapist at his last debate with Hillary in 2016. This is not the type of character that typically wins one friends across the political aisle.
John McCain was another who was praised roundly by the political establishment on both sides of the aisle. Yet during his career McCain was quite often polarizing—and so this behavior on the part of the political establishment was similar to like that which occurred when Bush died: the political establishment was extolling the virtues of one who differed from Trump. And in the case of McCain they were singing loudly the praises of an individual who openly sparred with Trump. In other words, they were throwing their support to the individual who opposed Trump. Their praise of McCain was a rebuke to Trump. It did not necessarily mean anything about how great McCain was. He was just a convenient tool in death to use as a cudgel for beating Trump, who had often condemned and mocked McCain.
Bush was also a different breed of man. He was the last of the so-called Greatest Generation. The Greatest Generation was revered because it did a lot with a little. This contrasts with Trump, who essentially inherited his wealth, though he was able to grow it considerably through real estate transactions. Bush represented the “pick yourself up by the bootstraps generation,” while Trump represents the “Me” generation—the generation that was handed everything and still wants more—more praise, more admiration, more wealth.
Bush was also the last republican president who didn’t generate huge partisan anger. He worked with a Democratic Congress. Trump on the other hand has allowed the government to shut down over an impasse with Congress over funding for his border wall proposal. Bush even went against his oath to not raise taxes just so that he could achieve bipartisanship. However, this also showed something about Bush—namely that he was not as committed to his supporters as Trump appears to be. That may be why Bush was only a one-term president. If Trump is elected for a second term it will be because his supporters never felt betrayed by him—he will have kept his campaign promises. He has struck down key aspects of Obamacare, like he pledged to do. He has concluded the war in Syria recently. And with allowing the government to shut down he is showing that he is adamant about getting funding for the wall. Thus, Trump is playing to his core base, whereas Bush did not. So while Clinton and Obama might sing Bush’s praises, not many ordinary people who voted Republican felt the same. They remembered Bush as being the one who lied to them about not raising taxes, or they remembered him as one who was accused of groping.
Still there were those ordinary people who allowed sentiment to creep into their perspective. And this occurs because when people die, the living tend to want to remember the good things about that purpose rather than the bad. Yet some presidents still rouse anger—like Lyndon Johnson. It all depends on how the death of a president can be used politically. Johnson died in 1972 during the Nixon presidency. People were still angry about Johnson getting them into the Vietnam War—and their anger rose out of that more than anything else. Plus, his death was very close to the time after his term ended. So people could remember his political failures more easily. With Bush, it was more than a quarter century later after his term that he died—so his political achievements and failures had largely disappeared down the memory hole. What remained about Bush was that he was considered a decent, “old school” kind of guy. The media latched onto this concept and characterization of Bush and used it to contrast it with the character of Trump, even if they did not mention Trump by name. The fact that the media was suddenly so in love with Bush and his “decent” and “old school” ways after never having given the man a thought for the 25 years since his presidency indicated that the media was not so much evincing its love for Bush as it was evincing its hatred for Trump—as he has never come across as “decent” or as “old school” but rather always as vain-glorious and obnoxiously egomaniacal for the most part.
However, there is also the need to talk about leaders as leaders rather than to use as a tool to criticize Trump. Some will look for any opportunity to criticize the president. Others see the need to define what a leader is like. And in hindsight, one can see in Bush some of the qualities of leadership that people would like to see more of: bipartisanship, kindness, decency. Upon Bush’s death, Meacham (Bush’ biographer) described Bush as a war hero—one who had fought in WWII and who had actually been shot down out of the skies and yet had survived. In other words, he was a survivor—one who had been out in the thick of it and knew what combat was. Meacham stated that Bush “governed with virtues that most closely resemble those of Washington and of Adams, of TR and of FDR, of Truman and of Eisenhower, of men who believed in causes larger than themselves” (Foussianes, 2018). It was an indirect swipe of Trump, who is often criticized for only caring about himself and how good he looks. By saying that Bush never thought about such things , Meacham was saying that Bush was better than Trump.
Yet was he really better? Bush was involved in pardoning those involved in the Iran Contra scandal. He raised taxes when he said he would not. He represented the political establishment in many ways more than he represented the ordinary people. Trump’s claim—his legacy—will be, if anything, that he was a populist—one who represented the ordinary people of middle America, all 60-some million who voted for him at least. For the most part, Trump has kept his word to them, and there are still two years to go. So history will be the judge. However, when one dies, others typically think about the good things that person did, regardless of how that person can be used politically. It is very likely that Trump, for all his polarizing ways, will be thought of fondly by some in the future.
References
Foussianes, C. (2018). Jon Meacham's Eulogy for George H.W. Bush: Read What the
President's Biographer Had to Say. Retrieved from https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/politics/a25412042/jon-meacham-george-hw-bush-funeral-eulogy-transcript/
Tatum, S. (2018). Gore remembers Bush’s ‘personal kindness.’ Retrieved from
https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/04/politics/al-gore-george-hw-bush/index.html