Bush Wrecked the GOP Long Before Trump Appeared
Consider the source; the truth finally comes out.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/bush-wrecked-the-gop-long-before-trump-appeared/
Bush Wrecked the GOP Long Before Trump Appeared
By Daniel Larison May 9, 2016, 7:46 PM
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One of the remarkable things about this election is the sheer intensity of hostility to Trump from many of the same movement conservatives who shrugged at Bushs far more serious betrayals and failures. Many movement conservatives have been much more horrified by Trumps momentary political success over a few months than they were by the real, costly, staggering failures of governance under the Bush administration over a period of eight years. Bush certainly drove some conservatives and Republicans into vocal opposition, including those of us here at TAC, but there seem to be many, many more on the right that thought Bush could practically do no wrong but have been driven into fits by nothing more than Trumps nomination.
People that now panic about incipient caudillismo and the dangers of a nationalist demagogue didnt care when Bush expanded the security state, trampled on the Constitution, or launched an unnecessary war of aggression, and people that yawned at the steady expansion of government and creation of new unfunded liabilities under Bush are now supposedly alarmed by Trumps lack of fidelity to the cause of limited government. They correctly identify many of Trumps flaws, but refuse to acknowledge the fact that the party was already killed (or at least severely wounded) years ago during the disastrous Bush era. It was that period of incompetence and ideologically-driven debacles that shattered the GOP, and for the last seven years the vast majority of die-hard Trump foes have refused to recognize that and have chosen to learn nothing from it. They lost to Trump, but the part they cant accept is that they deserved to lose because of their role in enabling the GOPs past failures. Now theyre touting their abandonment of the wreckage they helped to create as if they deserve applause for running away from their own handiwork. If it werent so serious, it would be quite comical.