Opinion of George W. Bush as a person

[darklordoftech]

?

[darklordoftech]

Reagan is the main reason why we live in the USA and not the ASSR.

I don’t see how an ASSR is possible in a timeline with a point of divergence in the 1980s.

[darklordoftech]

George W Bush also presaged the Trump Presidency by demonizing his opponents as unpatriotic,

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2004/09/opposing-bush-becomes-unpatriotic.html


and by, more importantly, being the first President to wholly embrace 'alternative facts.'

The aide said that guys like me [Suskind] were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."


https://theweek.com/articles/854892/what-karl-rove-right-about-realitybased-community

Don’t forget the disdain for international institutions. Remember “freedom fries”?

[darklordoftech]

Even if you ignore his disastrous and murderous Presidency, this is a guy who as Governor of Texas signed the death warrants of over 150 people with a smile on his face.

And a bill that allowed judges to send truant children to adult jail.

[darklordoftech]

The rehabilitation of Bush is one of the worst things to come out of the Trump presidency.

Well, let's not forget the usual Third Way suspects in the Democratic Party were pretty much supporters of the cornerstone policies of his administration. In fact, even as late as 2005 when his 9/12 bounce was long over they were still kicking and screaming on about "fighting imminent terror" and other forms of apologism.

But Bush did steal the 2000 election from them.

[darklordoftech]

George W Bush also presaged the Trump Presidency by demonizing his opponents as unpatriotic,

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2004/09/opposing-bush-becomes-unpatriotic.html


and by, more importantly, being the first President to wholly embrace 'alternative facts.'

The aide said that guys like me [Suskind] were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."


https://theweek.com/articles/854892/what-karl-rove-right-about-realitybased-community

One quote of George W. Bush's fits here though, I think, for the Democrats who voted Bush as an FF.  I think that is a clear example of the "soft bigotry of low expectations."

There’s also the 2000 primary campaign, where robo-calls convinced a bunch of Bush supporters to hold up signs claiming that McCain conceived his adopted daughter with a prostitute.