Governors Jeb and George W. Bush in 2000, when they held the GOP and conservatism in their hands.
It’s well-known that there’s no love lost between Donald J. Trump and the Bush family.
They (with the exception of Texas pol George P. Bush) were conspicuously missing from the ranks of Republican leaders who happily or dutifully endorsed the mogul in 2016 or in 2020.
But he also shows he’s far from the prevailing mood in the party he led for eight years.
CNN’s Chris Cillizza read the interview and thought it was remarkable how far the GOP had drifted in the 12 years since Bush left office.
Anywhere in the GOP you look, the hard-right tradition seems now to run from Goldwater to Reagan to George W. Bush — and now to Trump.
All these themes have been evident in conservative Republican politics for many years, but not in this shrill and dominant form. »