No one who has followed the Bush family over the years was surprised that the funeral service for former first lady Barbara Bush, who passed away last week, was gracious, joyful, bipartisan, straightforward and classy. Those qualities describe former president George H.W. Bush and his late wife of 73 years.
Let’s also remember that they governed as they lived. Historian Jon Meacham delivered one of the eulogies. Much remarked upon was this passage: “From the White House to Camp David to Walker’s Point, in hours of war and of peace, of tumult and of calm, the Bushes governed with congeniality, with civility and with grace. Instinctively generous, Barbara and George Bush put country above party, the common good above political gain and service to others above the settling of scores.”
That was a lovely, true evaluation of her life, but with President Donald Trump in the White House (but not at the funeral, to many people’s relief), it took on poignancy. No one, I think it is fair to say, honestly regards Trump as someone who puts “the common good above political gain and service to others above the settling of scores.” In many ways, his presidency is defined by the exact opposite — putting party over country (as he did in supporting Roy Moore for the Senate), political gain over the common good (as he does in governing with concern for only his base and with constant stoking of white grievance), and settling of scores over service to others.
As for the settling-scores part, the contrast between the Trump personality and the Bush code of conduct could not have been more stark: On the day of this uplifting, unifying funeral, Trump was shooting off insulting, bizarre tweets. (“The New York Times and a third rate reporter named Maggie Haberman, known as a Crooked H flunkie [sic] who I don’t speak to and have nothing to do with, are going out of their way to destroy Michael Cohen and his relationship with me in the hope that he will ‘flip.’ They use … non-existent ‘sources’ and a drunk/drugged up loser who hates Michael, a fine person with a wonderful family.”) He manages to diminish himself and the office he holds virtually every day.
With regard to public service, few not employed or related to him would doubt that the president who escaped Vietnam service due to bone spurs, makes money off the presidency while in office, claimed charitable donations he did not make, takes money from foreign governments and milks the taxpayers with constant trips to his own properties has no conception of public service. Trump considers running his business and making money to have been a sacrifice. He treats the Justice Department as if it is his own legal goon squad, not the lawyers for the American people.
Whether it was Barack Obama vs. Mitt Romney or Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., or George W. Bush vs. Al Gore or John Kerry, the country did not need to worry that an authoritarian, narcissistic lout would be in the White House whichever way the election came out. The country assumed that the president of the United States would not spend his days knocking out juvenile tweets, or that he would fail to read his briefing materials, or that he’d be racking up lies at the pace we’ve become accustomed to in the Trump years.
In 2016, it was no secret as to who Trump was, how he treated women, how he spoke about minorities, the degree of his ignorance or his utter lack of democratic instincts. Voters knew he lacked common decency, and yet his base, most especially evangelicals who’ve been telling us for years that the shoddy culture is eroding our democracy, picked him. In fact, a good number of people elected him because he was a bully — their bully.
As Peter Wehner, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and the director of its Faith Angle Forum, writes:
“So the question became, just analytically, what is it about him that would cause people who would normally never have voted for him to decide they would? And I’m afraid that the answer is that there was something in his style, in his approach, in his disposition, in his language that I find deeply offensive and troubling but lots of other people found satisfying: He’s a fighter. This is the politics of theatrics rather than the politics of governance.”
And it is the collapse of a moral code that put primacy on virtues such as humility, generosity, dignity, etc., in the very community that has been hectoring the rest of the country that gave rise to Trump. They are the most enthusiastic (still) about a president defined by his low character and infidelity to his oath.
Going forward, however, I pray voters will look far more at decency, intellectual curiosity, democratic instincts and the like. Without those basic intellectual, temperamental and moral qualities, the presidency will be a squalid mess, as it is now.
We should, in other words, when considering our choices for president, look for someone who embodies the qualities the country celebrated at Barbara Bush’s funeral and run from those who emulate Trump. We can start with 2020.
Jennifer Rubin | The Washington Post
Jennifer Rubin writes the Right Turn blog for The Washington Post, offering reported opinion from a center perspective.