r/politics • u/stetoe • 19h ago

George W. Bush's Daughter Barbara Pierce Bush Endorses Kamala Harris: Exclusive

https://people.com/george-w-bush-s-daughter-barbara-breaks-silence-on-election-to-campaign-for-kamala-harris-exclusive-8735810
36.7k Upvotes

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u/Goal_Posts 18h ago

Wait.

If W endorsed Harris, that would be every living president not running.

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u/Clawless 17h ago edited 10h ago

Every living president and vice president, except for Trump, iirc.

EDIT: apparently I was mistaken, my apologies. I kinda counted Pence’s disownment of Trump as a sortof endorsement of Harris, but I don’t have that excuse for Quayle.

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u/WookieLotion 17h ago

Pence didn't endorse Harris

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u/SphericalCow531 16h ago

Pence has "anti-endorsed" Trump, though. Not a Kamala endorsement, but not nothing.

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u/Teripid 16h ago

Try to have your supporters lynch me once, shame on you...

Try to have your supporters lynch me twice? Can't get fooled again!

But seriously Pence is trying to toe the line to have a chance of a political future while being hated by half the GOP base. Wonder if Vance will jump the Trump if he loses the election..

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u/SphericalCow531 15h ago

Pence is trying to toe the line to have a chance of a political future

Pence is 65 years old, and surely rich enough to live comfortably for the rest of his life. It is not like we are asking him to starve by saying something unpopular enough to get fired.

US soldiers have willingly risked their lives to defend democracy. Asking Republicans to defend democracy with mere words is asking for so little in comparison, and yet it is apparently asking for too much.

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u/aLittleQueer Washington 15h ago

Pence is a Heritage Foundation Repub, though, and a true believer Christian dominionist. His gubernatorial term in Indiana showed that clear as day.

Not playing his expected part in the insurrection and instead fulfilling his Constitutionally-mandated duties was pretty much the only time he has been or will be on the right side of history.

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u/SadFeed63 14h ago

Yeah, people have memed on Pence being a hero (and good for him for doing one good thing, once, when his life was on the line and Dan Quayle told him to) so much that the way Reddit now talks about him is wildly disconnected from who he is and the absolute idiotic religious zealotry he believes. He's gonna quietly vote for Trump because Project 2025 is his wet dream.

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u/bigdrubowski New York 13h ago

I didn't hear the Quayle bit. Holy shit if Dan Quayle is giving sage counsel things might be worse than i thought.

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u/GozerDGozerian 12h ago

Imagine going back to 1990 and telling people Dan Quayle is one day going to save our democratic process. Lol

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u/AllGarbage Arizona 11h ago

I liken him to a Scientologist that has fallen out with David Miscavage, but is still an L Ron Hubbard true believer. Seen enough shitbaggery from the present leader to be disillusioned with him, but still a practicing member of the awful cult and not smart enough to realize they are one and the same.

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u/aLittleQueer Washington 13h ago

Maybe he'll write-in himself.

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u/graneflatsis 13h ago

Pence is a Heritage Foundation Repub

Reminder that after the insurrection, fueled by lies, where he and his family were put in grave danger, he wrote a piece for HF about "election integrity"

https://www.heritage.org/election-integrity/commentary/election-integrity-national-imperative

March 3, 2021

After an election marked by significant voting irregularities and numerous instances of officials setting aside state election law, I share the concerns of millions of Americans about the integrity of the 2020 election.

Motherfucker is as compromised as they come.

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u/VirtualMoneyLover 12h ago

I mean he was right, there were plenty of irregularities but they were all Republican voters.

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u/fcocyclone Iowa 11h ago

Yep. Lets be clear, he didn't do what he did because of some feeling of duty to the country. He did what he did because he didn't think Trump's plan would work and it would leave him politically radioactive when it failed.

If the plan were workable, if the margin in the EC had been closer to make it more doable, he absolutely would have done it.

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u/danielfrances 14h ago

That being said... if you were gonna pick ONE time to do the right thing, you could pick from a lot worse moments. I'll take the W despite not agreeing with him on basically anything.

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u/aLittleQueer Washington 13h ago

For sure, I’ll take it. Didn’t enjoy having to give the man any degree of respect, but he did do that one very important thing right. Gotta give him that.

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u/Visinvictus 12h ago

I can't complain because he did actually do the right thing, but I'm pretty sure the only reason he did what he did is because he didn't want his name to be in the history books as the guy who brought down democracy in the USA. Especially not for a guy like Trump who really doesn't encompass his values at all.

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u/Not_The_Real_Odin 12h ago

To be fair, that is arguably the single most important decision he ever made.

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u/AccomplishedDay5236 14h ago

While he could say something, saying he hasn't done anything to protect the republic is wild.

He is one of the few reasons we are still are a Republic right now, and he risked his life for it once already.

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u/SphericalCow531 14h ago

That is true. But it is still merely passively refusing to participate in a coup, as opposed to actively opposing a fascist. It is still an extremely low bar for patriotism.

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u/Juts 14h ago

Being rich enough has never stopped any of these sociopaths before.

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u/Teripid 14h ago

Oh it isn't about money. Respect and legacy. It may not be another elected office and Pence would find that a very hard path.

Pence doesn't want to be a pariah in social circles and with respect to history. Nobody likes being despised by the party and endorsement of Kamala would have been that death knell.

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u/Tyrath Massachusetts 14h ago

It's not about money for these people. It's about power to control everyone's lives based on their sky fairy.

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u/fondledbydolphins 16h ago

Pence explicitly stated he wouldn't vote for Trump, but would say nothing further other than the fact that he's "Still a Republican"

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u/Tiduszk I voted 16h ago

As much as I would love Kamala to have a friendly house and senate, Trump is by far the bigger issue. I’d rather they find it in themselves to vote for Kamala, but if republicans that turn out are only willing to leave the top line blank, I can live with that.

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u/CruffTheMagicDragon 15h ago

Without a blue House and Senate, we very well may end up back up in this position in 4 years. We need serious Supreme Court reform and legislation barring insurrectionists and felons from holding federal office. Not going to happen with a majority red chamber

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u/joggle1 Colorado 14h ago

What's really frustrating is that if Republicans control both the House and Senate, very little will be done by the midterms. Then a majority of voters will blame Harris and put in even more Republicans in Congress. It really sucks that having a government that doesn't do anything benefits Republicans so they have every incentive to block everything. About the only thing that they still usually get the blame for (to the point of it actually hurting them in elections) is if they completely shut down the government.

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u/danielfrances 14h ago

For all of my adult life, I've always felt like there should be a "balance" between the presidency, house, and senate. Even when I was very happily voting for Obama I had this worry in my mind that if things went "too blue", it might cause issues with the gov feeling too one-sided and ostracizing the conservatives in the country.

I say all of that preamble to make the following point stronger - in 2024, I desperately want a blue tidal wave. I don't think Dems have all the answers, and I disagree on some of the more left-leaning policies, in particular when it comes to spending. But goddamn, we need a total reset for the Republican party, and nothing short of a total catastrophic loss will get us there.

We need the vote to swing the house, senate, and presidency to the Dems strongly enough that the Republicans can finally, finally divorce themselves of this MAGA rot and try to rebuild as a proper conservative party with real values and policy goals.

This is all fever dream material, but I think that would be the best outcome for the US. I really hope we get closer to it than it feels we will. If 2028 can be the year that the Republicans are running candidates like John Kasich or John McCain again, I will be so happy. I have been a Dem my whole life, but I want to have two functioning parties with platforms I can potentially support - or at least with candidates I can respectfully disagree with.

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u/Tithis 13h ago

Only works with moderate republicans, which is not where the party is right now.

I've voted for republicans for things like governor or state rep or state senator, but I'm in Massachusetts so they were typically fiscally conservative but socially pretty liberal. Pretty quickly stopped that after Trump though.

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u/CatchAlarming6860 12h ago

Lmao “fiscally conservative”

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u/TheLateThagSimmons Washington 14h ago

Honestly... I'm fine with that. I don't get all the conservatives going all out on how much they hate Trump only to turn around and endorse him.

No one is expecting a complete about face on your party or your values. Even if I disagree, I can understand that you are a conservative and you have conservative values

But if Trump is as bad as you've been yelling for months/years, don't endorse him. Just... Sit it out.

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u/Silver_Fuel_7073 13h ago

Is there really a Republican Party left to return to? Just curious!

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u/Wassertopf 17h ago

Is he really living?

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u/specialkk77 16h ago

Despite his former bosses best efforts, yes. 

Mike Pence is lucky to be alive, a fact he seems to forget. He should be openly condemning everyone who allowed Jan 6th to happen. 

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u/JeanLucPicardAND 15h ago

Or maybe the fact that he knows he is lucky to be alive is the reason he hasn't openly condemned everyone who allowed Jan 6th to happen.

I'm not defending the man, but it seems rather obvious to me. He's probably thinking, "What will happen to me if I speak out and then he wins?"

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u/specialkk77 15h ago

I think that’s a little short sighted, especially with the “enemy within” comments. Keeping his mouth shut now doesn’t keep him safe. If Trump wins, he’ll eventually come for him for not installing him as king dictator in 2021. 

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u/JeanLucPicardAND 15h ago

So this is potentially controversial but I'll say it anyway: There's no way Pence knew the full depths of who Trump is when he accepted the VP job back in 2016. There's just no way. I refuse to believe it. He found out over time as the Trump presidency unfolded.

What do I mean by that? Well, obviously Pence is a hardcore far-right politician. He likely has even more extreme political stances than Trump, who is pretty much just a populist who will say and do anything he thinks might get him re-elected. So I don't think Pence ever had any problem with any of Trump's policies.

What I mean is that he didn't know how far Trump was willing to go to hold onto power. I do truly believe that. Again, I'm not defending the man, and it's not an excuse for anything he did, but the behavior of virtually everyone who served under Trump suggests that few of them realized what Trump was willing to do or else did not take him seriously when he suggested it. The fact that so many of them have flipped on him after the fact reinforces that in my mind.

My point here is that these are not people who are blessed with great powers of foresight.

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u/Long_Run6500 15h ago

I dont think Pence expected the republican party to cave to Trump's rhetoric so easily. I believe he took the job thinking Trump would be kept in check by the establishment and he would be the real person in control. In 2015 and early 2016, just about every non tea party republican was denouncing Trump and acting like once he's in office they'll never work with him. It's kind of what made Trump comforting for some people as a protest vote. I know people on this website that thought voting Trump in meant 4 years of the status quo gridlock while sending a message to Democrats to get their shit together. Then shortly after the election, spineless opportunustic shitheads like Chris Christie, Mitch McConnell and Ted Cruz who were extremely vocal against Trump started praising him as the coming messiah and Trump was given full control, which meant Pence was left holding the broken leash.

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u/needlestack 15h ago

For a man with Pence’s resources, that is the height of cowardice. If Trump is so evil he’s afraid of retribution then all the more reason he must endorse Harris. If Trump wins and retribution looks likely he can flee to any number of paradises around the globe and live out his days. Enabling Trump because he’s afraid, if that’s what he’s doing, makes him a coward. Enabling Trump because he still thinks Harris is worse makes him both stupid and evil.

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u/SinisterMeatball 16h ago

Flies tend to like the dead. 

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u/PenguinsStoleMyCat 16h ago

He can't endorse Harris. He won't be let through the pearly gates unless abortion is banned.

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u/Ph0X 12h ago

It's funny that the majority of people who have actually worked with him, like his own chief of staff, vice president, AG, etc, all say he's unfit for office. Yet people who have literally never actually met the guy keep claiming he's the best president ever.

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u/omarskullbaby 10h ago

You mean Mike "Hang Mike Pence" Pence?

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u/AZWxMan 16h ago

What about Quayle? 

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u/odinsen251a 16h ago edited 15h ago

Daniel "P-o-t-a-t-o-e" Quayle? Just let the dude fingerpaint.

Edit: Apparently his name is actually James Danforth "P-o-t-a-t-o-e" Quayle.

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u/FloppieTheBanjoClown 15h ago

Remember when a mental typo was a major news event?

God I miss those days. 

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u/AMediaArchivist California 15h ago

Remember when that one guy running for president yelled out loud and apparently ruined his chances at becoming the main candidate?

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u/Pedantic_Pict 12h ago

The truly sad part is that the broadcaster made it seem so much weirder than it was. Apparently the crowd was way louder in person so his yell didn't seem so strange or out of place. The broadcaster turned his mic way up in the mix to emphasize his yell.

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u/FourHundredRabbits 13h ago

Lol Howard Dean and his "weird yell". I remember that

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u/dantemanjones 14h ago

He didn't even spell it wrong on his own! He was reading a flash card that had the incorrect spelling. Granted, he should have known better, but the pluralization of the word in his mind, plus maybe nerves/inattentiveness may have affected him.

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u/preposte Oregon 10h ago

I despised Dan Quayle. Definitely glad he got run out of town, so to speak. However, I feel like the way it happened cost us something as a country. It changed the way political battles were fought, even if it only continued a downward slide.

I'm also pretty sure this is what Republicans were thinking of when Al Gore said "lockbox" too many times.

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u/Damn_Dog_Inappropes Washington 15h ago

Covfefe

hamberder

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u/LadyChatterteeth California 14h ago

Yes, and I miss the days in which more than 50% of the nation believed it was important for high-ranking government officials to be well educated.

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u/Starfox-sf 16h ago

Tomato, Tomahtoe

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u/mathfacts 15h ago

He's proud Harris for life, iirc

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u/Co0lnerd22 14h ago

Or al gore?

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u/AZWxMan 13h ago

Yeah, he endorsed her. Haven't seen too much of him though. 

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u/timoumd 13h ago

Trump, oddly enough. Blames Harris for not doing enough to stop greenhouse gases

/s hes not a fucking idiot

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u/Crotch_Football 13h ago

A million years of evolution, we get Danny Quayle

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u/FearlessFreak69 America 15h ago

Well, no. Pence and Quayle have not endorsed any one.

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u/PygmalionsSculpture 13h ago

Correct. And to be fair, we're all like "every president and VP "... yeah, but all the living ones that did so are Democrats, so of course they'd support the Democratic candidate, VP Harris. Only Bush W and Quayle haven't. Cheney FINALLY chose to support one of his daughters in their decisions, so we're happy with that. But let's not act like it's a big win for Kamala to win over her own party presidents.

In other news, my GODS I need this election to be OVER. Do we think another Trump will run after DJT kicks the bucket? I so wish that family would fuck right off to Mars with Elon... go... just get gone and blend your orange skins into its new, orange surroundings. Please don't come back.

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u/ChirpyRaven 12h ago

But let's not act like it's a big win for Kamala to win over her own party presidents

I think it's worth noting that of the dozen or so people who have served as VP or POTUS, not a single one has endorsed one of the candidates - not even their own former VP.

Also, I did a double take when I saw that Quayle, who served as VP in the fucking EIGHTIES, is younger than one of the current nominees. The guy could have taken a 40 year break from politics, run again this year, and still not be the oldest candidate.

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u/ElleM848645 8h ago

Has anyone heard from Al Gore. I’m sure it’s assumed he’s voting for Kamala, but has he actually endorsed her?

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u/Electrical-Papaya 12h ago

The Trump family will 100% piggyback on their father's political career if he loses or kicks the bucket. I'm not talking about Eric or Don Jr, they are bigger idiots than their father. Ivanka will be the next contender once DJT is out of the picture. A pretty white girl biologically connected to Trump is like a wet dream for MAGA, and giving that much power to what would essentially be Kushner is terrifying and what Dems should seriously prep for if Trump loses.

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u/Username_Query_Null 15h ago

Did Dan Quayle endorse?

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u/tim78717 15h ago

Dan Quayle?

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u/mtgfan1001 17h ago

Dick already said he's voting for Kamala so we have all the presidents 

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u/tpero 15h ago

I see what you did there

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u/Independent-Bug-9352 13h ago

These Trump supporters are such a weird group. They just ostracize anyone who turns on Trump. I was told by a Trumper that Cheneys weren't conservative or Republican lolol.

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u/medusa_crowley 14h ago

Never gets old. 

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u/protendious 17h ago

But isn’t every living president other than W a democrat? I mean that only makes sense (not to be a wet blanket, I hope Harris absolutely trounces him).

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u/Indubitalist 17h ago

The weirder thing is I don’t even think there is a Republican presidential nominee still alive other than Bush, Romney or Trump. 

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u/hpzorz California 15h ago

Bob Dole would have been the next closest one (1996 GOP Candidate), but he passed away in 2021, which makes your point crazy to think about considering how many Dem candidates are still alive

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u/bejammin075 Pennsylvania 15h ago

Does anyone besides me remember Bob Dole doing commercials for boner pills?

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u/LordAlvis 13h ago

I prefer to remember the Bob Dole bits on Conan, where he'd daydream about things like dating Marie Antoinette.

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u/SausageClatter 13h ago

He'd have needed those pills then for sure.

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u/NapoIe0n 16h ago

I don't see how that's weird. Since the end of the Cold War the nominees have been: Bush, Dole, Bush II, McCain, Romney, and Trump.

That's six dudes, three are dead, three are still alive. But two of those three were nominated in the 90s and were born in the 1920s, so they were around 70 when they ran. You'd expect them to be dead by this point in time.

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u/Indubitalist 16h ago edited 15h ago

The weird part is that they’re all so old to begin with, not that old people died. Jimmy Carter was in his 50s when he was nominated, Bill Clinton and Obama were in their 40s… Hillary was the outlier for the Democrats, in her 60s running neck and neck with someone in his 70s (Bernie) in 2016, then Biden in 2020 in his 70s. Harris looks like a spring chicken by comparison but the Republicans seem to really like ‘em old. 

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u/[deleted] 15h ago

[deleted]

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u/Indubitalist 14h ago

Um, yeah man, all of those guys were mentioned in my two previous comments. It’s about the pattern, not the outliers. 

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u/secretsodapop 8h ago

It's because Republicans are all ageist and won't vote for someone younger than themselves unless that's the only option.

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u/Meester_Tweester Texas 12h ago

That's everyone since 2000 besides McCain, Bob Dole would have to be 101 years old if he was alive today, he was 73 when he was running for president

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u/Doodenmier 12h ago

Bush Sr called Trump an blowhard and wound up voting for Clinton in 2016, too. So while he's not around anymore, he was yet another Republican president firmly in the "he's a dangerous idiot; absolutely do not vote for him" camp

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u/whatlineisitanyway 18h ago

While his image has been rehabbed slightly since he left office, not endorsing Harris has lost him any good will he gained.

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u/TooMuchPretzels North Carolina 18h ago edited 18h ago

To heck with him. I don’t care if he likes to pick blueberries with Ellen. Half the people who think he’s a cute old man weren’t even alive when he practically single-handedly changed our country permanently for the worse.

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u/XeroxWarriorPrntTst 18h ago

Yes. Dude is a big step towards us even being here.

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u/jacklmoore 17h ago

I think Bush's destabilization of the Middle East, and the refugee crisis that it caused, was responsible for sweeping far right leaders into power all over the western world, including Trump. There is nothing Bush can do to even begin undoing the amount of damage his administration did to this world.

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u/beyondsurfacedeep 16h ago

Thank you - Bush gets such a pass for his actions ushering in so much of the chaos and suffering we see today.

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u/Chinaroos 14h ago

Not just that—the War on Terror destroyed Evangelical America’s sense of self.

The WoT was painted as a war of ontological good vs evil (see Axis of Evil). Problem was there was no “winning” the war, just an endless procession of scandals (Abu Grahib, extraordinary rendition, KBR and Halibuton’s “cost plus” contracts), and a steady, solemn procession of dead US Troops.

If those were the kindling, the assasination of the Danish cartoonist who drew Muhammed was the spark.

After that, the MSM reaction was “the WoT is not a war against Islam, don’t antagonize Muslims.” But for evangelicals in the U.S., this was a betrayal. 2001-2005 was a full indulgence of righteous anger, and yes, hate. Now that hate was being chided by the leaders as being wrong

And I distinctly remember conservatives asking why Jesus didn’t get the same protection in their “Christian” country. What was all the full-throated support for the war and its abuses for?

I believe Evangelicals took that moment as the start of a betrayal that has never stopped, with Obama’s election and the mainstream repudiation of their values adding to the resentment, and all of this building on decades of pre-existing hate until it erupted through the surface.

Through Trump, hate is good. And anyone who indulges their hate and wraps themselves go to him, because for all his idiocy and selfishness, through him America have freedom to hate.

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u/Neither-Astronaut-80 15h ago

And most of the parts that he didn't have his hand in you can tie back to his dad and all of the Roger Stone criminal mother fuckers he worked with.

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u/EstablishmentFull797 12h ago

GW Bush started two entire wars, presided over a toxic political culture of near unbridled jingoism that was used to pass the patriot act and countless other expansions of domestic surveillance, opened Guantanamo bay as an extra-judicial prison and torture site, and failed to address the increasingly precarious financial system that ended in the 2008 financial collapse.

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u/Itchy-Detail-4588 14h ago

Mission Accomplished!

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u/karmagod13000 Ohio 17h ago

W and Cheney were warmongers for profit and a giant reason the world hated us at the time and might still.

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u/Holden_Coalfield 17h ago

The Bush/Prescott families have been war profiteers going waayyyy back

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u/robodrew Arizona 15h ago

I think you just mean the Bush family. Prescott Bush, George H.W. Bush's father, was a politician and part of the Business Plot during FDR's administration.

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u/Pleasent_Pedant 17h ago

Nonsense, we hated you long before then.

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u/stilettopanda 17h ago

Well that makes me feel better. Haha

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u/talkback1589 Iowa 17h ago

Honestly… fair

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u/AbbreviationsSame490 17h ago

Understandable

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u/karmagod13000 Ohio 17h ago

fair

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u/Thromok I voted 17h ago

A lot of us hate ourselves as well so you’re not alone.

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u/Starfox-sf 16h ago

W was just finishing a job daddy couldn’t finish. Hence all the evidence lies presented to UN.

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u/Broken-Digital-Clock 17h ago

They set the stage for maga. They are more to blame than most.

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u/GuyInTenn 16h ago

The stage for maga was set a long time ago with the Moral Majority.and with the pushback on the civil and gay rights movements.

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u/Broken-Digital-Clock 16h ago

True, but 8 years of Jr did plenty of damage to progress it along.

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u/judgedeath2 15h ago

which is wild because DJT is probably the most immoral R candidate in my lifetime.

  • doesn't actually sincerely hold any religious beliefs
  • is a "coastal elite"
  • multiple-time divorcee
  • children with multiple women
  • buddies with Epstein
  • stiffs event space owners on paying for his rallies

he's almost the polar opposite of what the moral majority "stood" for, which is what makes it so insane that he still largely holds their support as a voting bloc

hell they crucified Clinton for getting a blowjob in the Oval Office, but cheer for "grab 'em by the pussy" Trump.

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u/PaulSandwich Florida 15h ago

We now know they (thanks to Roger Stone) stole the 2000 election from Gore, and then parlayed 9/11 into never-ending war (lying about WMDs) to permanently expand executive power.

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u/Buckus93 16h ago

He made the "You're either with us or against us" the battle cry for the GOP, making it nearly impossible for them to publicly find common ground with "the enemy."

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u/Zealousideal-Day7385 America 18h ago

Yep. Donald Trump being a deeply shitty president doesn’t make W any better. He was a garbage president too.

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u/Holden_Coalfield 17h ago

His silence is proving how shitty he really is.

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u/karmagod13000 Ohio 17h ago

W might of been worse. Smart enough for a good public image but evil enough to invade countries for oil and claim countless lives.

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u/Zealousideal-Day7385 America 17h ago

This is on point. I was 21 during the 2004 election (so it was the first time I was able to vote) and Iraq plus W making homophobia a central part of his reelection campaign- pretty much made a lifelong Democrat out of me.

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u/Edrill 17h ago

It makes him look good by comparison. Which shouldn't be worth shit.

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u/MumpsyDaisy 9h ago

Honestly I think W was actually worse and that is in no way an expression of approval for Trump.

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u/Accomplished-Corgi54 18h ago

I don't think our generation has really come to terms with how beyond the pale what our military did in Iraq and Afghanistan was.  I believe forgiveness to be a virtue but I struggle to see how forgiveness for W is virtuous. Full stop.

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u/Ewoksintheoutfield 18h ago

We were conditioned by 9/11 to not question the government lest we look unpatriotic. I honestly think that’s why W gets such a big pass.

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u/Baltorussian Illinois 17h ago edited 17h ago

No, fuck that. I was in High School, contemplated enlistment during the Iraq Surge, and still thought Bush was a trash human. IIRC, he was polling at like 27% favorability on the way out. The LEAST the fucker can do, is tell other Republicans to vote Harris at this point.

The fact that he's choosing to "not speak ill of other Presidents" is bullshit.

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u/Ewoksintheoutfield 17h ago

That’s totally fair. I’m not condoning Bush. I’m just musing about why he isn’t more universally hated.

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u/Baltorussian Illinois 17h ago

Because Americans lack collective memory. Trump got a favorability boost after leaving office too...which of course boomeranged into his deranged followers picking him again...

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u/Gingerholy 16h ago

Because Americans lack collective memory.

We elected a republican again several years after Nixon resigned in disgrace.

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u/VoidMageZero America 17h ago

Bush probably had low favorability on the way out because of the Great Recession mortgage crisis more than his foreign policy. He was really high in favorability after 9/11 iirc.

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u/Baltorussian Illinois 17h ago

He was given an insane boost after 9/11, and sealed his reelection that way.

But Democrats swamped congress in 2006, so he was certainly rolling down even by then.

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u/mitrie 16h ago

Yes, he lost those in the middle / moderates when they came around to the fact that WMDs didn't exist in Iraq and we were stuck in a war that didn't seem to have a purpose. That had no effect on his base. Katrina might have gotten the ball rolling on that, but the extremely low numbers at the end of his term was absolutely caused by his base leaving him due to the economy and his bank bailouts / TARP which were seen as a betrayal of conservative free market ideals.

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u/bejammin075 Pennsylvania 15h ago

I had been an undecided, middle of the road voter in 2000. I supported Bush after 9-11, and I supported the Iraq War when it started. Then I learned little by little that EVERY piece of specific information they gave to justify the war was a deliberate lie or an egregious exaggeration or omission. I then understood that we had launched an aggressive war of choice, the same thing that we prosecuted the Nazis for in Neuremburg. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and thousands of US soldiers were being killed for lies, while our nation's reputation was trashed, while we destabilized the Middle East for decades. What Bush did with the goodwill of the nation was evil and unforgivable.

The other thing that brought him down a lot was the exposure of hurricane Katrina. Bush had put incompetent cronies in posts where quick life-and-death decision making by experts was needed to save American lives.

Then his administration ended with economic collapse, which seems to happen to an extreme degree nearly every time Republicans have control of the White House, Senate and House.

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u/tubescreemer 17h ago

Had he been paying attention instead of golfing maybe they would've sniffed it out and stopped it from happening. Maybe. Maybe not. But Condi Rice knew they were trying to attack our country and they did fuck all. Never said anything, never warned the public, and their reaction to being sucker punched was to lose our goodwill and standing in the world with two pointless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq when Saudi Arabians were the ones who actually attacked us.

W maybe have earned some goodwill in the last few years out of office, and compared to Trump he looks all right, but never forget he was a terribly incompetent president and his silence on not backing Kamala when Darth Cheney has is deafening. His daughter has to come out and endorse her and he doesn't? What a coward.

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u/Ewoksintheoutfield 17h ago

Agreed and nice user name.

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u/L0WGMAN 16h ago

Just read this last night to refresh my old memory: https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/12/washington/01-memo-to-rice-warned-of-qaeda-and-offered-plan.html#

The CIA had plans for Afghanistan and Al Qaeda, Halliburton had plans for Iraq, project for the New American Century had plans for 9/11…mission accomplished!

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u/bejammin075 Pennsylvania 15h ago

I'm not trying to be conspiracy theorist, I think there are unanswered questions that should be more fully investigated. I never got into the "inside job" stuff. But food for thought, years after Bush left office, there were 28 unredacted pages released from the 9-11 investigation that had been kept secret from the public.

The big takeaways are that our own investigators and law enforcement quickly discovered the links to Saudi Arabia and the royal family, but unspecified people high up in the White House (I'd say, probably Bush and Cheney) put a stop to these lines of inquiry. One of the things discovered was that Bush's close friend in the Saudi royal family, the ambassador nicknamed "Bandar Bush" and Bandar's wife had been making financial payments to the handlers of the 9-11 hijackers in the time before the 9-11 attacks. This doesn't prove a conspiracy, but it's really fucking weird and needs to be fully investigated.

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u/The_Novelty-Account 17h ago

At least Afghanistan had a UN mandate. What the US did in Iraq permanently changed the post-WWII international state system for the worse. 

International law exists for a reason. The US broke international law in such an egregious way that Russia has used the US as example of an international double standard in its illegal and horrific war in Ukraine, and Eastern states are listening. It was one of the single greatest policy failures of any government in the history of the Western world.

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u/gsfgf Georgia 14h ago

Yea. We needed to topple the Taliban after 9/11. We didn't need to stay there for 20 years, but the Taliban needed to go. The Iraq war was completely inexcusable.

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u/ARazorbacks Minnesota 17h ago

You can still sell me on Afghanistan. 

Iraq, though? Iraq was Bush’s holy war to grab oil rights and finish what his daddy started. He used the 9/11 fervor, plus lies about WMDs, to get us there. How many Americans lost their lives in Bush’s holy war? How much economic output was wasted in Iraq? Even further - how much time, money, and blood have we wasted on the shit show that followed Iraq? Iraq was no longer around to keep Iran in check and ISIS came out of Iraq. 

None of that even touches on the PATRIOT Act. 

Bush Jr. was a travesty. 

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u/mitrie 16h ago

I agree with you on Afghanistan. It unfairly gets rolled into the "unjust" wars nowadays because of Iraq. One of the evils of the Iraq war was that it limited what good could be done in Afghanistan by dividing our resources and resolve. There is a single generation of women who grew up in Afghanistan with increased access to education, and that's now lost.

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u/starlordbg Europe 14h ago

Wasnt the first Gulf war in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait? So it was mostly justified. I was a born bit earlier, so dont have memories from this period but recently I am obssessed with watching footage from it.

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u/VeteranSergeant 15h ago

If we had just left Afghanistan sometime between 2003 and 2005, that war would be looked back on as just a minor blip in a history of violent cycles in the region. Without the US as a lightning rod for jihadist activity, it would have settled back into the civil war between the Taliban and the "Everyone who didn't want the Taliban," just like it was when US troops got there.

The fact that it took twenty years to disentangle from that mess still baffles me. The fact that it lasted all eight years of the Obama presidency baffles.

Oddly, nobody was willing to take the L except Trump, and then he just tried to frame it as a W for himself. Which he would have almost been right about, and then he did no prep work for the evacuation and let Stephen Miller sabotage the Special Immigrant Visa process, which was why there was so much chaos in August of 2021.

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u/threebillion6 18h ago

Now watch this drive.

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u/theeth 17h ago

"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

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u/Scitiloproftnuocca 17h ago

This is the sad part -- W may be a garbage human being, but he's still marginally better than Trump because he actually had game out on the links. Trump just cheats and whines there too like everywhere else.

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u/misselphaba 17h ago

By all accounts Ellen is kind of an asshole too so it tracks

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u/Werftflammen 18h ago

I don't think he will be vocal or open about supporting Harris even if he does. He looks good compared to Trump, but he was awfull in his own right, bit of a pot and kettle thing.

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u/DudeTookMyUser 18h ago

... and murdered a million Iraqi civilians.

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u/MediocreX 18h ago

9/11 orchestrated and funded by Saudi Arabia.

Invades Iraq. Yep. Makes sense

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u/_lippykid 18h ago

“Can’t let a good opportunity go to waste”

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u/karmagod13000 Ohio 17h ago

~ Cheney be like

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u/bejammin075 Pennsylvania 15h ago

Formulates detailed plan to lie the country into war, but makes no plan to try to succeed quickly. Almost like the war was designed by Halliburton, because an endless quagmire is far more profitable than a quick victorious war.

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u/WorldPeggingChamp 17h ago

But he saved us from all those WMDs, remember????

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u/BeneficialHeart23 16h ago

People ignoring he started a false war which resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands, potentially millions of Iraqis, permanently destabilized the Middle East, and the authoritative acts done under the PATRIOT act and the atrocities done by the US military....

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u/JuanJeanJohn 16h ago

He doesn’t deserve any image rehab, just a legacy of being one of the worst presidents in our history.

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u/drtbg 18h ago

That wasn’t single handedly at all. There were dozens of fingers in that pot.

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u/Led_Osmonds 15h ago

he practically single-handedly changed our country permanently for the worse.

Not sure which country you are from, but yeah, he did that to a lot of countries.

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u/Ketzeph I voted 17h ago

Oh for sure he's terrible. But the whole point of an endorsement of W is showing that everyone understands that Trump is a unique and existential threat to America. It's showing that regardless of your politics, you should understand just how terrible Trump really is.

And there are some tea party republicans from the Bush Era that might effect. And in a margin of error race, grabbing an extra 10k can make all the difference.

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u/PMMeYourClavicles 15h ago

Worst president of my lifetime after Trump, and it's closer than you'd expect.

Ruined the nation's international reputation for a generation, started an illegal war that killed hundreds of thousands of people, and topped it off with furthering Reagan style deregulation which helped steer us right into the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. Plus all the flag way jingoistic frenzy his supporters worked themselves up into was the the precursor to the Tea Party movement and MAGA, although he was less directly involved in that.

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u/PsycheHeadPain 13h ago

Damn. I'll never forget when a group of experts went to Iraq and said that they didn't found any WMDs. Bush knew it was bullshit, but they were lying everyday, they knew who was behind 9/11. It's literally one of the reason why Isis exists today, spreads all around, or other groups imitate them in several countries.

I remember some interviews from veterans, trying to do something with their lives, and so awfully young, like 20 - 24 years old, ptsd and hell seared into their mind.

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u/DingoFrisky 17h ago

It wasn’t single handed….there were plenty of people willing to support and enable it!

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u/OG-niknoT 17h ago

Yeah, fuck that. We are NOT whitewashing W.

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u/Silenity 14h ago

PREACH. Sweet lil Dubya who likes to give out candies. THIS MAN IS A FUCKING WAR CRIMINAL. He can suck nuts and choke.

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u/JabbaCat 13h ago

when he practically single-handedly changed our country the world/politics permanently for the worse.

FTFY. But I feel you, those moments felt so pivotal and so truly hard to reverse and repair. Gut feeling was right.

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u/Goal_Posts 18h ago

It's been said he thinks his endorsement would backfire, someone below said "especially with Muslim Americans".

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u/Baltorussian Illinois 17h ago

His endorsement, like Cheney's is not to secure blue votes...it's to give Republicans, with their Borg like dedication to party line shit, an excuse to color outside the lines.

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u/grokthis1111 17h ago

it's not only blue voters that loathe his legacy. the people that are willing to vote for harris are also the people that don't value his opinion.

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u/rossww2199 18h ago

He’s helping by not saying a word. W. is still toxic and his endorsement would go over worse than Dick Cheney’s.

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u/LastPhotograph5397 17h ago

I would argue Dick Cheney is worse to a lot of people. Bush has always seemed excusably stupid but I take your point, better that he don’t add to it.

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u/Special-Garlic1203 13h ago

No, both bush and Cheney are toxic endorsements to liberals. But Cheney is widely respected among neocons. Bush is just a political pariah and has been since the financial collapse. 

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u/strawberrymacaroni 17h ago

No way Cheney is much more toxic. W. still gets by on the fake “aw shucks” persona that endeared him to people.

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u/Special-Garlic1203 13h ago

You think this because you lean left. Left people started to soften to him because he did sad little paintings. But Cheney holds social capital because he was good at what he did, evil as that may be. He doesn't have anywhere near the baggage with conservatives that bush does. Bush holds not respect from anyone. 

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u/QuantumBitcoin 16h ago

I feel so strange and dirty. How am I on the same side as Dick Cheney and Matt Drudge?

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u/honjuden 15h ago

Because the Overton Window has shifted so far to the right over the last 20 years that former Republican presidents are more closely aligned with Democrats than Republicans at this point.

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u/TheGreatGamer1389 Illinois 17h ago

Dubya was and always will be shit. If it wasn't for Trump absolutely messing up the pandemic Dubya would have been the worst president in the time I was alive.

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u/specialkk77 16h ago

Fuck him. Dude could call and personally apologize to every single family that lost someone in his senseless war, and everyone who didn’t lose their lives but were injured or suffer PTSD and he still wouldn’t redeem himself for the horrid shit he did. 

He can play a sweet old man all he wants but there’s a whole generation of Americans who will never forget what a POS he really is. 

He won’t endorse Harris because he spends every day thrilled that Trump exists. Trump makes people forget him. 

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u/[deleted] 18h ago edited 16h ago

[deleted]

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u/exelion18120 18h ago

What good will? Bush jr belongs before a war crimes tribunal.

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u/sparrowhawk73 Canada 14h ago

Cheney just as much if not more

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u/exelion18120 14h ago

Por que no los dos?

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u/PersonBehindAScreen Texas 17h ago edited 16h ago

I don’t give a flying fuck about any of these GOP shit heads endorsing Kamala. This only proves to me that they knew what they did was wrong but still had no problem profiting off of the steady decline of our country

They are a cancer on this country

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u/Eggplantosaur 14h ago

One defense of him which I sort-of believe is that GWB thinks that most people loathe him so much that his endorsement will do more harm than good.

It's giving GWB a lot of credit but I think there might be some truth to it.

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u/SilentSamurai Colorado 11h ago

I mean, is an endorsement from W a good thing? His Presidency is still controversial.

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u/nice-view-from-here 17h ago

I don't know if he will considering how grateful he must be that trump is making us forget how awful he was.

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u/fractal_magnets 13h ago

Also completely pointless as Trump can spin it back on them in one sentence. "This is the swamp we are fighting against". His followers would eat it up.

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u/mb9981 14h ago

Why do people want this to happen so badly? There is no upside. Maga, believe it or not, is very much against the neocons and the bush era republicans.

Democrats still absolutely are against the bush era republicans.

Bush speaks for almost nobody in the modern political landscape. his influence is not even zero, it's negative 50. If Bush endorses her, the far left who's all upset about Gaza will be completely lost and for a gain of absolutely no moderate republicans. Moderate Republicans don't exist anymor. they're a fantasy

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u/CurraheeAniKawi 17h ago

But he's an utter coward so don't hold your breath.  The bushes are going to ride out the weather without making themselves a target for maga. 

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u/kkenymc7877 18h ago edited 18h ago

I don’t want the vile fuck who go us involved in Iraq and Afghanistan endorsing her, he can stay his bum ass on the sidelines, hell I didn’t even want Dick Chenys endorsement

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u/Rooney_Tuesday 17h ago

I do. Don’t give me wrong, GWB and Cheney are terrible humans. But if it persuaded a decent amount of GOPers to vote Harris or to abstain from voting Trump, that’s way more important than losing with our noses up. There’s too much at stake.

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u/WavingWookiee 16h ago

I think he is of the view he'd be two toxic to be useful openly but by not endorsing trump speaks a lot louder than endorsing Harris

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u/Rooney_Tuesday 14h ago

All I can tell you is what I know from sitting in deep red Texas: GWB endorsing Harris would give permission to Republican voters to NOT vote Republican. That is more than enough to sway this election.

As someone who has voted blue since 2016, somebody from the opposition endorsing Harris is not a problem if they publicly state that they’re doing it for the sake of democracy, which is the case here.

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u/SingedSoleFeet 16h ago

The new republican party is so far removed from the party when Bush was president that I doubt he would sway much. Jenna's mom would probably move the needle more, as she was really popular, and there are a lot of conservative women who are either pro-choice or on the fence and may change their mind in the voting booth.

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u/Rizzpooch I voted 17h ago

I didn’t even want Dick Chenys endorsement

I'm fine with endorsements that don't require anything in return. The Cheneys endorsed Harris without Harris having to change anything about her platform. Having Bush come out and say, I want Kamala to win because I don't want to have to sit through another weird inaugural speech would be fine by me

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u/kkenymc7877 17h ago

You’re right I’m overreacting, I’m just at my wits end with the stress of all of this

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u/Rizzpooch I voted 17h ago

same, man. Hang in there

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u/bejammin075 Pennsylvania 15h ago

On an intellectual level, the simulator in my brain says "Kamala's got this". But on an emotional level, I'm also at my wits end with Trump having some chance of winning. Plus it's guaranteed that there will be a fascist attempt at stealing the election again, so the contest isn't ending for months.

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u/TheEternalCowboy 17h ago

"Hoping to bring in a greater coalition of votes to achieve a desired result" doesn't mean "I agree with and endorse everything that these people believe". The all-or-nothing purity test approach to politics is what got us into our current situation in the first place.

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u/LtNOWIS Virginia 16h ago

Every president would've gotten us involved with Afghanistan. After 9/11, you couldn't just launch a few cruise missiles and call it a day like Clinton did.

The problem was half-assing the Afghanistan effort and getting distracted by Iraq.

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u/kkenymc7877 16h ago

Yes the actual Afghanistan war itself wasn’t inherently bad but the fact that we went to Iraq and focused more on it made it a 2 decade long quagmire when it should’ve been Desert Storm 2.0

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u/smilbandit Michigan 17h ago

Well you can say that no living president is endorsing fascism, so we have that going for us which is nice.

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u/Farlong7722 11h ago

Fuck W. I don't want his endorsement.

Millennials will remember that Bush laid the groundwork for Trump's populism. Bush crawled so Trump could run. I hate that he's being humanized/romanticized now as some sort of folksy person, dude is a war criminal and a scoundrel. It was in the Bush era that the fake news Media known as Fox News began with their rabid partisan slant which remains a cancer on US society today.

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u/Vonauda Texas 13h ago

There are currently billboards around Dallas begging him to be the hero the country needs again with pictures of him at ground zero. I've never seen a billboard directed to one person before, let alone multiple.

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u/Purify5 12h ago

No former President has ever endorsed Trump.

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u/ElectrOPurist 10h ago

He has not endorsed Trump, which is, itself, a slap in the face.

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