Trump’s sense of urgency fit the time and mood. An American woman had been shot and killed in the middle of San Francisco earlier that summer by an illegal immigrant who had been deported multiple times. The Democratic president had issued constitutionally questionable executive orders to achieve immigration policy goals he could not pass through a Republican-controlled Congress. And the supposedly leading GOP candidate, the one with all the establishment and donor support, was singing paeans about to illegal immigration as an act of love? It was enough to launch Trump into the stratosphere of national polls.
But it goes beyond immigration. How many memorable elements of the Trump phenomenon have a direct connection with Bush? Trump’s declaration that Bush is “low-energy.” His manhandling of Bush in the debates. His broadside attacks against Bush’s brother’s foreign policy. Even the most enduring satirical take on Trump’s presidential run is Saturday Night Live’s portrayal of the Donald as a bully gleefully taunting “Jeborah” Bush as “basically a little girl.”
Without Bush in the race, Trump might have found another punching bag, but would it have been the same? Bush is everything Trump isn’t—quiet and introspective, genteel and self-effacing, blue-blood and a little too aware of it.
He was also the wrong Republican for the time. The party faithful may have respected the Bush dynasty, but it wasn’t interested in a restoration and too many of its voters simply weren’t that loyal to the last name or its ideas. Trump likely sensed this opening and took advantage of it. If not for Bush, Trump may have not had the opportunity to make so stark a contrast between business-as-usual and “telling it like it is.” Perhaps Trump’s flirtation with running for president this time around would have ended as his past flirtations did, without actually launching a campaign.
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