after bush, the blues - peter beinart - newsweek - 17 july 2013-2.pdf

7/27/2019 After Bush, the Blues - Peter Beinart - Newsweek - 17 July 2013-2.pdf

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Charles Ommanney Getty ImagesAmerica s most successful conservativepresidents have conveyed optimism.

AFTER BUSHTH BLUESSince the 43rd president left office, GOPpessimists have taken ull controlo he party.

y Peter einart


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he juxtaposition between image and text couldnot have been more humiliating. The photo aboveThe ew York Times story featured a craggy-facedGeorge W Bush- now looking like a cross between himself and his father-alongside newlyminted American citizens from Nigeria and the

Philippines. Below it read the story's headline: Republicans in HouseResist Overhaul for Immigration. Or as the New York Daily Newsmight have phrased it: GOP to Bush: Drop Dead.

It's becoming a pattern. As early as 1994-when as the newlyelected governor of Texas he berated his California counterpart,Pete Wilson, at a Republican governors meeting for demonizingHispanics- Bush made being pro-immigrant and pro-Hispanic acenterpiece of his political identity. But last week, despite warningsfrom his old consigliere, Karl Rove, the congressional GOP buriedlegislation offering illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.

A few days earlier, conservative heavyweights-from Fox s BillO Reilly to The ew York Times s David Brooks to The Wall StreetJournal s editorial page-defended the military's coup in Egypt,thus rejecting Bush's doctrine of Middle Eastern democracy promotion. And if that wasn t enough, House Republicans on July11 stripped food stamps from the farm bill for the first time since1973-sharply breaking from the compassionate conservatismthat had led Bush to back higher government spending on education and prescription drugs.

The party Bush once commanded is repudiating much of his legacy. And it's doing so because it no longer shares his temperament.Bush was, at his core, an optimist. For starters, he was an optimistabout the budget. He had taken over in the wake of a late-1990seconomic boom that erased the deficits built up during the Reaganyears. For Bush, the message was that you can cut taxes, maintainpopular domestic programs, and dramatically boost military spending without worry, because economic growth will eventually balancethe budget, as it did in the 1990s. As Dick Cheney famously repliedwhen then-Treasury secretary Paul 0 'Neill warned that Bush's eco-


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LarryW Smith EPA LandovBush made being pro immigrant nd pro Hispanic acenterpiece ofhis politic l identity.

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nomic policies were leading the country toward a fiscal abyss, Reagan proved that deficits don't matter.

Bush was a cultural optimist, too. He had taken power on the heelsofwhat Samuel Huntington called the third wave of democratization, a mighty tide that began when Spain and Portugal shrugged offtheir autocratic governments in the mid-1970s, and extended in the1980s and 1990s from South Korea and the Philippines to Argentina and Chile to Hungary and Poland to South Africa. This historicshift- which made democracy the normative form of governmentnot merely inNorthern Europe and North America but throughoutthe world-shaped neoconservative intellectuals like WilliamKristol, Paul Wolfowitz, and Robert Kagan. But it also dovetailedwith something personal in Bush. As his former speechwriter Michael Gerson has noted, Bush's brand of Christianity was strikinglyuntroubled by original sin. His own life was a tale of purposeless,self-destructive wandering followed by radical transformation viathe power of faith. And while other conservatives focused on anentrenched culture of poverty that made it difficult to change thelives ofAmerica's urban poor, Bush championed the idea that withreligious counseling, inmates in Texas jails could experience the


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same radical, redemptive change he'd seen in his own life.Bush, in other words, was an optimist even when it came to cul

tures-like the ones prevailing in America's inner cities or in theArab world-for which other conservatives held out little hope.Despite the incredulity of many on the right, he responded to 9/11by insisting that Muslims were just as desirous of democracy, liberty, and peace as Christians and Jews. And he set about proving

that in Iraq. The human heart, hetold the American Enterprise Institute two months before the invasion,desires the same good things, every-

The party Bush oncecommanded is repudiatingmuch of his legacy.

where on earth. That universalismalso shaped his views on immigration.If Iraqis shared the same basic valuesas Americans, so did undocumentedMexican immigrants.

Even during Bush's presidency, hiseconomic and cultural optimism metresistance inside the GOP From themoment 9/11 hit, polls found that manyconservatives- contra Bush- did consider Islam a violent religion. In 2003

And it s doing sobecause it o longer shareshis temperament.

the White House and GOP leaders hadto brutally pressure some congressional

Republicans to make them back Bush's expansion ofMedicare. Andin 2007 Bush's push for comprehensive immigration reform failed inlarge part because of lack of conservative support.

But since Bush left office, the GOP pessimists have taken full control of the party. When Bush was jacking up the deficit via tax cutsand defense spending, the conservatives who worried about America's fiscal health mostly held their tongues. When Barack Obamareplaced him, however, and began spending money on a domesticstimulus package and a universal-health-care law, the deficit became a GOP obsession. Gone was Bush's happy talk about how economic growth, which had overcome the Reagan deficits, would doso again. In its place came a dystopian vision ofAmerica as Greece:


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Mohammed Jalii AFP Getty magesDespite warnings from Karl Rove the congressional GOP buried legislationoffering illegal immigrants a path t citizenship.

its currency worthless and its coffers empty. The GOP, the party thatunder Bush said America could have it all, under Obama has becomethe party that says America can t even afford food stamps.

If the post-Bush GOP is more pessimistic about America's fis-cal health, it's also more culturally pessimistic- both at home andabroad. Under Bush, when the GOP won a higher percentage ofHispanic votes, Republicans liked to say that new immigrants embodiedthe values that conservatives revered: religious faith, family unity,self-reliance. But in the post-Bush era, as Hispanics have fled theGOP a nastier stereotype has taken hold: Hispanics are part of the 47percent who are dependent upon government, who believe that theyare victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to carefor them, in Mitt Romney's immortal words. As O'Reilly put it onelection night, You are going to see a tremendous Hispanic vote forPresident Obama, because Hispanics and other Democraticvotersfeel that they are entitled to things.To some degree, the intra-Republican conflict over immigration has

been a contest between these optimistic and pessimistic narratives. After Romney's defeat, hordes of conservative bigwigs promised, Bushstyle, that if the GOP embraced a path to citizenship for immigrants,


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Hispanics would reveal themselves to be a natural Republican constituency (in Charles Krauthammer's words). But when comprehensiveimmigration reform reached the House of Representatives, Republicanmembers of Congress rejected that logic, partly because they don'tneed to win Hispanics to keep their seats and partly because they don't

think the GOP can win anyway.If the GOP has rejected Bush's opti

mism about Hispanics, it has rejectedhis optimism about Arabs, too. For con

If George W. Bush servatives who never believed Bush'suniversalistic rhetoric, Iraq's refusal tobecome the pro-American liberal democracy he promised made it easier toinsist that Arabs and Muslims didn'thimself were post-BushRepublican hemight be pessimistic too. share our values after all. And onceBush left office, top Republicans wereliberated to become more crudely anti-Muslim. In 2010 key figures in theparty denounced the construction of

the Ground Zero mosque, and during the 2012 elections, GOP presidential contenders pandered to voters worried about the imposition ofSharia. When it became clear that the Arab Spring would empowerthe Muslim Brotherhood, only a few conservative intellectuals held tothe Bush line that the United States should support democratic elections even if they don't deliver the results we want. More commonwere denunciations of President Obama for acquiescing to a fanatically anti-American revolution in Egypt in the same way Jimmy Carterhad in Iran. When the military overthrew the Brotherhood earlier thismonth, leading conservatives breathed an audible sigh of relief.

For conservatives to be at least somewhat pessimistic about the future isn t surprising. After all, conservatives want to conserve. ButAmerica's most politically successful conservative presidents-likeRonald Reagan and, to a lesser degree, Bush-have conveyed optimism by promising that under their leadership, the America of thefuture would reclaim the best values of its past. The problem for Republicans today is that it's hard to argue that with a straight face. At


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Bill Clark CQ Roll Call Getty ImagesAfter Bush, a nastier stereotype has taken hold within the GOP: Hispan-ics are p rt of he 47percent who are dependent upon government.

this moment, at least, there's not much evidence that a more heav-ily immigrant, more heavily nonwhite America will bring back thevalues of the 1950s, or that democracy in the Arab world will boostAmerican power, or that future economic growth will restore the fiscal solvency of yesteryear. It's hard for conservatives to be optimisticbecause George W Bush's optimistic predictions about the budget,the transformation of the Middle East, and Republican success withHispanics have not come true. If GeorgeW Bush himselfwere apost-Bush Republican, he might be pessimistic, too.

P T R BEIN RT writes about domestic poli t ics and foreign policy atNewsweek andThe Daily Beast He is also an associate professor ojournal ism and poli t ical science at the Ci ty University o NewVork

after bush, the blues - peter beinart - newsweek - 17 july 2013-2.pdf

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