That’s right kids, there was another Republican Hitler President before Trump, complete with all the claims about the fascist dictatorship he was going to unleash on America, including not leaving office after 2008.

This shit from the Democrat Party and the Left in general just never changes. You’d have thought that commies and fascists had never worked together.

Which is why a recent series on the Red State news site by a former GOP Senate aide, Adam Turner, has been interesting to read as it’s been published in five sections over the past couple of months.

By “Bush II” I mean the second term of President George W Bush, 2005-2009 and the reason for the reference is that his five articles have been analysing what went wrong in Bush’s second term with the following lessons:

  1. A Second Term Republican President Should Never Abandon the Party Base on Important Issues;
  2. A Second Term Republican President Should Never Surrender on the Political Battlefield;
  3. A Second Term Republican President Should Never Fall for the Sweet Nothings of the MSM and the Democrat Establishment; and
  4. A Second Term Republican President Should Also Beware the (Similar) Sweet Nothings of the GOP Establishment and more liberal Republicans.

He provides solid arguments behind each of these.

Bush tried to surrender to Democrat demands to legalize illegals. Bush did that for two reasons: 1) he was part of the GOP establishment, which worshipped the Chamber of Commerce and supported their desire for illegals to be legalized to work in the economy; and 2) he considered himself a “compassionate conservative” from Texas who had special appeal to the Hispanic community, whom he believed desired a legalization process for illegal aliens from Hispanic countries.

The “Compassionate Conservative” stuff always pissed me off; I regarded it as an over-reaction to Bill Clinton’s masterful political strategy of syrupy niceness that was never going to work with another Democrat, especially that lumbering stiff, Al Gore. Unfortunately it stuck around because Bush won the 2000 election, so that wing of the GOP was convinced it was the way to go. Moreover this crap was not just intellectual but in the Bush genes:

Bush’s grandfather, in the 1940’s. Prescott Bush was a leader of the GOP Eastern establishment, and he eventually served as a U.S. Senator. His son, George H. W. Bush, moved to Texas but largely maintained his establishment background, even after becoming Ronald Reagan’s vice president and successor as president. The second President Bush seems to have been, in some ways, more conservative than his father and grandfather – see the social issues – but he still was, at heart, an establishment type. And GOP establishment types seem to look down on the ordinary, everyday GOP voter and their concerns. 

That group and their attitude persisted long after Bush’s departure. Even after Mitt Romney lost in 2012 there was a big study inside the party analysing the reasons for the loss that had, as one of its conclusions, the assertion that the GOP would have to be “nicer” to Hispanic illegal aliens in order to get the votes of Hispanic citizens in the USA. That was why Jeb Bush was seen as the natural heir to the throne in 2016; he was married to a Hispanic woman and was fluent in Spanish. It was also the reason the GOP establishment reacted with such horror to the crude, oafish Orange Man; he’d lose the election massively because Hispanics would hate him.

The kicker here is that by 2024 the very immoderate and impolite Trump was scoring better with Hispanics than any Republican ever had, including the pandering GW. It turned out that Hispanic voters were no more keen on illegal aliens than White Americans, even if they were “relations”. That was the real insight the GOP had missed for twenty years in trying to be “nice” and “bi-partisan” with Democrats on the issue: they basically rolled over for the Democrat definition of the issue and the GOP’s role in it as the Racist Bad Guys. The Establishment GOP was thus all about greasing up the Left and the Democrats:

Making things worse is the fact that some Republicans, often (but not always) representing competitive states and districts, have a natural incentive to play to left-wingers and, thus, undermine the national GOP party. My former boss, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, won an unprecedented five terms statewide in Pennsylvania by “standing up” to Republican presidents, which guaranteed him favorable news coverage from the MSM. This, in turn, buttressed his popularity with independents, moderate Republicans, and Democrats in Pennsylvania.

After which, facing a primary that would boot him, this stalwart Republican decamped to the Democrat Party and finished his miserable career voting for things he’d claimed to oppose. There was some justice in that the prick ran in the Democrat primary and got destroyed, because everybody understands you can never trust a traitor. See also Lisa Murkowski (Alaska Senator), Charlie Crist (former Florida GOP Governor who succeeded …. Jeb Bush).

Turner points out that while this can “work” for a GOP House member or Senator it doesn’t for GOP Presidents, which leads to rules #3 and #4:

3. Falling for the Sweet Nothings of the MSM and the Democrat Establishment

A Republican senator or congressman can make a career out of “going Washington” and “growing in office,” as the Democrats/MSM will give him/her plenty of positive attention in their media, which (in some areas of the country) will make reelection easier.  But for a Republican president, this is not a possibility, as the Democrats/MSM need to run against him or her, and nothing he or she says or does will ever be celebrated by them. So, all that president will accomplish by “going Washington” and “growing in office” is showing a weakness, which will inspire any opponents to redouble their attacks, and dispirit POTUS’ base.
…
Post-2005, Bush became even more susceptible to the blandishments of the Democrats and the MSM. During his first term, he had compromised with Democrat Senator Ted Kennedy on education – see No Child Left Behind – only to have Kennedy and the other Democrats bash him endlessly for agreeing with their failing big government plans. 

But there’s also danger from within the GOP…

4. Falling for the Sweet Nothings of the GOP Establishment (and the Liberal Republicans)

The portion of those attending the Georgetown dinner parties that are not Democrats are, of course, Republicans (there are no real independents in this town). They have similar, but not identical, political beliefs. The key word for them is always “moderation,” which often means to act Democrat-lite on the issues, to slow down on a controversial action, or to avoid certain impolite issues.

GW ate the dog food served up to him by these types after 2005, once he’d been beaten and cowed thoroughly.

That last is an entire factor in itself and it started in 2005 not with the Iraq War but with Hurricane Katrina, which gave the MSM a way to talk about the war – without talking about it. They milked Katrina for all it was worth. The Superdome was the site of multiple rapes, including that of babies. Snipers were shooting at rescue helicopters. NBC news anchor Brian Williams saw “bodies floating” in the French Quarter. Wolf Blitzer incited a racist narrative, calling the victims “so poor, so black.” Kanye West (back when the Left loved him) famously declared that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”

Bush refused to fight back against all this as the MSM and Democrats relentlessly attacked. Only years later did some of the key players admit – including none other than the DNC Chair, Donna Brazille – that Bush had actually done quite well on Katrina, with no disagreement voiced by her friends and allies. But by then they could afford to be generous, with their party in total control of Washington D.C.

Mission Accomplished.

I can’t find it now but some right-wing cartoonist portrayed Bush as a Piñata, a Mexican papier-mâché or ceramic container filled with candy that a crowd smashes apart in celebration. This lack of political grit (Bush personally was quite a tough character) always seemed connected to the “Compassionate Conservative” persona:

One of President Bush’s biggest mistakes was his decision to cease fighting over important issues, which he did sometime after 2005.  This created a situation where the Democrats/MSM ran with constant slanders against him, including a vicious attack that he lied about weapons of mass destruction to trick the U.S. into the Iraq War. There was little to no pushback from the conservative side (only Fox and some other GOP politicians stepped into the breach), which, in turn, resulted in the eventual public collapse of Bush’s support.

So what can Trump 2.0 learn from Bush II? In many cases he doesn’t need to learn because his instincts are not those of Bush, especially on policies, starting with immigration as noted above.

Turner has a list of the issues where Trump is doing what he said he would, with the Democrats still screaming in horror but his GOP critics now finally quieted. Moreover these are issues that Independents are rating him highly on, despite still not much caring for Trump the man: the border and immigration, spending cuts (especially the DOGE investigations), laying off Washington D.C. bureaucrats, Trans issues with women and girls, taxes, Israel and Ukraine.

One thing that Trump is getting big approvals on is that he’s actually doing what he said he would, which is such a refreshing and shocking change from the usual politician that even a good chunk of Democrats approve of that, even for policies they don’t agree with.

Turner does warn Trump not to always respond (why fight against the wrath of ten million Swifties?) – which he likely will ignore – while at the same time acknowledging that this was a key weakness in Bush II’s collapse. Allied with this is that Trump, so far, is always on the offensive and across so many areas that his opposition can barely draw breath to respond. That strategy is from one of his advisors in his first term, who wanted them to “flood the zone”: they did that sometimes in his first term, but it’s been relentless since Jan 20, 2025.

In his last essay on the subject, Turner shows that Trump has one big advantage that Bush did not, the near collapse of the Democrat Party since the election. There are several reasons for that.

First, there’s no leadership as Pelosi slowly (too slowly) fades away and Schumer gets smashed by his own party for his recent vote to keep the government going in the face of GOP budget cuts. Forget about Biden, Clinton, and Obama; the first was always a joke inside the party, useful only one time in 2020, while the others are busted flushes in stirring up the faithful. Meanwhile, as the old guard dithers, the up-and-comers range from idiots like Minnesota Governor Tim Walz babbling about how they weren’t woke enough in 2024, to California Governor Newsom attacking woke and trying to distance himself from it (he won’t be able to, given what’s happened in his state), while Senator Sanders has hooked up with Alexandria Occasional Cortex on a nationwide tour to boost her chances in 2028.

Second, their policies – or more accurately their stances on issues like Trans, deportations of Venezuelan gang bangers and Islamist terrorist supporters – are dopey when they’re getting killed on the “80/20” rule, as Trump himself put it. Worse is the deeper reason driving those stands:

The Democrat base really believes their own propaganda that Donald Trump is the devil. They see this “truth” echoed in the MSM day after day and simply cannot conceive of why others don’t understand the depths of Donald Trump’s autocratic nature, evilness, corruption and perfidy. This makes them increasingly angry and desperate to punish him. They hate him on a level not seen since the Democrat hatred of President Richard Nixon in the ’70s….Because of this, the Democrat base demands that their party go after the Trump administration full bore without flagging…

Hence the recent meltdowns against Schumer.

It should come as no surprise that they’ve dramatically collapsed in the polls.

There’s also another advantage Trump has that Bush didn’t and it’s the fact that the power of the MSM to craft these narratives aligned with Democrat talking points and then push them onto voters, has declined massively since the days when they hammered Bush on Katrina. Turner doesn’t really cover that in his five pieces but firebrand Kurt Schlichter certainly does:

One feature of the 20th-century model of politics was that the Democrats could invent a scandal, and the Republicans would treat it as a scandal… The paradigm where the Democrats and the regime media reinforce each other in an operation to collect a Republican scalp depended on Republicans doing just that. The norms said we had to take this stuff seriously. The norms said we had to nod along in agreement that whatever the Republican target did was oh, so very bad. And the norms said we then had to offer up that Republican for sacrifice.

They win, we lose, rinse, lather, repeat.

Except this time, we said, “No.” We gave them nothing except mockery. We didn’t pretend that their phony outrage was anything but such bad performance art that it was probably eligible for a USAID grant. Fire somebody? Apologize? Nah. Get bent.

And because we didn’t cooperate, the whole thing [“Signalgate”] just sort of faded away. Our cooperation is the key to perpetuating the scandals. They can’t win unless we help them win, and we’ve chosen not to help them win anymore.

He references Senator Markwayne Mullin sticking it to NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” host Kristen Welker as the most recent example. No more treating these assholes – Democrat politicians and MSM alike – as if they’re acting on principles and in good faith.

The GOP has learned those lessons from the Trump era, both from what he’s done, and from what has been done to him, and that’s a lesson that’s going to outlive him.

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The Red State series by Adam Turner:
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V