If Jeb Bush is dead meat, then Donald Trump has the raw red stuff to please - possibly all the way

The time has come, I think, to reimagine the GOP nomination. Put bluntly: Why would any grassroots Republican — swaddled in years of lowbrow malevolence and highfalutin fantasies — support Jeb Bush? An alternative asking: What does Bush have to offer that Donald Trump does not?

I can think of only one notable exception. Bush has nurtured a monstrous super PAC, which, thanks to Trump, is, increasingly, conceptual poison to grassroots Republicans. At best, as Trump has brilliantly framed it, Bush is a witless "puppet" in the hands of lobbying "killers." He is a tool, an instrument of others' will, and one knows not where the killers may take him — other than to a replay of brotherly doofusness.

That aside, how do the gossamer policies of John Ellis Bush differ fundamentally from those of Donald John Trump? Both are hawks, both oppose a path to citizenship for undocumented workers, both paint vague visions of a magically invigorated economy — all of it fairly standard Republican gobbledygook. Common Core? Give me a break. Presidential nominations do not turn on education policy.

Trump, then, has pretty much everything that Bush has. He does, however, possess other two things that Bush does not: a different name, and a personality.

As to the first, none other than Hillary Clinton previewed this week a coming Trump line. Having mistaken Jeb for "George" Bush in a town-hall get-together, she added, "I get confused. Oh, well." The Donald would have added more punch — and he will.

Jeb's softest underbelly is of course his brother's colossal blunder in Iraq, and there is simply no way Jeb can cover his gut and adequately distance himself from the catastrophe. While insisting he is his "own person," he has compliantly surrounded himself with Wolfowitzian blockheads; he has said that Saddam's ouster "turned out to be a pretty good deal" (more than 4,400 dead Americans, more than 100,000 dead Iraqis and, ultimately, several trillion dollars squandered); and, almost unbelievably, he has said that his brother's "mission was accomplished." One can't counsel that level of stupidity. It's natural.

Trump, on the other hand, has the best of both worlds to offer Republican grassrooters: "The war should have never happened. Once it did happen, you should have left the troops in. It’s really a double fault." While slamming both Obama and Clinton, he slams both Bushes. It's an unbeatable attack — political catnip for the Bushes-disgruntled, anti-Obama, Clinton-despising rubes who wouldn't know a SOFA from a sofa.

So there's the name thing and all things bleak related to it — inescapable drags on Jeb. Then, as noted, there's the incomparable personality thing; it would be like comparing a chimp to an amoeba. The amoeba may wish to be "joyful" (in an oddly somniferous way), but the carnival chimp is ensouled with the GOP zeitgeist's most cherished attributes: seething abhorrences, thrilling recriminations, phantom policies, and an American exceptionalism just to balance it all out — you know, the brighter side of unmitigated malevolence.

The time has come, I think, to reimagine the GOP nomination — toward the once-unimaginable.

 

Comments

[Anne J]

Sometimes when I see Jeb Bush on tv giving a speech, it looks like he doesn't even want to be there. He almost has a look on his face that says, "I'm only doing this because the family expects me to", but then I remember that he's a Bush and they are always after power. So maybe he's just a terrible campaigner. Or maybe he doesn't realize how unpopular his brother is. It's not hard to imagine what a Jeb Bush presidency would look like. We've already seen it, in the previous decade. And Donald Trump, at his presser yesterday, said that Jeb has raised over $114,000,000.00 making him a puppet to his donors. Donald Trump said straight out, what most people knew, but never heard anyone admit. That is my favorite part of the campaign for me. The way the Donald keeps mentioning how he is independently wealthy and doesn't need donors, while the rest do, making them puppets to the wealthy. He's like an outsider that's an insider. He may not be a politician, but he knows a lot of them, has donated to them, and gotten what he wanted for his money. This is where I think he and Bernie Sanders are similar. They both against big money in politics, but they attack the problem from opposite ends of the money spectrum. Sanders from the bottom up, Trump from the top down. Of course with the usual qualifier that it is still way too early in the race, at this point, it looks like we may get a Sanders/Trump race after all.

[Bob]

You've identified what will put the Jeb! campaign down if anything does: Everyone still hates the Iraq War. People who follow politics closely will remember Jeb was a signatory to "The Project for the New American Century" to create an American global empire with military forces permanently based in the Middle East, a neocon plan of singular fantasy. Among his many Iraq gaffes, the most dumbassed was saying that he'd repeat the invasion knowing what he knows now, which is probably true. His revisionist history that everything was just ducky after "the surge" and Obama withdrew combat troops in "blind haste" will fool almost no one. In reality the surge was designed as a short-term measure to give Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki time to negotiate peace with the Sunnis, which he never did, so it was a failure overall. And the troop withdrawal was negotiated by his brother's administration, which is even mentioned often by corporate newsbots. He can't possibly tap dance fast enough to get by this, which makes me hope he's still the eventual nominee.

[Peter G]

Now that you mention it Jeb does seem to behave at pressers like a schoolboy sent to the principal's office. And he has a perfectly good explanation for why nothing is his fault but isn't sure anyone will believe him.

[Shaun Appleby]

I'm beginning to think they actually do know a SOFA from a sofa and it seems they are also pissed at being lied to all these years.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/jeb-bush-heckled-over-iraq-war-your-brother-signed-a-bad-deal/

Bad news for Bush and the neocons but a 'green shoot' for the national psyche.

[Peter G]

As long as Trump is serving filet of Bush and Rand carpaccio your best strategy as a Republican candidate is to look like you are already past your best before date. I think the Donald understands reality game shows much better than any of his competition. Particularly that show called Survivor. Never watched myself but the basic strategy seems clear. First slay your biggest threats. Destroy them lest they rise against you later. Nicollo would have approved.