No hagiography

December 4, 2018

In the days since George H.W. Bush’s death on Saturday at the age of 94, a food fight has erupted on social media between those valorizing him and those excoriating him.  Should the 41st President be lauded for his World War II heroism as a 17 year old fighter pilot, his lifetime of public service, personal graciousness and devotion to his family?  Has he earned our opprobrium because of the naked cynicism he he repeatedly displayed in his quest to win elections?  He used racism to win –  criticizing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and unleashing the viciously racist Willie Horton ads to defeat Michael Dukakis in 1988.  He abandoned his criticism of supply side theory as “voodoo economics” and flip flopped on abortion to secure his berth as ultra conservative Ronald Reagan’s Vice Presidential pick, (Source:  “Is History Being Too Kind to George H.W. Bush?” by David Greenberg, Politico.com, 12/1/18).

The point is that both of these things are true and merit mention when accounting for the legacy of George Herbert Walker Bush.  His personal decency and Yankee moderation did not prevent him from cynically embracing ultra conservative positions to gain power.  For the vast majority of Americans who never met him, George H.W. Bush’s decorous personality is beside the point.  After all, it is easy to minimize the unsavory parts of his legacy if you didn’t watch scores of loved ones die from AIDS while the federal government didn’t lift a finger to prevent it and callously admonished LGBTQ people to “change their behavior.”  It is easy not to dwell on his calculating decision to replace Civil Rights legend Thurgood Marshall with self-hating ingrate and sexual harasser,Clarence Thomas, if you are not one of the legions of African Americans who owe your access to opportunity to Thurgood Marshall’s work.

The fact is, the ability to emphasize George H.W. Bush’s estimable personal qualities and gloss over the stubborn facts of his political record is the result of two dangerous tendencies.  One is to minimize the import of policies that don’t personally affect you, turning a blind eye to the harm inflicted on groups of people that society has decided don’t matter as much — Black people and LGBTQ people.  The other is our tendency to stubbornly see things as black or white — people are either monsters or saints. With the possible exception of the current occupant of the position, all 44 previous holders of the office were neither monsters, nor saints, but fallible men.  After two years of defining deviancy down with a narcissistic racist in The White House, it is understandable that people cling to the contrast between 45 and 41 and laud Bush’s basic civility as extraordinary, but it is really the bare minimum we should expect from those we’ve elevated to the highest office in the land.  Like abused children, we fixate on George H.W. Bush’s post presidency persona as a sweet tempered grandfather, allowing his serial cynical political calculations to recede in the haze of memory.

An honest account of the full scope of George H.W. Bush’s legacy isn’t disrespectful, it’s history!  The uncomfortable fact is that, while he retained the polite noblesse oblige befitting his station as the scion of a wealthy family of New England W.A.S.P.’s, he did not hesitate to jettison the accompanying moderate policies of Northeastern Republicans when they got in his way. A clear eyed look at his record must mark the presidency of George H.W. Bush as a key turning point when moderate Republicans decided that social liberalism was expendable in the pursuit of power.

In their hubris they mistakenly believed that the hatred they harnessed could be contained and controlled. In their misplaced vanity, they believed that they could keep the spreading contagion of hatred and ignorance that they unleashed from staining their own legacies.  If we are to have any hope of liberating our nation from the scourge of corrupt authoritarianism of current day Republicans, we must recognize the straight line from the decisions made by 41 to 45.  You know what they say, “The truth will set you free.”

#Nohagiography