Writers for publications like National Review, along with think-tankers and other intellectuals, like to organize politics into ideological contests. The fates of the Republican Party under and seem similar. Both presidents in their second-term midterms saw the party crash over unpopular wars in the Middle East, self-dealing in Washington, D.C., and concern about the cost of living. Both failed to make gains in the Rust Belt more permanent through the political use of tariffs. The scale of their commitment to any of these policies differs greatly, but of course it is easy to see the similarities. In general, the intellectuals treat the Bush-era and Trump-era Republican Parties as separated by a great disjuncture, the rise and influence of populism and nationalism. Trump ran and denounced Bush; Bush has occasionally signaled his lack of interest in Trump’s version of the party. Consequently many believe there will be some neat, organized contest between the Trumper arrivistes and the stalwart traditional Republicans for the soul of the party
But whatever the ideological columns that line up behind them, I can’t help but think that both Bush and Trump shared something in common — and that makes them conjoined outliers in the modern history of the American right. George W. Bush and Donald Trump were the bookends of the era of American politics, which has now come to an end.
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