Although many in the MSM seemingly can’t let the idea of a third Trump term go – and, hilariously, please note that the author here doesn’t even mention that Trump’s age in 2028 will be 81 – Donald Trump has run his last race for the U.S. Presidency.  

From now on, Trump is playing for other things besides reelection. He is playing to advance his agenda; to maintain his influence with his party and the country; and to get his approved successor elected (presumably Vice President Vance, but we will see).

Which leads me to lessons he, as a Republican, needs to learn from the last Republican president to serve two terms in the White House, George W. Bush. 

Starting in 2005, I had a medium-level seat in the U.S. Senate to observe President Bush and his second term. It was not a pretty sight. Bush’s political mistakes made his polling drop almost immediately below 50 percent, and his numbers eventually settled in the 30s until the time he left office. This allowed a political lightweight, Democrat Barack Obama, to win a strong 53 percent of the vote to succeed Bush in the 2008 election.  

To avoid what happened to President Bush, a Republican president needs to follow a bifurcated strategy to keep his polling support up among both the GOP party base and independents. Under the current U.S. political alignment – which, granted, may be changing – there seems to be about 45-47 percent of the voters voting for each party base, with about 6 percent of the voters being true independents, who might vote for either side. If the president’s polling drops precipitously among both groups, voters and politicians alike will lose their fear of and support for the Republican president. Without such fear and support, effective governing by the president disappears (see Machiavelli), and the immediate future of the president’s party comes into doubt.

This is what happened from 2005 to 2009. During his second term, President Bush violated the following crucial electoral maxims:

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.

Post-2005, President Bush abandoned his GOP party base multiple times. Most people remember his left-leaning positions on illegal immigration, where, post-2006, after the Democrats had won the Congress, 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.  

Less well-remembered is Bush’s abandonment of his 2005 plan to reform Social Security. (I know this is not a GOP base plank under a MAGA GOP, but it was a GOP base plank back then, and it was popular with many conservatives.) But, after receiving furious Democrat and MSM pushback, Bush immediately caved.

Looking Ahead: What Will President Trump's Place in History Be?

Trust in the Presidency Has Dropped—That’s a Good Thing

Post-2005, Bush also stopped fighting for his important issues. I have already mentioned his collapse on Social Security reform. More serious was his surrender on Iraq. (Note, here I am only interested in examining the politics, and not the merits, of the Iraq war.) For example, the Democrats consistently claimed that Bush lied to the American people about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction to get the U.S. into a “war for oil.” In reality, Bush simply made the mistake of believing in the CIA’s false reporting – the CIA hasn’t gotten a big intelligence matter correct in at least half a century – see the collapse of the Soviet Union; the attacks of September 11, 2001; the 1979 Iranian revolution; Iranian nuclear development for decades; the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel… By not pushing back against Democrat propaganda, Bush prompted both GOP base voters and independents to believe that: 1) the Democrat attacks were true; and 2) Bush was a weak man who would not defend himself. This led them to desert Bush in droves. Bush also refused to defend himself during Hurricane Katrina, despite the Democrats and MSM blaming him for government disasters that were often the result of incompetent Democrats in New Orleans and Louisiana.

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, by his second term, on illegal immigration and on other matters, he tried to compromise or even surrender again and again. His polling suffered from all this.

Post-2005, Bush also leaned into his establishment GOP background. The Bush family political dynasty started with Prescott Bush of Connecticut, 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. The big example is on illegal immigration, where (as I said before) the establishment caters to their fellow businessmen and often believes (incorrectly) that GOP voters who want border controls are simply racist or bigoted Know-Nothings.  

GOP establishment types also seem to be enamored with the left-leaning international foreign policy "blob," which believes the U.S. was a consistent bad actor in the history of its foreign affairs. The "blob" also believes the U.S. must now understand and appease its (misunderstood) foreign enemies and downplay U.S. national interests in favor of left-leaning global concerns.

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. But this MSM favorable view of Republican apostates is not available to a Republican president because Democrats want to win the next few elections. So, any concessions by the GOP President to GOP apostates and the Democrats will still be rewarded by the Democrats and the MSM stabbing the Republican president in the back as soon as possible (again, see No Child Left Behind).  

As I said before, all these actions led to the complete political collapse of President Bush’s and the Republican Party’s power and political fortunes.  

Now, is there any evidence that something similar is starting during the first few weeks of President Trump’s second term?

To be continued in part II.