Jamelle Bouie insists that Ron DeSantis has more in common with George W. Bush than with Trump. Is he right?
The two do have something in common: the ability to walk a tightrope between the GOP establishment and the right-wing populists. Bush, given his family connections, was always going to have access to the establishment, but he made every effort to show his disdain for it, particularly by embracing evangelical religious views. DeSantis uses his elite educational background to show his competence, but insists that he didn’t inhale. Trump supporters, of course, are not so sure.
But, on balance, Bouie is wrong. Bush might have used public opposition to gay rights to get re-elected in 2004, but culture wars were a lower case issue during his presidency. He campaigned as a “compassionate conservative,” and there is every reason to believe he meant it. 9/11 and the Iraq War changed the character of his presidency irrevocably. But for those events, he probably would have been viewed by the history books as a uniter.
DeSantis is anything but a uniter. Like Trump, he tells blue people that he hates them all the time. Culture wars are his brand. You can’t really say that about Bush.