If you’re someone who has been wondering “What the hell has George Bush been up to now that Iraq is a smoking crater and the United States is on the verge of collapse?” then here’s your answer! Today, Bush delivered a heated speech in New York City which was clearly aimed at Trump and his administration while never actually mentioning his name.
He delivered a speech in defence of free trade, globalisation and immigration at a time when Trump is not particularly committed to any of them:
We’ve seen nationalism distorted into nativism, forgotten the dynamism that immigration has always brought to America. We see a fading confidence in the value of free markets and international trade, forgetting that conflict, instability and poverty follow in the wake of protectionism. We’ve seen the return of isolationist sentiments, forgetting that American security is directly threatened by the chaos and despair of distant places.
That last sentence there is possibly his means of defending the fact that he invaded Iraq on the flimsy – and later proven false – pretence of ‘weapons of mass destruction’, leading to the deaths of up to a million Iraqi civilians and auguring the chaos in the Middle East which led to an sharp increase in extremism and sectarianism. Whoops!
“Bigotry or white supremacy in any form is blasphemy against the American creed,” he said later, to applause, despite the fact that the hugely enhanced security state he inaugurated with the Patriot Act helped set the stage for a decade of state-sanctioned American Islamophobia. Bush may never have relied on something as impolite as open bigotry as Trump has, but boy howdy he certainly got the job done anyway!
Here’s the speech:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9XfeAqIuf4
Online, many people are praising Bush for his underhanded shot at Trump…
George W. Bush just used the words “white supremacy” in calling out the racism of Trump in a nationally-televised speech. Wow.
— Charlotte Clymer 🇺🇦 (@cmclymer) October 19, 2017
When George W. Bush gives a speech that makes sense***, you know it’s officially the end times.
***The Pet Goat doesn’t count
— Aparna Nancherla (@aparnapkin) October 19, 2017
Thank you George W. Bush for speaking the truth about @realDonaldTrump and those who enable him. https://t.co/dfhCVK7maI
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) October 19, 2017
…while others are perhaps a little more skeptical about Bush’s PR campaign.
Presidential shittiness isn’t a zero-sum game; Trump’s awfulness doesn’t rehabilitate George W Bush, & I need you to stop pretending it does
— Natalie Shure (@nataliesurely) October 19, 2017
https://twitter.com/kenklippenstein/status/921093793004376064
https://twitter.com/TheMikeLawrence/status/921096953336881153
George Bush…welcome to the- HEY WAIT I REMEMBER YOU! GET OUTTA HERE!
— Luke Mones (@LukeMones) October 19, 2017
George W. Bush is the perfect anti-Trump! he would never ignore hurricane victims, weaponize patriotism, stoke fear, attack women’s rights,
— Matt Binder (@MattBinder) October 19, 2017
2017 is wack, man.
