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In the yr of 2024, we might witness the most divisive presidential election in American historical past since… 2020.
With a rematch between Donald Trump and Joe Biden wanting likelier day-after-day, America is polarized.
These days, Pew surveys present that “Republicans and Democrats view not just the opposing party but also the people in that party in a negative light.”
Meanwhile, the share of Americans with a damaging opinion about each main political events is at an all-time excessive.
Still, in an age of political dysfunction, should you get a Trump and a Biden voter collectively, one factor that they might agree on might shock you: They may each like George W. Bush.
They don’t endorse each coverage of the Bush presidency, however Americans have a approach of fixing their minds about the forty third president. George W. Bush as soon as had the highest approval score of any American commander in chief in the historical past of polling – 90% in the days after 9/11. In his final hours in workplace, nevertheless, that determine was right down to 34%, Jimmy Carter territory.
As bestselling writer Jared Cohen, above left, writes on this unique e-book excerpt, “After two decades of ups and downs, [George W.] Bush is younger — and more popular — than the most likely Democratic and Republican nominees for president. How did that happen?” (Fox News Digital; Photo12/Universal Images Group by way of Getty Images)
Now, 15 years later, some six in 10 Americans, together with voters on each side of the aisle, have a good view of George W. Bush.
After twenty years of ups and downs, Bush is youthful — and extra fashionable — than the almost certainly Democratic and Republican nominees for president. How did that occur?
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The reply has rather a lot to do with one thing that Bush instructed me after we met at his household compound at Walker’s Point, in Kennebunkport, Maine.
“When it’s over, it’s over. I don’t miss it,” he stated.
As easy as that concept is, it’s what’s turned the former president’s reputation round after the White House, and it’s vital for America’s system of presidency to endure.
Recognizing that “it’s over” meant seeing that it was another person’s flip — and setting that individual up for fulfillment.
Former President George W. Bush is pictured throwing out the first pitch earlier than the Texas Rangers hosted the San Francisco Giants in Game Four of the 2010 MLB World Series at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Texas, on Oct. 31, 2010. (Elsa/Getty Images)
In Jan. 2009, Barack Obama was about to inherit each the Great Financial Crisis and the Global War on Terror.
To put together for the handoff, the outgoing president met with the president-elect at the White House on Nov. 10, 2008 — the first time Obama had ever been to the Oval Office.
For 50 years, there had nearly all the time been a Bush in elected workplace at the nationwide degree.
Meanwhile, he’d labored with Congress to stave off one other Great Depression and move the Toxic Assets Relief Program.
In the background, the National Security Council ready transition memoranda for the subsequent administration, detailing the national-security challenges that may land on their desks on day one.
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When Bush entered workplace in 2001, the outgoing Clinton workers had eliminated the “W” keys from the White House keyboards. There could be no such hijinks awaiting the Obama staff.
With the choices now on another person’s desk, the former president needed to re-imagine what he’d do with the time he had left.
For 50 years, there had nearly all the time been a Bush in elected workplace at the nationwide degree, in the Senate, House and White House.
Then-President George W. Bush, at proper, is pictured with Ralph H. Maer of Manchester, New Hampshire, honored with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation for his work in growing video video games, Feb. 13, 2006. (Ryan Ok Morris/Public Domain)
All that modified on Jan. 20, 2009, the day W. left 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
This was a brand new chapter in American politics, and in the historical past of the Bush household away from Washington.
When he left workplace in 2009, his father George H.W. Bush was nonetheless alive, making this the first and solely second in American historical past that there was a father-son pair of former presidents.
W. took recommendation from 41: Stay out of politics.
As Bush the youthful recalled, former President Carter had “made [George H.W. Bush’s] life miserable,” notably when it got here to the first Gulf War, when Carter lobbied the U.N. Security Council to vote towards the U.S. place.
Former President George W. Bush is proven listening to audio system throughout the opening ceremony of the Walker Cup golf event, Seminole Golf Club in Juno Beach, Florida, May 2021. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Remembering that have, George H.W. Bush suggested his son, “Second-guessing your successors weakens the institution of the presidency.”
George W. Bush bought out of politics, and he doesn’t miss the limelight. He doesn’t attempt to reshape his legacy, a time period that I got here to study he disdains.
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He is not introspective.
His celebration has modified, and his successors have undone a lot of his work. But his time is over.
History’s last verdict on George W. Bush’s presidency might take a long time, because it did for Presidents Truman and Reagan.
He discovered surprising pastimes.
After studying an essay by Winston Churchill in 2012 – amid that yr’s presidential election season – Bush made the surprising alternative of beginning a post-presidential profession as a painter.
Churchill wrote that “painting is a companion with whom one may hope to walk a great part of life’s journey.”
More than a decade later, Bush has now been a painter longer than he was president — and he’s used the medium to attract consideration to causes that had been part of his administration and on which he continues to advocate, from veterans’ care to immigration reform.
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When he did briefly re-enter the political area, supporting his brother Jeb’s unsuccessful 2016 run for president, he remembered why he’d left. At a fundraiser in 2015, Bush instructed a gathering of Republican donors that he “just [didn’t] like Ted Cruz,” a gentle insult by at the moment’s requirements.
But when the remark leaked, Bush known as it “cringeworthy.”
He’s stayed distant from the marketing campaign path since 2016, whilst the Republican Party beneath Donald Trump has moved away from Bush-era insurance policies on every thing from the Iraq War to immigration reform.
Author Jared Cohen, left, with George W. Bush in the portray studio of the former president. (Freddie Ford)
Opinions about the Bush presidency haven’t improved considerably, although his administration is beginning to get a re-examination.
In what he known as a “tough column for a liberal to write,” earlier this yr, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof described Bush’s PEPFAR program (the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) as “the single best policy of any president in [his] lifetime.”
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Since 2003, PEPFAR has saved an estimated 25 million lives – roughly equal to the inhabitants of Taiwan.
History’s last verdict on his presidency might take a long time, because it did for Presidents Truman and Reagan.
As Bush jogged my memory, “Historians are still writing books about the other George [Washington]… By the time they get around to me, I’ll be long gone.”
This article is excerpted solely from “Life After Power” by Jared Cohen (Feb. 2024, Simon & Schuster) by particular association. (Jared Cohen/Simon & Schuster)
For now, at a time when Americans’ religion in our authorities is close to file lows, George W. Bush’s acceptance that “when it’s over, it’s over” has re-earned him the public’s respect.
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Asking and answering how that occurred is a method at the moment’s leaders can restore confidence in themselves, and in our establishments.
They might discover that the most vital act of management they’ll carry out is to maneuver on.
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Excerpted from “Life After Power: Seven Presidents and Their Search for Purpose Beyond the White House,” © copyright Jared Cohen (Simon & Schuster, Feb. 2024), by particular association. All rights reserved.
Stay tuned for extra excerpts from “Life After Power” at Fox News Digital.
For extra Lifestyle articles, go to www.foxnews.com/life-style.
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