Other than an occasional public appearance, most recently to eulogize his late vice president, Dick Cheney, former President George W. Bush has mostly disappeared from view, apparently content to let his record stand on its own. It is an open secret that the Bush family takes a dim view of President Donald Trump following his blistering criticism of the Iraq war and mockery of Jeb Bush as “Low Energy Jeb” during the 2016 presidential campaign. Unlike many other former chief executives, the 43rd president has abstained from public criticism of the only GOP president to follow him, but his neoconservative allies have been strident in their vitriol toward Trump, perhaps channeling the true feelings of the man they served. And now they are reportedly hatching plans to reclaim the party once Trump leaves the stage.
GOP Power Over Party
Neocons’ common hatred of Trump the man is exceeded only by their bitterness about the direction in which he has taken the Republican Party. It is no longer identified as the party of wealthy globalist scions promoting big business, entitlement reform, and foreign wars but as the populist anti-war party of the workingman. But that hardly means these neoconservatives are content to remain on the sidelines. Cheney, once despised by the left, and his daughter Liz both publicly endorsed Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race. And other leading figures from the Bush years, cast out after 2008 and 2012 losses to Barack Obama, are itching for another chance to reclaim their party of yore.
Most prominent among the neocons who hope to emerge from their personal darkness are such Bush-era thought leaders as Bill Kristol, John Bolton, Max Boot, and David Frum. Then there is Michael Steele, former head of the Republican National Committee, who effectively renounced his previous beliefs to join far-left MSNBC, now known as MS NOW after the channel was thrown overboard by NBC.
Can these Bush-era conservatives bring the party back to their good old days? If not, it won’t be for lack of effort, according to a story in the Daily Mail entitled, “Secret life of George W Bush: He’s vanished into the shadows for 16 years … now we know what he’s been plotting all along.” Author Nick Allen wrote of Bush’s “uneventful retirement” and the perception that “he has checked out of politics.” But he then added that “[Bush’s] public interventions have become more frequent of late, and his supporters are demanding more.”
Steele used his left-wing platform recently to plead for the GOP to return to his view of sanity. He stared intently into a TV camera and banged his fist on a desk, saying to Bush, “You have a voice that would resonate with a lot more Americans than some folks around you are telling you.” After the Jan. 6 riot, many former Bush officials left the Republican Party, joining anti-Trump groups like the Lincoln Project and Republican Voters Against Trump. As the Daily Mail observed, these splinter groups could “provide electoral infrastructure for a Bush-aligned candidate” such as Nikki Haley, who was overwhelmed by Trump in the 2024 Republican presidential primary.
The Daily Mail story went on to say that “rumors are stirring of a plot to end the so-called ‘Bush Exile’ and take back the GOP from the so-called scourge of Trumpism. Behind the scenes, and still with deep connections around the country, a shadow Republican Party is lying in wait to take over when Trump is gone.”
The neocons may not succeed in recapturing the party at all, or at least until the 2030s, depending on the public perception of Trump’s final term, which has more than three years remaining. But, proving that time can heal wounds and revise perceptions, a recent Gallup poll found Bush with a 52% approval rating among Americans, a far cry from the pitiable 25% who approved of his performance upon leaving office in 2009.
Trumpists are hardly comfortable with the fact that Bush appears chummy with Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, while spurning their man. Bush’s daughter, Jenna Bush Hager, has become a fixture in big liberal media as a co-host of the Today show on NBC, leaving the impression that 43 and his family have completely sold out to the “uniparty” political and media establishment.
The Feeling Is Mutual
While Bush has never said a kind word about Trump, once kicking him when he was down, there is also no love lost in the opposite direction. In 2021, Trump said of Bush, “I have never got so much as a thank-you note from that ungrateful b*****d. I don’t know, maybe he’s too busy with his so-called paintings to write.” In a totally Trumpian move months after taking office in 2025, 47 moved White House portraits of Bush and his late father, President George H.W. Bush, to a hidden stairwell where visitors would not see them.
Meanwhile, the Bush dynasty is now seeking restoration through its younger generations. The 56-year-old tech entrepreneur Jonathan Bush, cousin of the former president and Jeb, has launched a campaign to become governor of Maine in 2026. But he is already in trouble following revelations that he battered his ex-wife as they headed for an ugly divorce almost 20 years ago. George P. Bush, son of Jeb, was elected Texas Land Commissioner, but when he ran for Texas Attorney General in the 2022 Republican primary, he was beaten in a landslide by incumbent Ken Paxton.
The allies of George W. Bush are certainly willing to do whatever it takes to recapture control of the Republican Party. But are they able? Could they succeed in taking the GOP back to the future? While revisionist history has somewhat restored the legacy of George W. Bush, any reminder of the “good old days” of the disastrous Iraq war and Great Recession on his watch would throw a serious monkey wrench into the works. In fact, the only serious hope they might have would be the very outcome they’ve been praying for since they were shamed, repudiated, and sent out to pasture in the election of 2016, and which they were sure they had witnessed in 2020: a disastrous ending to the Trump era. And amid their rejoicing would emerge proof positive of their loyalty to power over country.
