Clyde Wilson lays out some very sobering truths about the Legacy of George W. Bush, here’s a snippet:
Perhaps George’s most lasting “accomplishment” is the discrediting of Christianity as a political force in America. It is assumed that his strongest support came from “evangelicals,” with whom he pretended kinship. Liberal commentators like to imagine that Christians conspire to impose a puritan reign of terror on the country, and so pundits and historians will continue to write about the evil domination of the Bush administrations by Christians. But of course, this is to misstate the facts, as usual.
The fact is that the Republican party has always dictated to the organised “evangelicals” but they have never dictated any Republican act or policy of significance. In the 1960’s George Wallace showed the vote-getting potential of the “social issues,” something which no Republican had the insight or daring to do. But the party did see the potential votes from “silent majority” rhetoric. And so the “leaders” of the organised “evangelicals” were seduced by pretenses of fellowship and shared values. For the most part, those “leaders” were people of such shallow intellect and character that once allowed to actually meet a President they were enslaved for life. They wanted more than anything what too many Americans want—superior respectability and status within the herd. (Both Tocqueville and Solzhenitsyn observed that this is a predominant aspect of American behaviour.)
Some very somber and sobering truth in that statement. I think also it is the fact that George W. Bush ran as an ideologue, and not as a pragmatist. While he might be viewed 50 years from now as someone who did something great, right now, he’s nothing more than a black mark on our Nation’s history.
The Rest at Goodbye, George : Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.