Astral Codex Ten

GW Bush

3 min read

GW Bush

Article

GW Bush is a recurring person in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between April 19, 2021 and March 18, 2026. The archive places it in contexts such as “like how they view GW Bush”; “career Republicans who worked for GW Bush”. It most often appears alongside Resistance, Iran, New York Times.

Metadata

  • Category: People
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: April 19, 2021
  • Last seen: March 18, 2026

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Mantic Monday: Grading My Trump Predictions
April 19, 2021 · Original source
The crisis of the Republican Party will turn out to have been overblown. Trump’s policies have been so standard-Republican that there will be no problem integrating him into the standard Republican pantheon, plus or minus some concerns about his personality which will disappear once he personally leaves the stage. Some competent demagogue (maybe Ted Cruz or Mike Pence) will use some phrase equivalent to “compassionate Trumpism”, everyone will agree it is a good idea, and in practice it will be exactly the same as what Republicans have been doing forever. The party might move slightly to the right on immigration, but this will be made easy by a fall in corporate demand for underpriced Mexican farm labor, and might be trivial if there’s a border wall and they can declare mission accomplished. If the post-Trump standard-bearer has the slightest amount of personal continence, he should end up with a more-or-less united party who view Trump as a flawed but ultimately positive figure, like how they view GW Bush. Also, I predict we see a lot more of Ted Cruz than people are expecting.
Support Your Local Collaborator
March 18, 2026 · Original source
But these sorts of thoughtful collaborators are a limited resource. There were a lot of smart, thoughtful career Republicans who worked for GW Bush, or libertarians who thought the GOP was the lesser of two evils. These people seeded the original Trump administration. Gradually they reached their limits, crashed out, went on rants which dutifully made the fifth page of the New York Times, then forever lost their status as loyal people whose opinions might be listened to. As they fade, they are replaced by a new stratum of grifters, groypers, and podcasters who have no expertise in anything and are selected entirely on loyalty, ie never disagreeing on anything.