Prairie State Wire

George Herbert Walker Bush’s 100th birthday was Wednesday and Donald J. Trump’s 78th is today, a coincidence that invites a comparison between the two men. Conventional wisdom focuses on the differences in their public personae, but this misses the point: their experience, outlook and policies were and are both rooted in American exceptionalism.  

Both were and are optimists leading the fight for individuals against collective power, who believed government should serve instead of trying to shape its citizens. Their policies were and are designed to empower people to pursue their own dreams, hold their own beliefs and improve their lot through work and commerce. 

Bush and Trump are on the same team; if you liked one, then you should vote for the other.  

George Bush was the youngest fighter pilot in the U.S. Navy when he received his wings; flew 58 combat missions during World War II; was shot-down near Japan; miraculously rescued from a tiny life raft (pistol in hand); went on to become a Texas-based oil wildcatter, before starting his career in government.  Bush had a genial personality that some mocked as goofy, masking his essence: an audaciously ambitious, relentless and principled man who was “cool on the stick” and noted for his personal restraint. Never a comfortable or fluent politician, despite a public career spanning 28 years, Bush nonetheless developed a reputation as a cagey and shrewd D.C. player.  

Bush successfully managed the Cold War’s end as the Soviet bloc crumbled, the opening salvos in the war against resurgent radical Islam in the short, sharp but ultimately inconclusive first Gulf War, and China’s on-going reopening to the West and its markets.  

Bush struggled with Congress then controlled by Democrats under the partisan leadership of Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, vetoing 44 bills, but managed to score domestic success through targeted deals with Democrats, such as the Clean Air Act, Americans with Disabilities Act, and to reform the ailing savings and loan industry. He launched a generation of education reform initiatives as the self-styled “Education President,” and capped the end of the American Century by working with allies to construct a new world order after the Soviet bloc collapsed, ending the Cold War.

From a historical perspective, Bush was less a change maker than a change consolidator, who deserves credit for successfully managing the final stages of a reform era launched by Reagan and Thatcher 10 years earlier.

On the other hand, Trump is a disrupter, not a consolidator; an outsider, not an insider; charismatic, not meritocratic; more entrepreneurial and less managerial – but all in service of the same traditional Americanism that Bush revered, too. 

Twenty-two years and 2 days younger than Bush, and 22 days older than his eldest son George W., Trump grew up in Queens, NY, just over 22 miles from Bush’s childhood home in Greenwich, CT. Trump attended a NY military boarding school instead of a New England prep school, then University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton school of business instead of Yale, before going into the real estate business, first with his dad, Fred Trump, for five years in Brooklyn, before setting off on his own to remake Manhattan’s skyline. 

His accomplishments over the 50 years since then are almost unimaginable – building or rebuilding iconic buildings, like the Trump Tower, Trump Parc, Trump Palace, Trump Plaza, The Trump World Tower, 610 Park Avenue and Trump Park Avenue, before expanding outside NY, adding buildings like the Trump Tower in Chicago to his portfolio. He built, refurbished or repurposed hotels, casinos and golf clubs around the world that earned highest ratings in their categories, while managing to ride through several financial crises with his brand intact and his wealth enhanced. He rebuilt the ice rink in Central Park, developed the Javits Center and even had his own airline for a while too; Trump was the toast of NY.

Thirty years into his remarkable real estate career, Trump entered the media and entertainment business with a top-rated reality show, the Apprentice – and then after 10 years, he entered yet another entirely new field when he came down the golden escalator to announce his run for President. 

Weirdly, at that moment, his legions of media and entertainment friends, plus the political and business establishment in NY, turned on Trump with the bitterness of a crazy, jilted ex and the pettiness of a mean girl – still, he won the Presidency over their shrill objections.

As President, Trump revamped regulations, cutting nearly 8 rules for every new rule proposed, leveraged U.S. market power to obtain greater market openings for U.S. goods overseas with new trade deals, unleashed domestic energy production and pushed through the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, all of which triggered extraordinary prosperity: families in the middle earned nearly $6,000 more, Americans enjoyed the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years, and record low poverty rates, too. Internationally, Trump capped his successful first term with the Abraham Accords, changing the landscape in the Middle East forever.   

Putting aside partisanship and pettiness, Trump’s fifty year run dominating in business, media and then politics is nothing short of remarkable.  

And putting aside the differences in their public personae, the policies pursued by the Trump Administration refreshed, revived, extended or adapted to today’s challenges the policies pursued by Reagan and then Bush. Anyone at home with Morning in America, or that shared the vision of a kinder and gentler America, should see that MAGA is a refurbished, refreshed and refocused version of the same ideology – and vote accordingly.

So, let’s celebrate two great men, without demeaning either of them. Two remarkable men who dedicated themselves to rolling back socialism to unleash the energy and genius of the American people. Each speaks in his own cadence, and moved in different circles, but each also understood what makes American exceptional, and worked to make it even better than it was.