The Decline and Pending Downfall our American Republic: Bush/Cheney (Part 1)

Governor George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore during a presidential debate in 2000 (Photo by David Offutt at the National Presidential Wax Museum in the Black Hills, North Dakota, 7/2/2013)

On President’s Day, January 19, we honored the birthday of George Washington, the commander of our Continental Army, the president of our constitutional convention, and the first president of the United States. The outcome of the November 2024 election will determine whether we continue our unique experiment with a constitutional democratic-republic or reject it in favor of a fascistic dictatorship.

I began writing monthly essays to my local newspaper, the El Dorado News-Times, in August 2004. I was appalled by the lack of historical perspective that I was reading, seeing, and hearing in the news media at the time. Our constitutional system was under attack and very few reporters, writers, and commentators seemed to be aware of it. The G.O.P. was then – and even more so now – an anti-democracy and pro-authoritarian party. The threat to our constitutional system was “a clear and present danger.”

The Enthroned George Washington by Horatio Greenough: Depicted as Zeus, symbolically General Washington at the end of the revolution places his sword in its sheath and restores power to the people. (Photo: David Offutt in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of History on the Washington Mall, 7/7/2012)

President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney came to power in probably the worst way ever. In Bush v. Gore, the five Republican appointees on the U.S. Supreme Court voted to stop the vote recount in Florida so that Bush would be sure to win that state’s popular votes and therefore win the overall vote in the Electoral College – even though Gore won the overall popular vote and probably that of Florida, too.

The court’s ruling was clearly political and intended to advance the interests of their Republican Party. They realized how bad the ruling was and how bad it made the court look. In its ruling, the court made it clear that this ruling should never be used as a precedent for any future case. Nevertheless, Justice Antonin Scalia said that he was proud to have been able to do it. In later years, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor regretted being among the five who had politicized the court.

Several of Bush’s legal team who helped prepare for Bush v. Gore would eventually serve on the current Supreme Court. Bush appointed John Roberts to be the chief justice. President Donald Trump, who also lost the popular vote, appointed Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett to be associate justices – publicly to overturn Roe v. Wade but also privately Vin case he ever needed sympathetic votes on the court. Regardless, Mr. Trump has made it clear that he will only accept an election result if, and only if, he wins.

Dick Cheney was effectively a co-president. He was known to have a bad heart, and there was a running gag that if anything happened to Cheney then Bush would become president. Cheney was fanatical in his effort to restore and expand presidential power. He believed that congressional checks on presidential powers that resulted from Nixon’s Watergate and Reagan’s Iran-Contra scandals were unconstitutional. He advocated a “unitary chief executive” who would be unrestrained by the checks and balances of the Congress or the courts. He believed in rule by men – not by laws. This was similar to Nixon, who believed that if the president authorized something, then it was legal. Trump, of course, agreed but recently expanded that concept to the president being immune from prosecution from any crime he commits in office. Essentially believing the presidency should be replaced by a monarchy or tyranny.

Leo Strauss: His theories on how leaders can manipulate and control the masses have been very influential in the Republican Party and dominated the thinking during the Bush/Cheney Era. (Photo: thepublicdiscourse.com)

Also influential during the Bush-Cheney Era was the philosophy of Leo Strauss of the University of Chicago. He suggested that three essentials were necessary to control the populace for authoritarians to achieve and maintain power: War, the Big Lie, and Religion. The initial War was provided by Osama bin Laden’s attack on 9/11 that led to our invasion of Afghanistan where the villain was allowed to hide and operate. The Big Lie was provided by the 950-documented lies by the administration to dupe the Congress, news media, and American people into supporting an invasion of Iraq, which had nothing to do with the attack on the World Trade Center. Religion was used in this case against Muslims, who were falsely blamed as a group for 9/11 – in spite of Bush’s commendable opposition to do so.

(Later, Trump, realizing the Republican Party was ripe for his taking, continued the neglected war in Afghanistan but basically avoided adding any new wars to our agenda. However, he deliberately weakened America’s reputation and credibility by his hostility to NATO, his withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, his withdrawal from the Paris climate accords, and his insurrection on January 6, 2021. He has even supported Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Being a pathological liar, his daily lies over four years far surpassed all the lies combined by his predecessors – even including Bush/Cheney – capped by his election denial in 2020. However, his supporters found his steady stream of lies to be very entertaining and inspiring. Recognizing the anti-Islamic sentiment of his base, he attempted – but failed – to ban all Muslims from entry into the USA.)

Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush (2004): Cheney was the most powerful VP in American history and feared by most of the executive agencies and departments. (Photo: AFP via Getty Images)

Religion played an even greater part of the electoral success of Bush/Cheney, and there was also a tremendous effort to politicize the Department of Justice and to authorize the use of torture. And we cannot ignore the contributions of Karl Rove, the Architect. All of these played a role in the Republican Party’s turn to the “dark side” and descent into a Trumpista cult. Next time.