George W. Bush is deservedly out of America’s doghouse. The nation’s 43rd President has behaved as a true statesman since leaving Washington in 2009, and did his penance for becoming unpopular. Post-Trump he seems way smarter than people gave him credit for then, and he’s frankly just a much better human being than the next Republican after him. He’s been humanized by his paintings, love of baseball, charity work, and even burying his parents. He also has paid a steep political price, watching his brother, his nephew, and his Vice-President’s daughter be destroyed politically. The time for hating George W. Bush, problems and all, has passed.

With that all said, we cannot overstate enough how disastrous George W. Bush’s Presidency was for our country, and how it got us to where we are in 2023. George “Dubbya” was a tremendously gifted politician, and basically wasted those gifts on destructive things, and would have done more if public opinion hadn’t caught up to him. His Presidency was mostly a disaster. I’ve identified what I view as his chief blunders below:

• 1. Iraq and his general foreign policy. This one feels pretty universally accepted, as even Trump has essentially railed against this part of his party’s former self. We lost thousands of troops in Iraq, left more wounded and mentally injured, killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, gave rise to recruiting for multiple terrorist organizations, spent ourselves into deep debt, harmed our relationships with Allie’s, and wrecked our image in the world. His Afghanistan War had no plan or real goal in mind. He eroded personal liberties and dramatically expanded government surveillance with the Patriot Act. Worse yet? He had at least some bipartisan support for a lot of it. Going into Afghanistan and creating DHS were probably necessary after 9/11. The rest left lasting damage. We continue to pay today for the damage we did to our veterans. It was a series of awful decisions. Taxpayers paid dearly in terms of lives and dollars.
• 2. The Bush Energy Policy was incredibly backward. In 2001 it was probably necessary to increase domestic energy production. The potential economic impact of the opposite wasn’t acceptable. The decision to completely ignore alternative, green energy sources, and to instead subsidize fossils, was a disaster. First, it exacerbated the climate change, which we didn’t really address nationally for another decade, and in any meaningful way until 2022. Had we started to phase in wind, solar, and nuclear at that point, we wouldn’t have the calls for more dramatic (and impossible) actions now. Second, it left us dependent on oil, including from nations like Saudi Arabia and Russia now. Third, developing new energy sources is a job boom. This was just stupid.
• 3. The Bush tax cuts were worthless. Sure, rich people kept more money. Sure, they were a little better to middle income earners than Trump’s tax cuts. Beyond that? It blew a hole in our nation’s budget, eliminated the surpluses he inherited, and caused a huge increase in debt, when combined with his huge defense spending. it was the largest accumulation of debt in our history, and we never really climbed out of it.
• 4. Deregulating the financial system caused a crash of epic proportions. In the late years of the Clinton Administration, Congress repealed banking regulations with huge (veto proof) bipartisan support. That isn’t Bush’s fault. Expanding on that, and lax enforcement of the laws left is. Essentially using the tax code to encourage growth at all costs and then not keeping any eyes on the Wall Street banks while they sold out consumers, lead us to such risky behavior that they melted down the economy- including retirement funds and nearly whole industries (automakers). We then had to do huge cash bailouts, and the Federal Reserve had to move to cheap money (low interest rates) to bail out the economy. The impacts of that are still being felt today.
• 5. The failure to regulate the “information economy”/social media boom. Does Bush deserve some slack on this? Yes, because multiple Presidents let this go. Was he probably best positioned to address it? Yes. He didn’t. Now misinformation runs rampant. Companies collect ridiculous amounts of information about us, and sell it. Predators target women and children with little oversight. The internet was poisoned. The opportunity to really fix it passed.

I appreciate the post-Presidency of George W. Bush- his defense of democratic norms, push to expand on his work to fight AIDS, and his advocacy for veterans. I think he’s probably a pretty decent dude, all things considered. I also just can’t deny the reality- he’s probably the most damaging President of modern times. His failures unleashed changes in our political parties that basically got us to Trumpism. He dramatically changed our policy norms moving forward. He failed to address major issues facing our world. He probably was the biggest influence pushing Putin to his place today. Bush 43’s Presidency was a disaster- and we still are dealing with it.