In A Parallel Universe

Donald Trump may be a stark contrast to past Republican presidents but he bears comparison to a Democrat who survived impeachment and left office with a high approval rating.

- Paul Thomas

Even more so than that of Senator John McCain, the funeral of former President George HW Bush was both a reminder of a more decorous era in United States politics and an implicit rebuke of Donald Trump, whose presidency is, among other things, an attritional campaign against the very concept of decorum.

The 41st and 45th presidents are a study in contrasts: Bush the personification of the New England Wasp establishment – his father was a Wall St banker and US senator – Trump the outsider, the hustler/ salesman who absorbed the lesson at his father’s knee that rules are for other people.

Bush’s long career of public service began on his 18th birthday in 1942, when he enlisted in the US Navy. He became one of its youngest aviators, flying 58 combat missions and earning the Distinguished Flying Cross. Trump avoided the draft on medical and educational grounds, and infamously told shock jock Howard Stern that steering clear of sexually transmitted diseases at the height of Studio 54 decadence was his “personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave soldier.” He then agreed with Stern’s proposition that “every vagina is a landmine”.

The Bush Sr and Trump approaches to international affairs are so far apart that it’s hard to believe both were/are Republicans. Bush, a former ambassador to the United Nations, was an internationalist who assembled the 35-nation coalition that liberated Kuwait in the first Gulf War. Trump, an unworldly isolationist who treats traditional allies like sponging distant relatives, has effectively cancelled US membership of the Western world.