Two Memes Diverged in a Wood: The George W. Bush Lens on Trump's America

Hollow Leadership Exposed by The Twin Memes of Bush's Presidency

There has always been something deeply relatable about George W. Bush. He channeled our collective bewilderment when, after President Trump’s first inaugural “American carnage” speech, the former president remarked, “that was some weird shit.”

This relatability almost certainly assisted his 2004 reelection bid against Senator John Kerry, a more effete-coded member of the coastal elite. Kerry’s loss ushered in four more years of neoconservative wreckage, but by then at least we had some great memes to show for our troubles. The twin era-defining images of Bush first learning about the September 11 attack while reading to schoolchildren, followed by the absurdly premature aircraft carrier mission accomplished spectacle celebrating the invasion of Iraq live on in the cultural zeitgeist as timeless vessels for mocking the events of the day.

Now Trump and his unelected co-President are moving so fast and breaking so many things that events on Wednesday simultaneously triggered the rollout of both Bush’s pre-war on terror and post-war on terror memes:

A second strain of the H5N1 virus, also known as bird flu, was reported to have been detected in dairy cattle in Nevada. An overcrowded planet ravaged by climate change and runaway capitalism already poses an increasingly catastrophic risk of global pandemic, and domestically COVID-19 proved so tricky that it remains the only force to have ever constrained President Trump. Despite this singular political liability, Trump’s administration has moved swiftly to ratchet up the likelihood of the US suffering a repeat of COVID—or worse—during his second term.

So when a second type of bird flu hits the cattle, we’re facing more than a sharp increase in the price of burgers and eggs. As I was frying up a Denver Omelette for breakfast on the West Coast, Senate staff in DC had to delay their lunch break to assist failing former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The 82-year old Kentucky Senator, who as the chamber’s longest-serving Republican leader only recently handed control to the next generation, had already been steadily blinking his way out of existence. On Wednesday he fell down not once but twice, and a second Mitch McConnell hit the marble floor.

While McConnell was crashing to the floor for the second time in a day, two more airplanes collided in Seattle. Thankfully, the Air Japan-Delta crash occurred slowly at the gate, resulting in no injuries and minimal damage. Yet in the wake of a deadly plane crash last week in Philadelphia, itself following a horrific collision in Washington, the new administration’s deliberate attempts to endanger air travelers left us with only one response: mission accomplished.

Good humor is incredibly important in times as dark as ours. Yet for all their levity and precious irony, when applied to Trump these two memes expose a profound binary of presidential leadership as exhibited by Bush first on 9/11, and then in his subsequent response to that day. The mission accomplished moment invites only mockery, as it was instantly self-satirical and proved to be increasingly hilarious as the US war in Iraq spun wildly out of control. Mission accomplished is a pathetic attempt to manipulate the masses, to project strength where there is only weakness, control where there is only chaos.

Conversely stillness upon learning a second plane had hit the World Trade Center, while lampooned by Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, in reality reflects steel composure and a steady hand in a moment of sheer terror. By not instantly freaking out, as Moore would have us expect our president to do, Bush understood his most important job in that moment: to prevent any unwarranted sense of panic.

This image is seared into our nation’s memory, because in that moment he was all of us, learning in real time that the American century was finished and things would never be the same. That was the day George W. Bush became president, and mission accomplished was the day he became a punchline.

President Trump defined his politics against the disastrous Bush-era neocon misadventures and the Washington establishment they embodied, yet governs much like any traditional Republican—only at an ideological and operational fever pitch that would make his predecessor blush. The assault on constitutional rights driving Trump's mass deportation scheme is Bush's post-9/11 Patriot Act on steroids. And amphetamines. And ketamine. Beyond the looming specter of an administrative coup, his partnership with Elon Musk has gutted the United States Agency for International Aid, recklessly abandoning disease mitigation and reporting across the developing world.

Our responsibility now, in the crucible of a new Trump presidency where every day feels like the twisted offspring of January 6 and September 11, is to remember that Trump and Musk are destined to be the butt of our jokes. They are worthy only of mockery, of clever insult, of diminution. When the dust settles on this period of crisis, enduring memes of Donald Trump and Elon Musk will not signal strength, fortitude, or sober leadership. Their lasting memetic presence will be comically small, ultimately foiled and hung out to dry in history’s unforgiving light.

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