Bush was accidental catalyst of new GOP

The statement in the name of then-President George H.W. Bush was posted quietly in the White House pressroom on the morning of June 26, 1990, but there was nothing innocuous about its contents. It was a political thunderclap, the beginning of the Republican Party’s transformation and part of the Bush presidency’s unintended legacy.

The statement was a renunciation of one of the most famous campaign promises in modern American politics: Bush’s declaration of “no new taxes,” which he made as he accepted the Republican nomination in 1988. The pledge was a bow to conservatives, who always regarded him with suspicion, if not outright hostility. When he reneged on the promise, they exacted revenge.

The House was in Republican hands for the first time in 40 years, and the party’s dominant figure was House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who was the antithesis of the defeated president. The party began to shift from a philosophy of smaller government to one of anti-government, particularly anti-Washington.

The statement that appeared on the bulletin board in the White House pressroom on that morning in June 1990 showed Bush to be a president who was prepared to both compromise with the Democrats, even if it meant breaking a campaign promise, for what he believed were the country’s best interests and to take personal responsibility for his actions.

In the statement, Bush said, “It is clear to me” that budget agreements must include a series of elements, among them “tax revenue increases.” The words “to me” were added to the draft at the insistence of Democrats, who did not want Bush to be able to slide away from the compromise. This, he agreed, was evidence of his belief that this was the only route to a deal, which proved to be the case.

But the agreement also empowered Gingrich, a onetime backbencher, in his quest to remake the party. On the day Bush and the other leaders assembled at the White House to announce that they had an agreement, Gingrich balked. “I think you may destroy your presidency,” he said to Bush. He then left the president and other leaders at the White House and returned to the Capitol to begin mustering the forces of opposition. It was the beginning of a new Republican Party.

The conflicting interests of Bush and the Gingrich forces continued for the duration of Bush’s presidency. Gingrich’s wing saw conflict with the Democrats as essential to creating sharp differences between the parties; Bush saw cooperation with congressional Democrats in the name of effective governing as essential for the country and, he hoped, for winning re-election as president. On that, he proved mistaken.

A recession that he seemed unable to manage, a skilled opponent in then-Gov. Bill Clinton and the entry of independent candidate Ross Perot combined to end the Bush presidency after a single term. As other Republicans lamented the fall of a president whom they much admired, those in the forefront of creating the new Republican Party were relieved that Bush had been defeated.

Bush’s eldest son, George W. Bush, sought to restore his father’s sensibility to the GOP when he ran for president in 2000 and won the White House as a “compassionate conservative.” But he could neither remake nor retrofit the party. Though he was more conservative than his father, he nonetheless drew the ire of those on the right on issues such as immigration and spending.

The end of George W. Bush’s presidency further accelerated the changes within the Republican coalition, including the rise of a tea party movement that brought an even more unyielding form of antigovernment conservatism. Today, President Donald Trump is redefining the party in his own image, moving it ever further from the GOP over which George H.W. Bush presided. Bush’s role as an instrument in these changes will be remembered as a central part of the political fallout from his presidency.