By John Q. Hosedrinker 
Liz Cheney is urging former president George W. Bush to speak out against Donald Trump. During an interview on The New Yorker Radio Hour podcast, she stated that she can’t explain why Bush hasn’t spoken out yet, but she thinks it’s time he does. Cheney’s comments were recorded before Trump made controversial comments about her. Cheney’s father, former vice president Dick Cheney, served under Bush and has expressed his disapproval of Trump, declaring he should never be trusted with power again. However, Bush has kept silent on Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric.
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Liz Cheney’s recent suggestion that George W. Bush should endorse Kamala Harris feels like a dramatic scene plucked from a twisted political thriller. As I muse over this, I find myself wrestling with a torrent of mixed emotions. The intertwining fates of Cheney, Bush, and Harris illustrate just how far we’ve wandered down a political path marked by unexpected alliances and eerie nostalgia for a time when American politics felt just a bit more grounded—albeit only slightly.
Cheney’s call for Bush to step forward honestly baffles me. “It’s time,” she says, but time for what? To reassert a sense of decency, perhaps? To reclaim a Republican identity that feels more like a forgotten relic than a guiding principle? It’s a blatant acknowledgment that, in this moment, the very foundations of traditional Republican values are in shambles, all while the chaos wrought by Trump looms large. Simply put, if Liz Cheney can stand against the moral decay that Trump represents, shouldn’t Bush be able to do the same? Yet, to suggest that his endorsement could carry weight in a landscape that has all but vilified him feels absurd.
Bush, while no longer the outright villain he once seemed to certain sectors of the left, still carries a heavy burden from the wars initiated during his presidency. The context of all this complicates things further. It’s hard not to see a darker irony in the call for an endorsement from a man whose decisions resulted in vast suffering and a generation lost. We live in a political climate where endorsing a candidate now seems more about distancing oneself from another rather than advocating for actual ideals. The endorsement game is a delicate dance, one where every move is scrutinized, and every misstep can spiral into a PR nightmare.
The prospect of a George W. Bush endorsement for Harris resonates on some level as an emblem of larger forces at work. It speaks volumes about the current climate of alienation within the Republican party itself. Moderate conservatives, represented by Cheney and the ghost of the Bush legacy, appear to be scrambling for relevance as they find themselves increasingly marginalized by the far-right faction that has seized control. Meanwhile, Harris represents a Democratic party that seems willing to embrace any olive branch extended towards an era when bipartisanship—even a disingenuous form—could still be imagined.
But what exactly does Bush bring to the table as an endorser? I can’t help but question the effectiveness of his supposed influence. Many in the voting public are unlikely to care about an endorsement that reeks more of a desperate need for validation than meaningful political support. In reality, I sense that many progressives would recoil from an endorsement bearing the taint of war crimes and national embarrassment that shadows Bush. There’s a genuine concern that instead of appealing to undecided voters, such gestures risk alienating the very constituents that Democrats need to galvanize in this juggernaut of a political season.
The idea that endorsing Harris is an olive branch to disenchanted Republicans could backfire spectacularly. While aspiring to unify differing factions might seem noble, it might just result in disillusionment among the left. There’s a danger in courting endorsers with morally questionable legacies. It feels like painting over the cracks of the façade instead of addressing the chaos that underpins it. What about the voters who have distaste for war criminals endorsing a candidacy? Does that not disenfranchise a large contingent of the electorate?
This entire situation feels increasingly surreal, as if we’re navigating through territory we never thought we would inhabit. The alliances on display—Cheney and Bush on one side, Harris on the other—reflect a desperate bid for a semblance of normalcy in a political landscape that has skewed