Former President George W. Bush spoke with the Texas Tribune in partnership with this year’s SXSW Online Festival to push his new book on immigration, “Out of Many, One: Portraits of America’s Immigrants.”
In the interview, Bush said the January 6th protests left him “disgusted” and “sick to my stomach.”
He then goes on to slam the pro-American populist movement behind the rise of President Donald Trump, saying, “History and the United States has shown these populist movements begin to fritter over time.”
And Bush also praised the impossibly high voter turnout that put Joe Biden the White House.
It’s easy to understand how this guy left us with Barack Obama and Democrat super-majorities in Congress.
The Texas Tribune reported:
The former president said that while he is concerned about the scale of anger toward the government, he took heart in the high voter turnout rates in the 2018 and 2020 elections.
“It shows the vibrancy of democracy,” he said. “That’s a telltale sign that people want to get engaged in the system and that they were willing to go vote.”
“Look, politics has always been rough … And right now we’re at a period of time, though, when there’s a lot of anger in the system, which then causes people to worry about the future of our democracy,” he said. “I think it’s going to eventually work its way out of the system.
“History and the United States has shown these populist movements begin to fritter over time, and so I’m optimistic about democracy.”
Asked if the Trump-led federal government put democracy at risk in the aftermath of the 2020 election, Bush had another one-word answer: “No.”
“What’s putting democracy at risk is the capacity to get on the internet to spread … all kinds of stuff,” he said. “But checks and balances work. It’s a, you know, a balanced system. The courts work. The legislative process needs a little work, particularly on immigration reform … No, I thought the system worked fine.”
