George Bush and the Death of the US Elite

European Straits #98

Dear all,

George H.W. Bush is not the first sitting American president I remember: I was born under Carter and grew up under Reagan. But his is the first US presidential campaign I have memories of. I didn’t know what Democrats and Republicans were about at the time, as I was only 11 in 1988. Mostly I remember thinking that the candidates had very cool American names. (Yes, if you’re French and don’t know a word of English, “George Bush” and “Michael Dukakis” sound like very cool names—and you don’t even realize that “Dukakis” is actually Greek.)

Reflections on the elite

The passing of the 41st US President led to the publishing of many obituaries and articles about his personality, his politics, his family, his legacy. It’s normal that most of those articles were rather friendly. When someone dies, nobody wants to speak evil of them; even if you didn’t like the person, you’d rather remain silent and wait for the inevitable judgement of history. But I was struck by two articles that real…