Is George H.W. Bush's Reported Support of Hillary Tied to His Fear of a 'Dumbed Down' America?
According to Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (former Maryland lieutenant governor and daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy) America's oldest living president, George H.W. Bush, will be bucking his party's nominee in November and casting a vote for Hillary Clinton instead.
"Bush, 92, had intended to stay silent on the White House race between Clinton and Donald Trump, a sign in and of itself of his distaste for the GOP nominee. But his preference for the wife of his own successor, President Bill Clinton, nonetheless became known to a wider audience thanks to Kathleen Hartington Kennedy Townsend," Politico reported.
"The President told me he’s voting for Hillary!!” reads the text in this Facebook picture of the two of them posted by Townsend:
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No one in the Bush family attended the GOP convention, but the senior Bush's announcement marks a turning point for the famous political family. But Trump's appeal to the "poorly educated," the politically disenfranchised and the economically disadvantaged, leading to a rift in the party, is something George H.W. Bush may have predicted as president decades ago.
"We are going to keep on trying to strengthen the American family, to make [them] a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons," Bush remarked in January 1992, during a gathering of the National Religious Broadcasters.
"Hey! We're just like the Waltons," Bart Simpson responded a few days later on "The Simpsons." "We're praying for an end to the Depression, too."
This continued the controversy first sparked by Barbara Bush, who called "The Simpsons" "the dumbest thing" she had ever seen in an October 1990 interview with People magazine. But Bush lost that election, and Bill Clinton's presidency signaled a new era of celebrity and media power to influence elections.
