Bush: If Republican Party stands for ‘white Anglo-Saxon Protestantism, then it’s not going to win anything’

Former President George W. Bush said in a recent interview that if the Republican Party stands for “exclusivity” and “white Anglo-Saxon Protestantism, then it’s not going to win anything.”

Asked during an interview on The Dispatch Podcast last week about Republicans who have touted “Anglo-Saxon traditions” being put into law, Bush responded that “the idea of kind of saying you can only be Republican ‘if,’ then the ultimate extension of that is it ends up being a one-person party.”

“I know this — that if the Republican Party stands for exclusivity, you know, used to be country clubs, now evidently it’s white Anglo-Saxon Protestantism, then it’s not going to win anything,” Bush added.

The Dispatch’s Stephen F. Hayes was referencing the briefly proposed creation of an America First caucus in the House, a group that some pro-Trump lawmakers flirted with forming earlier this year.

The proposal received criticism from both sides of the aisle last month, with many calling the group racist over a platform that included a “common respect for uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions.”  

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who was behind the effort to form the caucus, later distanced herself from nativist language that called for a “common respect for uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions.”

In his interview, Bush was asked whether he would still identify as a Republican in several years if the GOP “followed that strain” of calling for “Anglo-Saxon traditions.”

“No, I’d say there’s not going to be a party,” Bush responded.

“It’s like saying when I was running for governor of Texas, you’ll never get any Latino votes because you’re Republican. And I said you watch. And I worked hard. And the key thing was to let them know that I could hear their voice. I mean, democracy is great in that sense,” he continued.

The 43^rd president in the interview with The Dispatch also rejected the falsehood that the 2020 presidential election that resulted in former President Trump’s defeat was “stolen.” 

Bush last month said that today’s Republican Party is far from what it used to be, calling it “isolationist, protectionist and to a certain extent nativist,” in an interview on NBC’s “Today.”

The former president has made a slate of appearances promoting his new book, a collection of portraits he painted of American immigrants, titled “Out of Many, One.”