The is no mail today. Mail service has been cancelled for the funeral of President Bush, the 41st one, not the 43rd.
Over the last few days much has been written about his Presidency, one that may have been a case of a leader who watched his popularity fade due to mistakes that cost him large voter blocs. But a lot of it seems to also be based on using Trump as a benchmark. That the 41st President may have been one of that dying breed of reasonable Republicans that have been killed by the GOP's need to rely on being able to dog whistle; rural, white, less-educated, lower-middle to lower-class, male voters.
But a closer look may make one think that the late President in a few ways paved the way for Trump. People forget that the infamous Willie Horton ad was likely what helped him win. That ad was basically a race-based "dog whistle". At that time, the ad was shocking, but such ads seems common from a GOP that seems to rely on getting people to vote against their economic interests and for what Bill Moyers once called "The party of the plutocrats".
Another way President Bush may have paved the way to Trump is by moving the Democrats right. After the defeats in 1984 and 1988, Democrats began to shift away from the New Deal and Great Society policies, and more towards courting the same corporate dollars. We saw the rise of the "New Democrat", Bill Clinton being the best example. The aftermath of this was that many working-class voters saw the Democratic party as abandoning them. The ideas of folks like Sen Warren, Sen Sanders and Representative Ocasio are nothing new. Their ideas were the Democratic party platform of the millennials grandparents or even great-grandparents.
When things are bad, anything looks better. But a closer look shows that Bush may have been part of the downward spiral of the GOP that may have begun with Nixon's "Southern Strategy", and hopefully has bottomed out with Trump.