Nothing says political ambitions like A Republican and a Communist. Photo: Bush Family Archives.

By Gwendolyn L. Spelvin

A tale of two men paralleled by fate at different marks in history.  Jeb Bush never knew Leon Trotsky personally; Trotsky was already dead a decade by the time he was born.  However, the humorous similarities between the two men make you wonder if Bush isn’t a cryogenically frozen copy of him hiding out in futuristic witness protection program.

The truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.

For starters, both men are known by cornball monikers with few people remotely remembering anything else.  Jeb’s real name is John Ellis Bush.  Apparently someone in his family thought his initials made such a cool nickname versus sounding like a day player on the Beverly Hillbillies.  How much more southern redneck can you get next to playing on the Deliverance soundtrack?

Trotsky’s real name is a subject of crucial debate.  I’ve seen Leiba Bronstein, Lev Davidovich Bronshein.  Either way, dude got a tough break early in life with a name like that, even by Russian standards.  However, the name Leon Trotsky sounds like a black guy that has ate far too many plates of chitterlings and hot sauce and has the ‘trots’ versus serious Russian revolutionary.

Nothing is wrong with going au natural finding suitable mates to play with.

With corny names it doesn’t surprise me one bit that their hot little love affairs kicked off in Mexico.  After all, Jeb hooked up with his unibrow queen on collegiate foreign exchange and later married her.  Trotsky, after being expelled from Russia and fleeing for his life, had an affair with host and unibrow queen Frida Kahlo right before being shanked with an ice pick.

Neither really had a working knowledge of the language, and both became love machines to their younger women as soon as they wooed them into bed for an indiscriminate amount of time.  Not bad for strangers that can’t cut the mustard with chicks in their own backyard.  They dig the hairy estrogen types in those parts.

Locking down a good thing before she finds out you’re a cheap bastard equals marriage.

Marriage should never be rushed into; however, when beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and most eyes consider you homely, you better get while the getting is good before she gets glasses on.  Trotsky and Jeb even in their 20s were not making the hot college studs of Playgirl list.  So they rushed into those youthful marriages sparing no expense on their first lovelies they wanted to give their name to.

Jeb got hitched to Columba right after he turned 21.  His marriage was an elaborate event at the University of Texas’s Catholic student center.  Guests included students walking across the quad to get to their next class.  Talk about a big spender going all out; getting married right at the center of the worse collegiate college shooting in the state’s history is an affair to remember.

Trotsky bought the cow at 21 too, in the middle of doing a four year bit in a Siberian prison for his revolutionary activities.  His lady love and fellow rebel Alexandra Lvovna shared exile and freedom in common before tying the knot.  Nothing says I love you like matching sets of balls and chains going down the aisle.  If that isn’t prison rehabilitation and reform for the marital scrapbook, I don’t know what is.

When membership is down you don’t recruit; you breed new affiliates.

Jeb and Trotsky put their mark on their women and their respective political parties by popping out their lot of future members quickly.  Jeb managed to procreate three; Trotsky four in a two by two formation of two marriages.  Ironically, both named one son after themselves; they became active in politics to an even lesser degree of infamy than them.  That just goes to show that insanity is not repeating the same thing repetitively hoping for a different result.

These kids helped both men solidify family values in their party, leading to governance positions they let go to their heads.  Policies created during their tenure to help the children did more harm than good in the long term scope of things; both signing off on their versions of ‘Stand Your Ground’ is not the highlight of their leadership.  At least they now know that it didn’t work for the Bolsheviks and it didn’t work well for Trayvon Martin.

Going along to get along can get you a long way in a different direction.

Standing in someone else’s shadow is never a good thing, especially when your political party supports such legacy efforts.  Jeb is guilty by association for his father and brother’s failure the same as Trotsky is for Stalin and Lenin’s.  So it makes sense that they both hypocritically caused party division by ideology right?

Trotsky denounced parts of Lenin and Stalin’s control over labor while benefitting himself from it financially.  Jeb recently denounced the ruling of Citizen’s United while just gladly accepting 100 million bucks in campaign contributions from corporate lobbyists who could do so by that ruling.  That’s a major no-no dealing with political parties that can not only blackball you within government but slander you in the press.

Republican history may not repeat itself, but communism sure does rhyme.  Biting the hand that feeds you bleeds no matter who’s hand it is.  Jeb is the last man standing of the two and still has a chance to change the end of his story.  Granted, they both made it to their 60s.  Let’s just hope Jeb is smart enough to see how that worked out for Trotsky as he proceeds in his walk to the presidency.