George H.W. Bush (1924-2018) died this weekend. The scion of a prominent political family—his father, Prescott, was a U.S. Senator from Connecticut—President Bush built the family into a political dynasty. Bush served as an aviator in the United States Navy, and as a member of the United States House of Representatives, Ambassador to the United Nations, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, Liaison to China, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Vice President, and President of the United States. Aside from our nation’s founders, Bush’s service to his country was incomparably broad and deep. Beyond his own stellar political career, two of his sons, George W. Bush and Jeb Bush, became governors, and one of those two became president. George W. Bush rose to the nation’s highest office in 2000, a scant eight years after his father’s final electoral defeat.

George H.W. Bush deserves to be praised, and our nation ought to celebrate his legacy. I will join in the memorial. He will be lauded far and wide as the kind, decent, mostly moderate man that he was. We will lament, nationally, his physical absence, but also the absence of his kind on our political scene. In my mind, Mitt Romney, the newly elected U.S. Senator from Utah, serves as the only similar model.

But as we weep and applaud and, most importantly, remember his legacy, we must take this moment to reflect on our time and on our political house, which is demonstrably out-of-order. As much as we will cheer the man, we, as a people, have roundly repudiated his kind on both sides of our political aisle—right and left, conservative and liberal. The media, which will seize on this moment to pose President Bush in opposition to President Trump, did its best to destroy President Bush and to reject all that he represented. When in the breach, confronted by decency, which was rivaled by cynical opportunism, the media went all in for the amusing debasement that was William Jefferson Clinton. Perhaps it was political. After all, abortion was the touchstone of progressivism, the symbol of female equality. Perhaps it was a generational repudiation of Leave it to Beaver and the embrace of Woodstock and SDS. Perhaps it was an instinctual desire to cheer for the little guy who came from Hope, instead of a family that felt like American aristocracy. Whatever it was, it happened, and we should not forget.

Bush’s electoral defeat at the hands of Clinton, with Perot as the jester, signified a transition that we only partially recognized. Clinton was the first American president not deeply touched by World War II. Unlike his opponent in the race, Mr. Clinton dodged not the bullets of an enemy, but a draft. Unlike his opponent, he was hounded by marital infidelities and allegations of rape and assault. Bush’s generation liberated the oppressed, while Clinton’s liberated the libido.

The divide between the Bushes and the Clintons was even more severe. Bill Clinton was a new kind of politician. He gloried in the spotlight and searched for it in every corner of the media universe. He played his saxophone for Arsenio Hall. He went on MTV to declare whether he was a boxers or briefs sort of guy. He was obviously, howlingly, likable. He sought to be the first “cool” president and he succeeded. “Bubba” was the man, we were told, women were attracted to and men wanted to hang out with. Slick Willie was the bright but amiable jock that controlled the cafeteria seating and everyone wanted to bask in his grin.

The media savaged George H.W. Bush for carrying into the public realm an old-fashioned sensibility. Bush was not a natural, charismatic politician. He preferred for much of his private life to stay private. He always seemed a bit at war with the spotlight, but when it illuminated him, he reeked of decency and congeniality. On camera, his was a distant friendliness, the kindness of a boss you never know, but admire, or a grandfather who adored you but did not express himself through hugs. His biggest flaw, in the end, is that he did not penetrate our psyche as Reagan or Clinton.

This demeanor allowed Bush to be labeled as “out of touch” with regular people. They made fun of him for appearing to marvel at a grocery scanner, assuming he left such pedestrian matters to “the help.” Writers at The New York Times and The Boston Globe made Bush into Marie Antionette, calling for Americans to snack in the Entenmann’s aisle. In reality, the scanner he was in awe of was indeed new and had capabilities unseen in the marketplace. It could weigh groceries and read mangled bar codes. Bush also, shockingly, checked his watch during a precious “town hall” style debate. He was also rich. He was Kennebunkport. He was privileged. But Clinton? He was hardscrabble. He was blue-collar. He was “one of us.”

These things mattered, while Clinton’s sexual indiscretions, or worse, did not. Private morality should not, it seems, obviate an oddly public, emotional connection or feeling we might have with certain leaders. “Do I want to have dinner with him?” was more critical than, “Is he a good man?”

Bush lost. Clinton won. In every sense. For Bush, his loss was gracious. The famous letter he left Clinton as he took over the Oval Office has, properly, grown to define Bush. He also embraced the time-honored tradition of the President who does not publicly criticize those who follow him in office. Bush helped build that presidential fraternity. His followers, notably Clinton and Obama, have chosen not to follow his lead.

All of this obviously informs our current moment. The political conflicts between the Bushes, Clintons, and, eventually, the Trumps was freighted with drama, but the clash also symbolized radically different public sensibilities. Interestingly, these sensibilities transcend party and ideology. These are not merely political affiliations, but they are instead cultural choices. Trump, as a man, though he ostensibly shares a party label with the departed Bush, and his son, is far more Bill Clinton than Bush. Trump, before he was president, was, at best, a cad. He was morally suspect in ways beyond sexuality, but, by golly, plenty of people like him. He is entertaining. He is cunning during debates. Armed more with nicknames than knowledge, Trump steamrolled a crowded primary, that included Jeb Bush, and a general election that included Mrs. Clinton. Trump aborted, it seems, two dynasties in 2016.

Media members are already using President Bush’s death to contrast him with President Trump. They will long for the days of when politicians at least attempted to be publicly honorable. They will praise the elder Bush’s competence and qualifications and his steady hand in foreign affairs. The traditional media seems to detest Donald Trump. One of the great ironies of this man who calls the news media the “enemy of the American people,” is that the media, with its unfailing lust for ratings, novelty, and conflict, as opposed to the “boring” traits of steadiness and experience, built the greenhouse that eventually spawned Trump.

The entertaining line drawn from Reagan to Clinton to Obama to Trump should occupy some careful scholars in the coming years. The demand for likability, warmth, and, ultimately, amusement, now defines, at least for now, electorally successful presidents. There is little to connect Reagan to Trump save for their innate ability to make many people laugh. The two men espoused different conceptions of government, varying approaches to foreign policy, and contrasting ideals of personal conduct. The link between Clinton and Obama is equally imperfect. Obama was the consummate family man, a model of personal morality. Clinton argued for ideological moderation, declaring the era of big government over, while Obama was a zealot for the expansion of presidential authority and the growth of the social welfare system. Each man, though, captivated media attention through demeanor. They pushed the boundaries of what had been acceptable before. President Obama made NCAA picks and yucked it up with the Pimp with the Limp on the radio. Both men used their media platforms to savage their opponents. Romney, effectively, got “Bushed.” He was, if possible, even more of a square than the elder Bush and he was destroyed because of it.

Losing George H.W. Bush, while inevitable practically and existentially, is a bit of a wound. He was the first president I voted for and I was proud to do it. I study and teach politics for a living, so I don’t think I suffer under the illusion that “back then” everyone was a good person, while “now,” because of those crazy kids and their dog, everyone is bad. These things are not only false, but manufactured by sentimentality. But things have changed, I think for the worst, since Bush the Elder lost in 1992. The argument, to a degree, was about the place of private morality in our public life. That argument feels quaint today. We seem now to assume that everyone is a private reprobate. The battleground has shifted toward the importance of public morality, or, failing that, at least decency and civility. Does it matter if POTUS insults everyone? Does it matter if he lies, repeatedly, to his constituents? For the most part, the answer to these questions appears to be in the negative.

We stand now possibly confronted by even harder matters. Are we concerned if President Trump had, or has, business dealings with Russians, the Saudis, or their proxies? Do we care if elected officials, and their representatives, lie to Congress? Does it matter if presidential hopefuls smear nominees and horde “evidence” for political impact instead of following due process? My fear is that in our quest to banish private morality, and now public decency, from the realm of the significance, we will have sacrificed public morality in the process. That is a shaded, covered path that, as far as I can tell, we as a people have not yet traveled. The prospects of traveling it leave me cold.