Politics & Power Quote by Tom Tancredo

It’s a credential-check disguised as small talk: Tancredo stacks identity labels like badges, then seals them with the era’s ultimate conservative receipt, “I voted for George Bush.” The line isn’t trying to persuade undecideds. It’s trying to pre-clear the speaker for a tougher message that might otherwise read as extreme or impolite. By foregrounding partisan bona fides, he asks the audience to treat what follows as principled rather than prejudiced, policy-minded rather than reactive.

The phrasing matters. “You know” performs intimacy and inevitability, as if the listener already accepts the premise. “I’m a Republican, I’m a Conservative” is redundant on purpose: a rhythmic doubling that narrows the frame and warns off complexity. Then comes the specific shibboleth: George Bush. Not Reagan, not Goldwater, not an abstract “the party” - Bush places the speaker inside the post-9/11, security-first Republican mainstream, when loyalty tests were both culturally potent and politically useful. It signals alignment with the party’s national mood (war, borders, patriotism) and invites the audience to interpret hardline positions as continuity, not rupture.

Subtextually, it’s inoculation. Tancredo’s brand was confrontation, especially on immigration; the preface says, Don’t accuse me of being outside the tribe. It also pressures opponents: if even a Bush voter is saying this, the argument goes, then maybe it’s just common sense. That’s the move: shift the debate from evidence to identity, from policy details to who gets to speak without being suspected.