HOMEBOY HAS SOME SOUL-SEARCHING TO DO:

Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush said "white terrorism" is a "real and present threat" following the mass shooting in El Paso Saturday that left 20 people dead and dozens of others wounded.

Bush cited his service as a naval officer in Afghanistan in calling for greater vigilance against violent white supremacists.

"I believe fighting terrorism remains a national priority. And that should include standing firm against white terrorism here in the US," Bush said in a statement released Saturday evening. "There have now been multiple attacks from self-declared white terrorists here in the US in the last several months. This is a real and present threat that we must all denounce and defeat."

Before the last presidential election, few people were giving much thought to George P. Bush's existence. That changed in August 2016. At the time, the Bush family was resolutely #NeverTrump. But at a Texas GOP gathering, Bush broke ranks. He told activists that, although it was a "bitter pill to swallow," the time had come to get behind Donald Trump in order to "stop Hillary Clinton."

As the Texas GOP's victory chair--the person leading the state party's election efforts--he said he didn't have much of a choice. "I couldn't look grassroots activists in the face and say, 'Well, Trump is good enough for you, but not for me,' " he told me at CrossFit. He said his father understood. "To be honest with you, I think he took it a little easier than the rest of my family ... My uncle, though--that did require a sit-down." He delivered the news in the library of the 43rd president's home in Dallas, whereupon his uncle expressed concern that the endorsement could be "a short-term gain for a long-term cost." As for George W. Bush's relationship with Trump today: He "is not going to be the one to engage in a war of words on Twitter." If he were asked for advice, Bush continued, the former president would sit down with the current one and provide it. But that advice hasn't been requested, so what Bush describes as a "contentious relationship" continues.

Bush's endorsement may have made for awkward conversations with his family, but it served him well with other Texas Republicans. He constantly fields questions from voters about just how aligned his politics are with his family's. The biggest misconception, he said, is "that I'm in lockstep with them on everything." He cited public funding of Planned Parenthood as one point of disagreement. He said other members of his family were "pretty much in support of that," but he's been against abortion rights his whole political career. It's an issue that Bush, who is Catholic, says is "core to my values."

For Bush, endorsing Trump, however tepidly, was a chance to add another bullet point to his I'm-my-own-man list. Yes, he had the same concerns about the real-estate mogul as many other traditional Republicans did, the biggest one being whether he could defend Trump's character to his children. Bush told me it's a reservation "that I still have, honestly." But he managed to express his concerns about Trump without the holier-than-thou tenor that helped tank the careers of so many other Republicans, including his father.

In the lead-up to Bush's 2018 reelection campaign for land commissioner, this was smart politics: Texas favored Trump over Clinton by a 9 percent margin. His endorsement also opened the door to a friendship with Trump's eldest son, Don Jr., who agreed to headline a fundraiser for Bush in New York last summer, only to pull out at the last minute, after Jeb Bush condemned Trump's family-separation policy as "heartless" on Twitter. "Don called me and said, 'Look, I'm in an awkward position. I can't do this.' And I said I understood," Bush told me. (He says his father responded "So what?" to the fallout.) Thereafter, he tried to reassure voters that he still had his "own message," distinct from his family's. "I also have my own friendships," he added.

Some in Texas--including those Democrats who understood Bush's political need to endorse Trump--wondered whether, in his general silence on presidential positions important to Texas, such as immigration, Bush was now sliding too far in Trump's direction. They were also beginning to wonder whether the young Hispanic Republican's potential to unite Texas voters might go unrealized.

"Eight years ago, he was kind of this rising star," says James Aldrete, a Democratic strategist in Texas. "But Trump has taken the party," and Bush has decided, to his father's embarrassment, to go along. To stay relevant at this point, Aldrete thinks that Bush would have to commit to "reshaping and saving" his party. "You haven't seen that courage from him so far."

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