George W. Bush had 80-90 percent approval ratings after 9/11. Trump has barely half that...

[ArtTownsend]

...and Republicans are every bit as lined up behind Trump as they were under Bush in that period, if not more so.

What does that tell you?

[sakabatou]

1. They only care about re-election?

[ArtTownsend]

3. Partisan polarization is insane these days. It was bad after Bush invaded Iraq but it's worse now.

[dewsgirl]

2. I was like 22 and not paying to much attention. He did?

Last edited Sat Nov 30, 2019, 04:19 PM - Edit history (1)

Wow, I mean I know everyone stood behind him in the aftermath. I had no idea his approval was so high.

[ArtTownsend]

4. Yeah, it's kind of chilling in retrospect, considering what he, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al did...

[JHB]

9. It was mostly a repeat of what happened to his dad in 1990...

After Iraq invaded Kuwait, polls about what should we do were all over the place, but the the ones Bush supported were always really low. But if you asked "do you support the president?" then it was a very high "yes."

It's the "rally 'round in time of trouble" effect, which is why so may people have been afraid Trump will start a war to boost his numbers.

[dewsgirl]

11. I really don't think it would help him specifically. It's not like

the chaos would stop. It would be a distraction, I have been worried he would do it to distract.

[JHB]

12. I don't think it would help him either. Much too blatant...

...but what counts here is how he sees it. If he thinks it will help him, it remains a possibility.

[dewsgirl]

13. I know right.

[NYC Liberal]

15. He actually holds the record for both the highest and the lowest approval ratings.

93% after 9/11, and hit 19% near the end.

[dewsgirl]

16. Wow 19 percent, I didn't know that either. Yikes.😳

[Hortensis]

5. That 80-90% after 9/11 was total, not just Republican! Something that

scares me every time I think about it, which is before every big election since and too often the rest of the time. Putin and McConnell know very well what a well designed terrorist attack could do to increase conservative support.

As for Republican loyalty, of course, Nixon's approval also soared during Watergate because of the investigation, and he won reelection with a 49-state sweep.

Pelosi and company are also aware of the dangers, undoubtedly far more.

[lunatica]

6. Well it wasn't anything Bush actually did as much as as

90% of Americans became very rapidly united against the enemy who attacked us on our soil. Those same Americans would have united like that under any President.

No such attack has happened under Trump, so the comparison is pretty weak. We don’t have a common enemy murdering massive amounts of civilians in our country.

[Polybius]

8. That's true, but Bush was way less divisive at the time 9/11 happened

If (God-forbid) a 9/11 style attack happened under Trump, even if he handled it perfectly, I doubt his approval goes over 60%, if that.

[Drunken Irishman]

10. Yes. Bush at least went out of his way to pretend to unite.

I think he even visited a mosque after 9/11.

Behind the scenes, he was bad but he attempted to bridge the divide early in those days...probably realizing stoking the anger would have led to a lot of domestic strife.

Trump? He would be out in front of a mosque demanding the removal of all Muslims and basically creating that strife, division and chaos that we largely avoided after 9/11.

[JonLP24]

14. He did that photo op where he said he would go to the ends of the earth to

go after those so called enemies.

Bob Graham: "In the hours after 9/11, President Bush stated that the United States would go to the ends of the world to find who had committed this heinous act and bring them to justice. He also said that it appeared as if from the scale of the operation and its sophistication that a nation state was involved, and that that nation-state Iraq. We then proceeded to go to war with Iraq with very dire circumstances. I think that was the beginning scene of the cover-up of Saudi Arabia's involvement in 9/11, that it, not Iraq, provided 15 of the 19 hijackers. It was it, which had placed people in the United States months — or in some cases years — ahead of 9/11, who played a critical role in organizing and facilitating 9/11. They seem to have had some of the same shifting responsibility in this latest case."

https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2018/10/25/bob-graham-saudi-arabia-khashoggi

[Polybius]

7. I was one of those 80-90 percenters

I voted for Gore, but right after 9/11 I was fooled like nearly everyone else, and rallied around the President. It didn't last long though, as I started despising W. by mid 2002. Maybe earlier.

[fescuerescue]

17. I'm of the opinion that people vote for the party nowadays

Instead of the man or woman.

All I hear nowadays is Republicans saying they don't like Trump, but prefer his policies and how they couldn't vote for a Dem because of some BS reasons.

The Republicans could nominate a corrupt mafia boss and they would still vote for him. oh wait. they did exactly that.