This thread is clearly a parody against twenty42's thread.
Yes. I would hope that is obvious.
For the record, I disagree very much with the argument I made in the OP. I disagree with it for precisely the same reasons that I disagree with the argument made by twenty42.
Anyone who disagrees with either argument ought to disagree with the other one.
The difference is that a president's approval rating can rise without a catastrophic event, but their approval will only likely fall in the event of bad news for America.
That or another, actually charismatic opponent eventually manages a counter-narrative that stirs up the base and flips a few indies, which artificially lowers approvals for a time.
And if there's a challenger who isn't that charismatic, then the incumbent base will ensure a means to sink that challenger and artificially raise the president's approvals as happened with Bush in '04 and Obama in '12.
And all this seems increasingly more and more divorced from catastrophic events or downturns. Or at least divorced from one-size-fits-all catastrophic events and downturns.
