We all know what happened to Bush and the republican party after 2002....
They lost The house, The senate and eventually the white house. It also leads to the rise of Nancy Pelosi since people wanted her a check on bush
In anything bringing up 2002 just proves my point. Back in the 1930s the great depression led to FDR and the Dems having power for decades, but after 9/11 Bush and his party only got 1 good midterm before the American people started kicking them all out of power
A super popular president is really the primary driver for a good midterm for their party. You're right, GWB only got one good midterm, but that is generally more than most termed-out presidents get. GWB got that good midterm because he was super popular in 2002, and then got a shellacking in 2006 because he was unpopular. There are various reasons for why he was, and various structural biases can amplify how good/bad the party does, but the general theme is the same: midterms are referendums on the president. People generally don't feel a need to put a check on a popular president and their party.
The depression comparison doesn't really work for 9/11. They both changed society and generation(s) of people, but not in the same ways. In one, a Republican presided over economic catastrophe and mostly bungled the response to it, and then sat in the White House for years, absorbing the blame as the GDP crashed and unemployment skyrocketed. In the other, we were attacked by foreign enemies and the people rallied around the president as he initiate a war against those enemies and later, another war since that was all the rage then.
Tell that to this guy.....
That's because the country's DNA at that point was fundamentally Democratic at virtually every level. Eisenhower was a war hero who was able to overcome it in spite of trends (not unlike both Reagan and Trump in terms of breaking the mold; 5 consecutive Democratic terms probably didn't hurt, either), but his personal popularity would have never stuck to his party as a whole.
