When was Bush's Thermidor?

[minionofmidas]

I'm going to go on a limb here and say that Ronald Reagan's death had as much to do symbolically with Bush's descent into the depths of unpopularity (at least among his own base) as anything else. While Reagan was alive, the Republican President could prop him up on a stick and rally a diverse coalition of competing interest groups around his memory. With Reagan out of the way, and Bush II taking up the mantle of senior-most Republican, it became much more difficult almost instantly for him to have that same effect.

With the greater populace, of course, it's different: either Katrina or Abu Ghraib might have done the trick.

Abu Ghraib, I think, meant much more to foreigners than it did to most Americans.

He lost the world beyond America's borders the day he set up the Gitmo Concentration Camp.

[Franzl]

I'm going to go on a limb here and say that Ronald Reagan's death had as much to do symbolically with Bush's descent into the depths of unpopularity (at least among his own base) as anything else. While Reagan was alive, the Republican President could prop him up on a stick and rally a diverse coalition of competing interest groups around his memory. With Reagan out of the way, and Bush II taking up the mantle of senior-most Republican, it became much more difficult almost instantly for him to have that same effect.

With the greater populace, of course, it's different: either Katrina or Abu Ghraib might have done the trick.

Abu Ghraib, I think, meant much more to foreigners than it did to most Americans.

He lost the world beyond America's borders the day he set up the Gitmo Concentration Camp.

Now I wasn't in Germany in 2001/2002....but I always thought that Gitmo only became unpopular around the time of the Iraq War. Was it viewed negatively from the very beginning?

[J. J.]

I think the slide started with Terri Schiavo.  That never really was a federal issue and Bush spent political capital to make it one.