Bush II was not very popular then he was. He kept us safe during the 9/11 attacks and was then very popular. Then "we" went to war and he was still popular. Eventually people realized that no matter how many Friedman Units we had, the Iraq war was bad. If you did not live through 9/11-2007 or so it is impossible to explain it to you. The Trump era - which is fucking horrible - is actually (so far!) much more sane and reasonable than that time. Only a few crazy bloggers understand this, but it's actually not debatable. This is just fact. People don't know how bad the Bush era was because most people tuned out. It was bad! Really really really bad!
Eventually the people realized he was bad, but still the press wrote "comeback kid" stories similar to the perpetual "Trump pivot" stories.
The black president was always unpopular, even when he wasn't.
