This thread got me wondering what President Bush would do if his approval ratings were as low as they are now, but it was early 2004, and he was facing re-election that fall.
I can’t believe that anything could get him re-elected in the present climate. So I’d wonder if he might step down for the good of the party (or they might ask him to). OTOH, if he has shown such a propensity to tune out ‘bad’ news, that I wonder if he’d ‘circle the wagons’. (I am assuming here that, contrary to the opinion of some on the thread I linked to, he actually is aware of his low popularity).
Lyndon Johnson famously decided to not run for reelection after concluding that the country was against him on the Viet Nam war. IIRC, he made the decision after Walter Kronkeit had opined that the war was unwinnable. Johnson was as power-hungry as any politician who ever lived, and in the opinion of fellow Democrat Gore Vidal, the most corrupt man ever to hold public office. But his ambition and ego weren’t enough to keep him from facing the inevitable. (To be fair, his health may have been a factor, since he died in 1972 IIRC).
I can’t imagine anything causing President Bush to make such a decision. Based on his reactions when former members of his administration have voiced dissent, I think he’d ‘shoot the messenger’.
I also think the matter isn’t just about Bush’s hard-to-deny stubbornness: society and politics have gotten more and more polarized since LBJ’s time (and he was no slouch in this regard). It seems sometimes like politicians (and voting blocs) care more about their ‘team’ ‘winning’ than what actually happens to the country.
Also, there isn’t a contemporary counterpart to Kronkeit, ‘the most trusted man in America’. Today, each side has a variety ‘trusted men’. Which I guess leads to speculation of what Bush would do if, say, Fox News or Rush Limbaugh came out against continuing the war.
Thoughts?
Mods, I didn’t think this topic was ‘G’ enough for ‘GD’, but feel free to move accordingly.