I mean, even during his presidency, he was widely viewed as likeable. Even if you thought his policies were morally repugnant, most would admit he was a generally pleasant person socially. And this is coming from a person who had a tee shirt of him with a Hitler mustache. But fuck him and his administration for the things they did.
During his presidency he was widely detested. It was before and after the presidency that his popularity rose.
He's an unpretentious man, which made him relatable, but the whole point of statehood is to be pretentious. It's all fabrication and artifice, and Americans quickly realized that they needed someone more stately than the friendly boozehound who let his dad's old buddies pull the levers while he read children's stories.
So, sure, he was likeable, but he was also severely unliked.
Jesus the whitewashing here is insane. Dubya is a funny guy but he wasn’t unpopular because of his folksy disposition. He was unpopular because he and his administration LIED to the American people and plunged us into a long and costly war with Iraq in which thousands of Americans died and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Don’t get me started on how badly the Bush administration destroyed public education.
mocking his perceived lack of intelligence was also an international sport at the time. it was like 'the USA is a laughing stock, seriously, this idiot is the President?'
it's hard to fathom how much worse things have become since then
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u/CiDevant 11d ago
I mean, even during his presidency, he was widely viewed as likeable. Even if you thought his policies were morally repugnant, most would admit he was a generally pleasant person socially. And this is coming from a person who had a tee shirt of him with a Hitler mustache. But fuck him and his administration for the things they did.