Legalized pot more popular than Republicans

Yglesias made a chart comparing public support for legalizing marijuana to the approval ratings for Rush Limbaugh and various other Republican leaders:


He concludes with typical snark:

Needless to say, support for marijuana legalization is pretty much a "fringe" view in national politics. And it certainly doesn’t have majority support.

Nate Silver plots the history:



And predicts the future:

My guess is that we'll need to see a supermajority of Americans in favor of decriminalizing pot before the federal government would dare to take action on it. If the upward trend since 1990 holds (and recall my earlier caution: it might not), then legalization would achieve 60 percent support at some point in 2022 or 2023. About then is when things might get interesting. But I'd guess we'll see other some other once-unthinkable things like legalized gay marriage first.

The horror!