"The Party of Bush"

Originally one of Andrew's readers wrote:

If you recall, Bush left with some of the lowest approval numbers in history. This by definition means that many, many of the conservatives felt betrayed by Bush. We were not clouded in our thinking. We disliked his big spending ways all along. If we approved of his domestic spending and big government views, he would have maintained approval ratings closer to 50%, but he didn't. We did not approve. These Tea Parties are an outgrowth of that, but more so a response to the fact that Obama has taken everything bad about Bush and doubled down so that he could be even worse!

Another counters:

Your reader tries some "fuzzy math" to make his case, but the facts are that George W Bush had high approval among conservative Republicans when he left office. According to Gallup, 72% APPROVED of W's job performance as late as December of '08. So for that reader to say "We did not approve" is demonstrably false.

Another notes:

Gallup's party ID poll put Republican identification at 28% in 2008, while Bush's approval rating in December 2008 was...28%! Coincidence? I think not.

My sense of why so many so-called "conservative Republicans" continued to support Bush so strongly is that post-911 their conservatism became reactionary anti-Islamism, then later anti-leftism and anti-intellectualism as the Left and elites realized that the war was a colossal mistake.

Andrew was guilty of some of that reactionary anti-Islamism in the run up to the Iraq war. So was I and most of the country after the attack, as Bush's approval numbers soared to 90%. We were scared.

The American Right still is, with the worst among them transferring those fears to the new president.