Those of us expecting Bush to set a historic low in approval ratings by this fall have been watching the composite poll results from pollster.com and reported and enhanced by the political arithmetik blog with the whole trend for Bush's two terms and historical comparisons.
Since April 27, the Broder bounce and support for the Bush bubble has weakened enough (by Republican support finally giving way to reality) that the overall, strong trend has returned. The state of no confidence we tracked in my series earlier this year met the combined remaining strength of the Rove message machine and Congressional balwarks -- but they have only delayed, and many of us believe, intensified, the power of the downward trend.
We broke through 30% on this composite measure. Since that means something to people, it means something to our system of government.
On politicalarithmetik we can see the whole picture. Comparing this to all Presidents since polling started in 1937 (with a hiatus during World War II), we can see the Bush Administration has the distinction of the most linear trend of any.
In dynamic systems modelling, we look at graphs like this as an indicator of a catastrophe curve emerging, and one that results from some factor in the system attempting to overmanage the system (like a driver on slick ice losing control -- the car may spin but the trajectory of the car as-a-whole becomes very linear -- until it hits something). We have seen, and discussed in detail, the control the Rove machine has attempted over public opinion and voting at all levels of our government. We have seen the Republican party cheat all the rules, from voting machines to using US Attorneys to game the voting rules at all levels of the game. We have seen the MSM and coordinated message machine spread to amazing dimensions.
The result is the same as when a person is caught after telling layers of lies for years: the lies unraveled reveal new lies, which unravel, etc.... When "the public" get the idea the lies will continue ad naseum (interestingly, even if the lies are running out -- the sense of direction is the only important factor here), they shut out all defenses and let go of all concern for "fair play". When a crowd watching a game comes to believe a player is cheating, the game is over -- and maybe the season.
Human beings respond in zillions of different ways. When we measure behavior we can only see a few of those ways. Polls are only one measure of one range of behaviors. But other human beings react to some numbers, and Presidential approval is one of those numbers. In typical nonlinear fashion, the measure itself becomes part of the control loop of the system (public opinion, in this case) itself. That short-circuiting of control often leads to catastrophic failure of the system. Thus, we call graphs like this an indicator of a catastrophe curve underway. These very real situations are so powerful they cannot be stopped or "bounced" past a certain point. Whether that point has been reached we cannot know yet, but the trend is gaining strength and accelerating.
Read it and cheer, Kossacks. We are part of that control loop, and we are having an effect -- a major one. The system of public confidence is crashing on this Administration like few others (any of those measured like this, anyway), and the crash is accelerating.
Keep feeding the loop. The real fun begins below 22%.