Bush’s declining popularity unified pop culture and online politics against him

Evidence

Obama’s candidacy rode on a growing backlash to President Bush, who lost support each year as a destabilized Iraq erupted into violent chaos. Michael Moore’s 2004 anti-Bush film, Fahrenheit 9/11, earned $222 million at the box office, becoming the highest-grossing documentary of its time. Pop culture rallied too: Green Day’s American Idiot offered an album of anti-Bush anthems, while Kanye West gained national prominence after declaring during a 2005 Hurricane Katrina telethon, “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people.” By 2006, as violent civil war overtook Iraq, Bush’s approval rating cratered. In a 2006 Associated Press poll, he was named both “top hero” and, by twice the vote, “top villain.” — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 202