Supreme Court decision question

[Reaganfan]

Many people discuss how controversial that was, which it was, indeed. However, among millennials and those even younger than myself (I was in 6th grade during Election 2000), some seem to really disagree with the decision and consider it even more controversial than it was.

I found these polls conducted in December 2000 by CNN/USA Today/Gallup. Some interesting things.


If George W. Bush is declared the winner and is inaugurated next January, would you accept him as the legitimate president, or not?

Yes      80%
No       18

Do you agree or disagree with the U.S. Supreme Court's decision?

Agree       52%
Disagree    42

Do you think the U.S. Supreme Court was fair or unfair in deciding this case?

Fair       54%
Unfair     38

Do you think the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court who voted to end the recount in Florida did so mostly based on the legal merits of the case or mostly based on their own desire to have Bush as the next president?

Legal merits of case      54%
Desire to see Bush win    35

Does this decision make you lose confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court, or does it not have an effect on your view of the Court?

Lose confidence      30%
No effect            66

In his speech tonight, Al Gore is likely to accept the ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court and acknowledge that George W. Bush will be the next president, even though Gore believes he got more votes in Florida. Do you think Gore should concede that he lost, or should he withdraw from the race without conceding?

Concede that he lost                59%
Withdraw without conceding          32

Those are...quite...favorable to the Supreme Court decision and to George Bush. Like, overwhelmingly more favorable than even I remember at the time.

So my question is, do you think the electorate has changed that much in 19 years to have a revisionist view of the Supreme Court decision for Bush? Was it 40 year old people (now 59 year olds) who don't care and the 21 year old college liberals today who care about it were in diapers at the time? Is that what it is?

Was it the Iraq War and looking back in hindsight?