What happens when a governments approval rating hits 0%?

I doubt any government has ever gotten that unpopular. Even when the American colonies rose up against King George, there were those here who were in the good graces of the King or of the British East India Company who took their side. They were called Loyalists.

Much of the anger and angst about government in the USA today is misplaced. It largely comes from a something-for-nothing crowd who want all the benefits they currently get from government but no taxes, and keep voting to get that. Then they are outraged that there is a big national debt.

@ETpro thanks

It would never get that low. There would be a call for an election, or a revolution, long before it got that bad.

Should something like this happen in Germany, the parliament usually files a

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_of_no_confidence#Overview

There will always be supporters. At the least, people who can’t admit they voted the “wrong” way.

Even George W. Bush, had a 21% approval rating and he was arguably the worst president that the U.S. has ever had.

I suspect that even Hitler, towards the end, had a similar rating.

Never underestimate the gullibility of people.

@Ron_C I wonder if opinion polls were taken of leaders back in Nazi Germany. I doubt they were, and even if they had been, it would have been suicide to say that Hitler was anything short of perfection. But I would love to know what the German people thought in their heart-of-hearts as the end of the Third Reich drew near.

@ETpro – The maximum of votes for Hitler was 43,9% in 1933 shortly before democracy was dismantled. Ordinary people like my grandmother said she didn’t like Hitler’s voice and way of speaking on the radio and long before 1939 she feared that he would lead Germany into a war. But then every year it became more dangerous to openly disagree with Hitler. Many people were arrested and this scared the rest of the population. Only very brave souls resisted the regime but there were still tens of thousands of them. Others opposed secretly for example by hiding Jews or communists or homosexuals. Till 1942 the war went “well” and was not really visible in Germany itself. The Stalingrad in 1943 surrender came as a shock. It’s difficult to determine what polls would have shown between 1943 and 1945. Part of population blamed the Nazis for the allied bombings of German cities, while others were angry at the allies and supported Hitler and wanted revenge. There were at least a million of brainwashed people who demanded the ‘total war’ as announced by Goebbels. Interestingly it was mostly the officers in the German army who disagreed more and more with Hitler. But they were also trained to follow orders. But brave people like von Stauffenberg thought morals and ethics were more important than orders from a lunatic.

@ETpro looks like @mattbrowne has his act together. I would bet that 20% is the standard part of the population that believes anything the government says. They would support Hitler, Bush, or Stalin, whoever was in charge,1 in 5 of us is always a sheep..