Sure, we have a socialist president now, but his popularity is among the lowest of all time so early into his first term. You're touting his "above 40%" approval rating as some sort of evidence of his enormous popularity? Ok...
I'd like to see his popularity near zero too, but these things take time. Did you expect him to go from 65-70% approval to 20% in 9 months? That's a stretch. If it wasn't for a vocal alternative media, he'd be waaaaay above 40% right now.
That's where you commit an inadvertently leap of faith. THe fact that something is there does not imply that people will avail themselves of that.
The full truth about the Soviet Union is out there. People of Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil don't avail themselves of it. In our own country, Marx could be seen as wrong on all counts: the data were there. Roosevelt instituted so many socialist reforms that Marx would be proud. Which information was NOT available to Americans?
During the last elections, nobody could find anything that Obama accomplished in his life, in anything he was actually doing. Did people use that information in their choice?
Using information is hard work and not everyone is cut for it. Instead of it people use various biases and rules of thumb (heuristics), which often lead to decisions that are inconsistent with ALL AVAILABLE INFORMATION.
P.S. If you'd like to read more on decision-making of this kind, read the words of Kahnemann, Tversky and their colleagues.