Realization? I'm not sure we realize much of anything any more, or people don't care, or I don't know what. This has been a long time coming and it's still in progress (maybe speeding up). I think it started in the late 60's when we scaled back on education. That's allowed for a more pliable population. Then 24 hour news. Then we loosened TV/Radio/Newspaper ownership so real news is now almost completely absent. The BBC is now one of the best (almost only) news sources in the US. We allowed gerrymandering so now our votes count a lot less. Now we're allowing unlimited secret money and tons of laws to restrict voting. In many ways we're back in the 1880's.
Bush, like most of our politicians, aren't really the issue imo. It's the people controlling them. Politicians come and go, it's the people who buy the politicians who are really calling the shots. In 2008 almost every Republican party candidate was a paid employee of Fox News. This stuff isn't even hidden any more. Heck the UK had Murdoch caught red handed doing some pretty crappy stuff and you all did nothing about it. That's freedom lost when a few people have the power to do whatever they like.
America has great roots, but today we seem more about telling everyone how great we are. Mission accomplished. American exceptionalism. I think it's OK to think you're great, maybe even act like you're great. But when you have to create a term and actively tell people over and over how great you are...that just being a blowhard. I mean I do think America is pretty great, but without question our slipping is really starting to show. Instead of owning up we just say the "media" is making up stories. Canada just passed us for richest middle class. Our education scores haven't been doing that great for years and now is starting to get embarrassing. Health care is a complete joke compared to every other industrialized nation. Obamacare was a huge step forward (graded on the curve) but we're still way, way behind.
There is now a pretty serious push to dismantle the US government. Lots of members of Congress openly say that and do whatever they can to make the government do stupid stuff so more people will hate the government. In the past we've been pushed to the edge and at some point the voters take back the country. Progressive movement in 1900 and others. So hopefully this will all get so bad that we do that again. Or not.
