Despite Polls, Obama A Bad President
September 10, 2016 at 4:32 a.m.
By Gary [email protected]
This compares pretty favorably to other presidents in the fourth September after their re-election.
According to Gallup, George Bush was at 30 percent; Bill Clinton, 60 percent; Ronald Reagan, 54 percent; Lyndon Johnson, 42 percent; and Dwight Eisenhower, 62 percent.
This is mildly to moderately surprising to me.
That’s because the most recent Rasmussen poll that asked if the country was on the right track or the wrong track came out 65 percent wrong track, 28 percent right track.
So, for whatever reason, the vast majority of Americans aren’t happy with the direction things are going in America, but they don’t blame Obama for it.
And while I think it’s fair to say that a president can’t be held responsible for every little thing that’s wrong or right with America, I do have a question for the 51 percent of Americans who think Obama is doing a bang-up job.
What policies of his are really working out well?
Let’s briefly recap.
Healthcare: I’ve written a lot about Obamacare over the years. These days, even the most ardent supporters of the president’s signature legislative accomplishment concede that patient is gravely ill and in need of a prescription – stat!
Foreign policy: Once again, even the most loyal Obama supporters will concede that taking the troops out of Iraq helped create a power vacuum that gave rise to ISIS.
Remember that whole “Arab Spring” thing where the administration propped up this leader or that leader in hopes that democracy would flourish?
Well, seems to me the governments in places like Libya, Syria, Egypt, Yemen, et. al. are far less stable than they were before the “Arab Spring.”
Then there was that deal with Iran where the US delivered a few pallets of cash in various different currencies to the tune of about $400 million.
Economy: It’s not like the economy is booming along these days. The unemployment rate has dipped below 5 percent, but that’s a little deceiving because so many people fell off the jobless roles when they quit looking for work.
The labor participation rate – the number of people who could be working but aren’t – is at historically low levels.
Business creation is in decline, median income is declining, food stamp collections are rising and the rate of poverty also has risen.
Surely there are some bright spots in the economy, but generally, the Gross Domestic Product has been limping along around 2 percent.
That’s just not enough growth to claim any level of prosperity.
Unity: When president Obama took office he talked a lot about unifying the country along political and racial lines.
From where I’m sitting, the exact opposite seems to have happened. Just intuitively, it seems we’re more racially divided than we have been in two or three decades.
And politically, you don’t even need intuition. It’s clear to see that nobody in Washington is in the mood to compromise about anything
Work together?
That’s a joke. They’re so polarized, they’re lucky to get anything done.
I think, perhaps, part of Obama’s popularity comes from the fact that he is really a likeable guy. He’s an excellent speaker and I think he reaches people on a personal level.
He’s also kind of young and hip and he hasn’t had any real scandals.
I think most people don’t critically associate him with the affects of his policies, if they even know or care what his policies are.
It will be interesting to see how history judges his presidency.
This compares pretty favorably to other presidents in the fourth September after their re-election.
According to Gallup, George Bush was at 30 percent; Bill Clinton, 60 percent; Ronald Reagan, 54 percent; Lyndon Johnson, 42 percent; and Dwight Eisenhower, 62 percent.
This is mildly to moderately surprising to me.
That’s because the most recent Rasmussen poll that asked if the country was on the right track or the wrong track came out 65 percent wrong track, 28 percent right track.
So, for whatever reason, the vast majority of Americans aren’t happy with the direction things are going in America, but they don’t blame Obama for it.
And while I think it’s fair to say that a president can’t be held responsible for every little thing that’s wrong or right with America, I do have a question for the 51 percent of Americans who think Obama is doing a bang-up job.
What policies of his are really working out well?
Let’s briefly recap.
Healthcare: I’ve written a lot about Obamacare over the years. These days, even the most ardent supporters of the president’s signature legislative accomplishment concede that patient is gravely ill and in need of a prescription – stat!
Foreign policy: Once again, even the most loyal Obama supporters will concede that taking the troops out of Iraq helped create a power vacuum that gave rise to ISIS.
Remember that whole “Arab Spring” thing where the administration propped up this leader or that leader in hopes that democracy would flourish?
Well, seems to me the governments in places like Libya, Syria, Egypt, Yemen, et. al. are far less stable than they were before the “Arab Spring.”
Then there was that deal with Iran where the US delivered a few pallets of cash in various different currencies to the tune of about $400 million.
Economy: It’s not like the economy is booming along these days. The unemployment rate has dipped below 5 percent, but that’s a little deceiving because so many people fell off the jobless roles when they quit looking for work.
The labor participation rate – the number of people who could be working but aren’t – is at historically low levels.
Business creation is in decline, median income is declining, food stamp collections are rising and the rate of poverty also has risen.
Surely there are some bright spots in the economy, but generally, the Gross Domestic Product has been limping along around 2 percent.
That’s just not enough growth to claim any level of prosperity.
Unity: When president Obama took office he talked a lot about unifying the country along political and racial lines.
From where I’m sitting, the exact opposite seems to have happened. Just intuitively, it seems we’re more racially divided than we have been in two or three decades.
And politically, you don’t even need intuition. It’s clear to see that nobody in Washington is in the mood to compromise about anything
Work together?
That’s a joke. They’re so polarized, they’re lucky to get anything done.
I think, perhaps, part of Obama’s popularity comes from the fact that he is really a likeable guy. He’s an excellent speaker and I think he reaches people on a personal level.
He’s also kind of young and hip and he hasn’t had any real scandals.
I think most people don’t critically associate him with the affects of his policies, if they even know or care what his policies are.
It will be interesting to see how history judges his presidency.
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