Barack Obama is a record-setting president.
He is the most polarizing president in the history of polling.
According to the Gallup organization, during his fourth year in office, an average of 86 percent of Democrats and 10 percent of Republicans approved of the job Barack Obama did as president. That 76-percentage-point gap ties George W. Bush’s fourth year as the most polarized years in Gallup records. Now let’s dial the clock back a year, when Jeffrey Jones of the Gallup organization wrote, “The historically high gap between partisans’ job approval ratings of Barack Obama continued during Obama’s third year in office, with an average of 80 percent of Democrats and 12 percent of Republicans approving of the job he was doing… The 68-point gap between partisans’ approval ratings of Obama last year is nine points higher than that for any other president’s third year.”
This came after Obama set a record for polarization in each of his first two years in office. So Barack Obama has set a record for polarization for three years in a row and tied the record for polarization in a fourth year.
I realize that after his re-election victory, we’re all supposed to forget what Obama said when he ran four years ago. But just for the fun of it, let’s take a stroll down memory lane.
What Obama promised us back in the day was that he would do away with what he called the “50 plus one” style of governing. He would “turn the page” on the “old politics” of division and anger. Mr. Obama would end a politics that “breeds division and conflict and cynicism.” He would help us to “rediscover our bonds to each other and … get out of this constant petty bickering that’s come to characterize our politics.” He would “cast off the worn-out ideas and politics of the past.”
“I will listen to you,” Obama said on election night 2008, “especially when we disagree.” His election, he helpfully informed us, was a sign that we had “chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.”
And then there was Obama’s first Inaugural Address, when he proclaimed “an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.”
It needs to be said that we do live in an unusually polarized age. But Mr. Obama knew that when he took office four years ago. And the promises he made were unqualified. If we elected him, Obama promised, he would heal the breach. Yet here we are, four years later, with Obama having presided over an era of petty grievances, false promises, recriminations, and worn-out dogmas that have strangled our politics. And by every sign, the next four years will be even more divisive and acrimonious. There is blame to go around; but the president is primus inter pares.
Mr. Obama is doing great harm to important areas of our national life, including our political culture and civic bonds. He will leave America a far more bitter and riven nation. That is a real shame, and it was all so unnecessary.
He's not polarizing, he's a fascist pig.
Wehner is not not best described as a fascist pig, he's pudgy but not quite porcine and being a shifty second-rate flack doesn't make him a fascist. n nclean up your act, you crispy critter.
Who died and left you boss?
George Steinbrenner… n n nnow hit the showers n nand shave your lips and your facial hair
queer
no, and not interested, but thanks for the offer.
It is a continuum of polarization: Clintons begat Bush/Cheney who begat Obama. n nObama does deserve a giant Pinocchio for promising a post-partisanship that he never intended. Just like Cheney deserves a bigger Pinocchio for believing "deficits don't matter". n nWhat is truly sad since 1992 is the corresponding decline in political courage and the complete absence of leadership from either of the two parties who seem intent on a completely bipartisan destruction of America whilst distracting everyone with the endless campaign for the presidency.
Gallup? Aren't they the people who predicted a Romney landslide?
Your point? You only trust organizations whose predictions have always come true? Which ones are those so we can all get access to them? I'll wait…
I don't often, if ever, agree with Hillel A, but this time, he has a point. Gallup has been very unreliable of late. In fact, I think USA dropped them as their polling organization. I wouldn't go to Rasmussen, either. He was off for 2012 as well. Real politics and their averages are probably the most reliable, but, once ballot type questions are over with the elections, polling organizations do not ask uniform questions that can be averaged.
Point taken but I'd like see HillelA respond with something constructive rather than just making snarky comments with no follow up.
I think I see HillelA’s point. In the future Gallup should devote some of its resources to predicting how many dead people are going to vote and for whom.
I suppose the President or one of his hacks will call Gallup and tell them to take down their poll or take issue with it.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…… n nWhat a revelation about Obama. I'm shocked to read that Obama is so "polarizing". nI've only read and heard about this 18,345 times. But it's good to get a confirmation from the bowels of New York Schitty. n nOnce again, our perspicacious reporter gives us the insider's view of what Pasha Obama The Magnificent is REALLY up to. Are you sure he has been "divisive"? That's a big statement. Golly willikers
I'm not trying to come to Obama's defense, but it aint Obama who has polarized every issue. Obama has done what he said he would do – be a Liberal President. The media, in becoming the Obama palace guard, have severly handicapped their chosen one. Obama is unable to develop a compromise on anything because the media turns into a Drama Queeen and jumps in front of every issue. They start screaming Conservatives hate Blacks. Conservatives hate women. Conservatives hate the environment. The Obama administration has been blinded to what they need to do to effectively run the United States. I don't blame Obama. I don't like Obama, but I don't blame him. It's the media who have ruined, are ruining and will continue to ruin the country until we find a way to stop them.