Why is Obama so unpopular?

[Beet]

If I were him I would probably be moving more to the center, but besides that it's hard to see why his approvals are so low. Yes, George Bush had low approvals at this point in 2006- but there was a clear, ongoing major event (the Iraq war) that could be pointed to as the reason. Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, and Eisenhower were all popular late into their second terms. Those who were not were beset by war, recession or scandal. Obama, realistically is not.

Basically, I think his low approvals are a symptom of the damaging polarization that has gripped the U.S. increasingly in recent decades. It's a guy who made his name in 2004 talking about the unity of red America and blue America coming together, becoming the most polarizing president since WW2. The ironic thing is, 2009-2012 convinced him that compromise politics don't work with the GOP congress. However, Bill Clinton has been right all along. Compromise politics is necessary to get things done. What Obama didn't realize back in 2009 and still doesn't realize today is that economic collapse is what doomed his brand of politics; in such an environment the mood turns ugly and people want fire in the belly populism. But in better times (today), his original brand of politics might actually work. It was awfully popular in 2007 and early 2008. Obama hasn't noticed that the one theme common in all elections from 2009 to today is that voters rewarded the Dems when they looked more moderate than tea party Republicans, but rewarded Republicans when they rejected extremism. So O's original style has a better chance than ever before. Yet instead of realizing his chance, he has allowed himself to become bitter and jaded towards the idea of working with the GOP.

[Beet]

Welfare reform didn't give the GOP everything they wanted; Clinton vetoed two more conservative bills before signing the PRWOA. Moreover, he himself had campaigned on Welfare reform in 1992, so in a sense he was simply fulfilling his own campaign pledge. Moreover, it is apparent that over the long term PRWOA helped the left reset the dialogue on poverty by cutting short the "welfare queens" narrative. That was a winning narrative for conservatives because it made the face of poverty non-working black single mothers, a group easily isolated and demonized. The new narratives about poverty we have today, focused on issues like the minimum wage and income inequality, which broaden the face of "the poor", could not have emerged if those old ones from the 1970s and 80s had not been replaced by welfare reform. The change made it safe for suburban whites to vote Democratic, without which neither the Clinton nor Obama coalitions would have been possible.

On the other hand, the notion that Obama didn't try to get Republicans on board with Obamacare is absurd; he had Max Baucus waste weeks on fruitless negotiations with them. Their mentality was, it doesn't matter what the bill does, if it passes, Obama can claim a major legislative achievement, so let's do everything we can to oppose it. Olympia Snowe voted for the bill in committee but party leaders basically forced her to stop working with the president. As late as July 2009 Mitt Romney wrote an op Ed praising Romneycare, but stopped talking about it after it became clear the GOP was going to oppose their own plan.

[Beet]

Yes, and Newt lost that confrontation. He didn't get what he wanted either politically or substantively.

[Beet]

I don't know, the political environment in 2009 was so toxic that no government action was getting public support. It wasn't just ACA. Even the stimulus bill was derided. And it wasn't just Republicans- turn on NPR at the time and all you could hear was that monotone radio voice droning on about this or that minor shortcoming of the stimulus, the surging deficit, the latest job losses, etc. The public mood at the time was universally negative, and for the first half of the year Obama just seemed to float above it all, like some sort of angel or visage separated by clouds from the storm beneath. In 1933 at least Franklin Roosevelt had the public behind him. When he said in his inaugural that he might have to ask for "broad executive powers" to address the crisis, people cheered. There was a rally-around-the leader effect, as you see in many crises.

But in 2009 it was not there, quite the opposite. When people needed to come together the most, we were coming apart. When people ought to have supported expansionary, Keynesian policies the most, deficit hysteria and gold bugism was at its peak. I still remember how sales of books like The 5000 year leap, atlas shrugged and so on, suddenly appeared on the bookshelves that winter, driven by sales. Years later many liberals faulted the stimulus for not having been larger. I almost replied, you weren't there to defend the one we did get, so how could you expect the public to acquiesce for more? Even now, I look back and think it somewhat of a miracle that we got out of that period the way we did, without worse repercussions. Of course, I know for some radicals it was a disappointment, because a much deeper collapse would have broken the system and forced the government to do what Obama did not, which was to break up the banks and really enact a new, New Deal.

This is not to say health care reform would have been popular in "normal" times; we have 1993-1994 as an example. It may be that just as only Nixon could go to China, only a Republican can pass health care reform. That, or a crisis that brings people together like Britain in the 1940s, and not America in the late 2000s.

[Beet]

May I suggest that Obama's "unpopularity" have to do with one thing:

He has been president in 6 years, people are just tired of him, like they are of most two terms presidents, when there are less than 2 years to the next presidental election. Right now he seems tired, impotent and rather powerless, he has gotten most of what he was elected to do through, he's just cleaning the last things up he promise, he's the past, dead man walking etc. People look forward to the next dynamic president, with a fresh new vision for America, everything Obama is not anymore.

Which is why I pointed out that Eisenhower, Reagan and Clinton were all popular late into their terms, showing unpopularity is not inevitable.