Why is Obama so unpopular?

[bedstuy]

Political polarization, racism and general cynicism/apathy.

For most people, saying "I dislike President Obama" is more about making a statement about themselves than it is a thought out opinion based on policy.  And, let's face it, it's easier to be a critic than a defender when someone is under attack.  It's always easier to be a ignorant critic than an ignorant defender, because a critic doesn't need to lay any ideas on the table.  A supporter has to defend Obama's perceived record.  A critic can just say "something has to be done!" without knowing what something is. 

And, that's the great sadness I have about our country.  So, many of us are ignorant and disconnected from any real principles or history.  We don't listen to experts, we don't trust anyone and we don't have communities that guide us towards a rational, clear-headed view of the world.  And, that's truly the failure of Obama, he's a good person who believed too much in the high minded ideals of this country. .

[bedstuy]

1. Clearly believing, on issue after issue after issue, throughout his term, that partisan democrats have a monopoly on good ideas, despite saying that he doesn't believe such a thing.

Name one significant Republican policy proposal that Obama actually ignored.

2. Preferring defaulting on our debt over negotiating.

Come on.  You can't do this revisionist history crap when for an event that happened 3 years ago.  The problem was always Republican in-fighting and their crazy demands.  Republicans were economic terrorists, Obama was just acting like every other President would have acted. 

3. His refusal to pass stimulus for the middle class, instead catering to the moguls and big banks on wall street, resulting in a recovery that has been extremely sluggish and, six years into his presidency, leaves underemployment in double digits (it was ~8% before the recession), and wages/labor participation much too low.

He did pass stimulus for the middle class, to wit:

$237 billion in tax cuts for individuals
$100 billion in education spending
$155 billion in healthcare
Billions in unemployment benefits, job training, food stamps, infrastructure jobs, energy jobs
Cash for clunkers

He did not pass a stimulus package for banks.  The government bailed out banks because it was the best choice as every expert has agreed.  The financial system needs to work.  And, really, if you give middle class people tax cuts in a recession, it doesn't work because they're likely to save instead of spend.

4. Refusing to work with republicans when he passed his health care reform, despite promising he would, and then passing a law too long for anyone to read, filled with terrible provisions such as the 30 hour work week and the medical device tax.

What Republicans ideas were there to improve the ACA?  They never wanted to improve it, they wanted to delay, delay, delay, so they could kill the bill.  That's all they ever wanted to do.  Get a grip.

5. Lying about certain provisions of said health care law over and over and over again, then trying to deny having lied about them, and refusing to get the website properly betatested.

That's ridiculous.  His point was that Obamacare exchanges sold private insurance, as opposed to something like an HMO system, that was a fact.  Every politician makes statements like that, it's not a lie.

6. Refusal to permantely cut overall military spending or push for fair trials for Guantanamo bay prisoners, despite promising to do so.

You can't permanently cut military spending, they don't have permanent budgets.  Obama has cut defense spending.  That's a fact and he's had to fight Republicans to get the cuts he has.  As for Guantanamo, Republicans helped stop trials from taking place in the US by having a massive fit.  Remember?  Republicans were pathetically afraid of Al Qaeda members escaping super-Max prisoners or whatever and demanded no trials on in the Federal district Courts in NYC.

 

7. Taking too long to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have not accomplished enough to merit being stretched out as long as they are/were.

If we had Romney or McCain, imagine how much slower that would have happened.

8. His "policies are on the ballot" 2014 gaffe, which may have sunk Begich and Hagan, both of which I really like.

Come on, nobody voted based on that.  I read the newspaper every day, I didn't even know he said that.

9. Benghazi

You have to elaborate here, because you sound like a moron if you dislike Obama because there's a city in Libya called Benghazi. 

[bedstuy]

1. Everything the republicans proposed during the fiscal cliff. Everything, even the bipartisan stuff like Keystone, that republicans proposed as an acceptable concession to end the gov. shutdown of 2013. And also http://www.nationaljournal.com/congress/house-republicans-draft-their-debt-ceiling-playbook-20130707 . Three examples for you. Satisfied?

Keystone pipeline is the only concrete thing you can throw out.  One pipeline is not a significant policy proposal, I'm sorry.

2. I'm referring to October 2013 and February 2014, when he quite clearly showed that he would rather see the country default then give even a small concession to republicans.

Your idealized view of Republicans isn't reality though...  Republicans didn't ask for small concessions, they threatened to destroy the economy if their demands weren't met.  That's not how legislators who like America behave.  That's how Ernst Stavro Blofeld behaves.  If they actually worked in good faith, they would have never used the default threat.  Obama didn't create this situation, remember?  Do you remember Democrats doing this under Bush?

3. Obama supported, as did Bush, bailing out the banks with little to no restrictions. Perhaps it was the best thing to bail them out, but we should have done with the understanding that banks would permantely eliminate for the rest of time the less restrictive loan requirements that caused the recession, and JAILED these banks chief executives. Furthermore, whatever stimulus Obama did pass for the middle class, it was not enough. He promised a speedy economic recovery, we got one that is so sluggish it's not even funny.

You're wrong on the facts yet again.  This crisis wasn't caused by housing loans being too generous.  That's rewriting history.  And, remember, Obama had to work extremely hard to get a stimulus package.  Republicans wanted Hoover economics, cutting back during a recession despite the advice of any sane economist.  Obama had to fight tooth and claw to his stimulus.  If Republicans were sane, we could have gotten a bigger stimulus.  And, again, middle class tax cuts are horrible economic stimulus.  During a recession, you need to spend money on things like infrastructure and local government aid that pump money directly into the economy.

4. When he was passing his health care bill, Obama/Reid simply used strategic voting tactics (senate held a vote during a brief 60 democrat majority period, and did the rest through the vile tactic that is reconciliation), and correct me if I'm wrong here, but to my knowledge, Obama/Reid/etc. did not make truly serious attempts to get even a single republican vote in the house or senate for the bill. All that effort they did to get the vote of Ben Nelson, they should have been working equally as hard to get the vote of republicans such as Olympia Snowe, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, but they did no such thing (to my knowledge).

Republicans are bought and sold by the big special interest in the health care industry.  And, let's go back to 2009-10.  Republicans going absolutely nuts and were whipping their base into a frenzy.  Where was the slightest effort to work with Obama to craft a workable bill?  The didn't do anything, they only tried to torpedo the bill.  And, why didn't Republicans vote for the ACA?  Wouldn't have that been bipartisan, the thing you pretend to love?

5. He said on dozens of occasions "You can keep your healthcare plan no matter what, you can keep your doctor no matter what". In fact, politifact called the first part of that the 'lie of the year'. Then, he tried to deny ever lying about it.

He didn't lie.  Let's just use common sense.  Before Obamacare, could your healthcare plan stop paying for a doctor's fees.  Yes.  So, Obama never could be understood to say, you have an ironclad right to your doctor, as if he's your feudal vassal.  Nobody thought Obama meant that and if they did, they're a moron.  What he meant was that Obamacare had no effect on whether your plan's network, which is a fact.

If polifact disagrees, they're just moderate heroes or stupid.

6. Obama should have said "OK, we'll keep guantanmo open, just have fair trials and that's it". To my knowledge, he never said that. The cuts defense spending has received have been fairly modest. The bottom line here is that Clinton could work with Gingrich, Bush could work with the tied senate in first two years and the democratic congress in his last two, H.W. Bush could work with a democratic congress, Reagan could work with a democratic house for 8 years and a democratic senate for two, Ford/Nixon could work with a democratic house, etc., so Obama should be able to work with a republican house/congress. In fact, this congress of 2013-2014 is the most dysfunctional congress ever. In second place is the 2011-2012 congress. Obama likes to act like he's the first president that's ever had to work with an unfavorable congress, and that's FAR from the truth.

No Congress has been as obstructionist as this Republican Congress.  Even in the 1990s, Republicans had moderates.  Today, moderates are less than 1% of the Republican caucus.  So, how about blaming them or at least looking at the facts?  I mean, this isn't ancient history.  Facts are stubborn things.

8. It was played in senate ads across the country.

Thankfully, I missed it.

9. I'm obviously referring to the scandal, not the city.

What scandal is that?

[bedstuy]

1. Republicans had pretty concrete proposals, at least at the early part of the fiscal cliff negotiations, and that menu is fairly concrete as well.

Name one, besides the Keystone Pipeline.

2. Need I remind you how nice republicans were during the shutdown? They said they would accept just repealing the medical device tax, just taking away subsidies from congressional staffers, just approving keystone, just passing something on tort reform. No, it was Obama who put us completely at the mercy of speaker boehner.

You don't shut down the government down because the President refuses to gut his signature, non-budgetary policy achievement, if you're sane.  Are you being remotely serious here?  Nice?  Nice!?
  

3. So, loans had  NOTHING to do with the recession? '

You don't understand the financial crisis, you can look it up.  Suffice to say, it was a banking crisis caused by structured finance, not residential mortgages.  The structured finance facilitated the ability of banks to keep bad debt on their balance sheet and disguise it as good debt.  Without those structured finance vehicles fueling the demand for risky mortgages, the crisis never happens.  Remember, loans take an agreement of two parties.

4. NEITHER SIDE made ANY efforts. If one side had done so, perhaps the other side would have followed suit, but NEITHER SIDE made any efforts.

Democrats passed a moderate healthcare plan that was signed by Mitt Romney of all people.  Democrats larded up stimulus with tax cuts.  Democrats tried to pass cap and trade, originally a Republican idea.  Republicans just reacted to moderate centrist policies as if they were the new Five Year Plan.

5. Need I remind that you several democratic votes for the health care law, Kay Hagan for example, only happened because Obama promised that you could keep your health care plan and your doctor, no matter what, over and over again? Let me suggest that you actually read the politifact article: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2013/dec/12/lie-year-if-you-like-your-health-care-plan-keep-it/ . As the article mentions, he even said it in a speech in 2009 to the american medical assoication, and I quote from the speech "If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what." If you don't call that lying, you're nothing but a partisan democrat.

Is the ACA an Federally controlled HMO or government insurance plan?  No, it's not.  How about responding to that point.

6. In the 1990's, Gingrich was hardly a moderate, and he was speaker of the house. Yet, he was willing to work with Clinton for the majority of his (Gingrich's) tenure as house speaker. Clinton and Gingrich both say they had a good working relationship. Obama and Boehner are just as apart politically as Clinton and Gingrich, they should be able to work together.

As people have pointed out, Gingrich also shut down the government.  Let's be honest, you don't know what went on during the 1990s, like you don't know what went on under Obama.  Stop being a moderate hero who assumes that both sides are always equally at fault.  It's silly.

Also, as I've posted elsewhere, I have pretty centrist political postions, and my ballot for this year contained votes for both democrats and republicans, so to hint that I'm not bipartisan is quite ridiculous.

I don't care if you're bipartisan, you're not objective because of your phony "moderate hero" perspective.  If you don't know the facts and you always try to hold a centrist position, you're guaranteed to be wrong.  Sometimes one side is right about an issue.

Also, what about Benghazi?  What's the scandal?