While some might point to race, I doubt those made apoplectic by a Black politician would be comparatively forgiving to a septuagenarian Jewish social democrat with a thick Brooklyn accent. Something else is going on, and I think it's that the right accepts that Sanders just pushes his factional agenda from the socialist left and doesn't presume to speak from outside of or above the partisan fray. Obama, by contrast, doesn't know how to speak in any other rhetorical register than above and beyond the partisan fray.
He invariably sounds reasonable, his tone fair-minded, objective. He speaks of the grand sweep of American history, renders Solomonic judgments, and looks down on the disputants on the field of battle, even as his proposals invariably advance the liberal-progressive side of the clashes taking place below him.
That is what drives — and has always driven — the right nuts about Obama. It's his supposed pretense to elevation, to speaking in dispassionate terms about "us," about what's morally righteous and true, and rendering sometimes severe moral judgments of his opponents. He's a master of using a rhetoric of elevation to ennoble himself and his allies while casting implicit moral aspersions on his political foes, whom he portrays as self-evidently dishonorable, all the while sounding as if he's merely reciting the indisputable facts of the case.
His tone at all times is that of a disapproving parent: You should be ashamed of yourselves. It's understandable that Republicans would dislike being talked to like this, especially when it proved so politically effective from to But the ferocity of the response cries out for a fuller explanation — and we find one in the distinction between the politics of democracy and the politics of populism.
The politics of democracy is a contest to win the greatest number of votes — a plurality; or even better, a bare majority; and best of all, an overwhelming majority. This aim is what drove politics in this country through most of the 20th century. In the primaries, candidates sought out the sweet spot within their own parties, whether through winning support from party insiders — or, with the reforms that began after , through winning the votes of party members in state primary and caucus elections.
But in the general election, the two sides competed to find the center of public opinion in the country as a whole. Each party's presidential ticket did this by making a pitch for the whole: This is how I see America.
This is what I think of our ideals, our history, our actions in the past and present, and our destiny moving forward into the future. But Trump polarizes people—leading to a whopping point difference between partisans. These data imply that rising public support for increasing immigration, as Gallup found, may be partly accelerated in reaction to Trump. For those in favor of more liberalized immigration policies, Trump likely has done much for galvanizing support in favor of more immigration.
While President Trump is known for his hardline trade stance, both Trump and Obama put tariffs on goods from China. Notice also, a majority of Democrats support tariffs if proposed by a Democratic president but turn toward freer trade under Trump. Republicans were more supportive of trade restrictions regardless of the president.
How strong is conservative commitment to the free market in health care? The next experiment suggests perhaps not very if Republican leadership jettisons market-based solutions. Regardless of the president, Democrats were far more supportive of government lowering drug prices. Unlike most of the other experiments, Trump, rather than Obama, acts as a more unifying figure.
When it comes to government reducing drug prices, Obama polarizes people. It may be that when Trump proposes a policy Democrats already strongly support, it retains Democratic approval and then adds Republican support. Whereas, if Obama proposed the policy, Republicans would not feel the pull of partisan loyalty to support the plan. In another experiment, respondents were asked if they supported imposing economic sanctions on Iran. However, one-half of the participants were told that Obama had imposed them, while the other half were told that Trump had done so.
Taking these together, we find that Obama has a more unifying effect on public support for Iranian economic sanctions: Democratic and Republican voter support differs by about 4 points. But Trump polarizes people leading to a partisan gap of 29 points. If people believe Trump is behind the sanctions, Democratic support drops by nearly half and Republican support edges up by about 10 points. According to The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, both the Obama and Trump administrations launched drone strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen that had resulted in some civilians being killed.
Thus, another experiment randomly divided respondents into two groups and asked if they supported a drone strike in the Middle East ordered by Obama or Trump that resulted in the death of suspected terrorists but also included civilian causalities. The U. Bush was deeply unpopular following the U.
In , shortly after Obama took office, residents in many countries expressed a sharp increase in confidence in the ability of the U. While Obama remained largely popular internationally throughout his tenure, there were exceptions, including in Russia and key Muslim nations. And Americans themselves became more wary of international engagement. Views on some high-profile social issues shifted rapidly. Eight states and the District of Columbia legalized marijuana for recreational purposes, a legal shift accompanied by a striking reversal in public opinion: For the first time on record, a majority of Americans now support legalization of the drug.
Even before the court issued its landmark ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges , a majority of Americans said for the first time that they favored same-sex marriage.
As the Obama era draws to a close, Pew Research Center looks back on these and other important social, demographic and political shifts that have occurred at home and abroad during the tenure of the 44th president.
And we look ahead to some of the trends that could define the tenure of the 45th, Donald Trump. Even so, the U. In , for the first time, the majority of newborn babies in the U. Nearly one-in-three eligible voters on Election Day were Hispanic, black, Asian or another racial or ethnic minority, reflecting a steady rise since Strong growth in the number of Hispanic eligible voters , in particular U.
Indeed, for the first time, the Hispanic share of the electorate is now on par with the black share. While illegal immigration served as a flashpoint in the tumultuous campaign to succeed Obama, there has been little change in the number of unauthorized immigrants living in the U. And for the first time since the s, more Mexican immigrants — both legal and unauthorized — have returned to Mexico from the U. The share of Americans identifying with evangelical Protestantism, historically black Protestant denominations and other smaller Christian groups, by contrast, have remained fairly stable.
At the same time, the large majority of Americans who do identify with a faith are, on average, as religiously observant as they were a few years ago, and by some measures even more so. The tide of demographic changes in the U.
Democratic voters are becoming less white, less religious and better-educated at a faster rate than that of the country, while Republicans are aging more quickly than the country as a whole.
Education, in particular, has emerged as an important dividing line in recent years, with college graduates becoming more likely to identify as Democrats and those without a college degree becoming more likely to identify as Republicans. Partisan divisions in assessments of presidential performance, for example, are wider now than at any point going back more than six decades, and this growing gap is largely the result of increasing disapproval of the chief executive from the opposition party.
Notes: Data from Eisenhower through George H. Bush from Gallup. Because some earlier data did not include partisan leaning, Republicans and Democrats in this graphic do not include leaners.
Source: Survey conducted Nov. Today, more issues cleave along partisan lines than at any point since surveys began to track public opinion. Beginning around , however, they began to diverge. You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page , on Twitter usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter.
To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters usatoday. Facebook Twitter Email. For Obama White House, propaganda was a scandal, now Republicans don't care The Trump administration spews propaganda during the coronavirus crisis and Republicans say nothing. Kurt Bardella Opinion contributor.
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