Obama: The most polarizing president ever?

When he was running for president, Barack Obama promised a new era of “postpartisanship” in which conservative views would be respected and integrated into the government. That vow was just a lot of feel-good, empty rhetoric, said Karl Rove in The Wall Street Journal, and nearly 100 days into Obama’s presidency, the proof is now in. A new Pew poll finds that the gap between Obama’s approval rating among Democrats (88 percent) and Republicans (27 percent) is 61 points—10 points wider than George W. Bush’s “approval gap” in April 2001. And it’s no wonder. From his inaugural address to last week’s trip to Europe, Obama has gratuitously criticized Bush and pursued a far-left agenda. “A decisive leader is sometimes a divisive leader,” said Michael Gerson in The Washington Post. But Obama didn’t have to be this way. “It would have been relatively easy” for him to win over some Republicans with “genuine outreach.” Instead, on the $787 billion stimulus bill, the $3.6 trillion federal budget, and a host of other policy proposals, “Republicans were flattened, not consulted.”

“Context, please,” said John Dickerson in Slate.com. These poll results have little to do with Obama’s policies or treatment of Republicans. As the director of the Pew poll himself pointed out, “political parties have become more partisan over the last 30 years,” with the post-inauguration gap in approval ratings increasing from Richard Nixon’s 29 points to Bill Clinton’s 45 points to George W. Bush’s 51 points. Besides, polls from previous decades prove that “Republicans tend to be less generous” in judging new presidents of the opposite party.

That’s especially true now that the GOP has shrunk to an angry, frightened rump, said Andrew Sullivan in the London Sunday Times. Only 24 percent of voters now identify themselves as Republicans, and most of them are blind followers of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, which daily proclaim the new president to be a socialist, fascist, anti-American radical. Thus, it’s hardly surprising that “Republican hostility has soared.” Meanwhile, the number of Americans who believe the country is on the “right track” has grown from 26 percent when Obama took office to 40 percent—and it’s “rising steadily.”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Maybe so, said David Broder in The Washington Post, but the White House would be foolish to conclude that polarization is cost-free. “The fastest-growing portion of the electorate consists of people who have no strong partisan allegiance.” These critical swing voters—comprising 30 percent of the electorate—distrust both doctrinaire liberals and doctrinaire conservatives, and what impresses them are pragmatic policies that have support in both parties. So in the long run, “it will continue to behoove Obama to woo Republican help—no matter how tough the odds.”

It really wouldn’t be that tough, said Michael Goodwin in the New York Daily News. As Obama showed during his recent trip to the G-20 summit meeting in Europe, he does have a talent for building consensus among rivals. When the leaders of France and China were at odds over tax policy, “Obama cut a deal that left both men satisfied and grateful.” Later, speaking to a youthful audience in France, Obama bluntly told them, “Don’t fool yourselves” about the nature of terrorism and al Qaida’s determination to kill Westerners—no matter who is president. Leading by example and challenging supporters’ illusions—“that’s the Obama we desperately need at home.”

In the end, though, it all comes down to policy, said Kenneth T. Walsh in USNews.com. Obama’s proposals to overhaul the health-care system and reduce carbon emissions, and his trillion-dollar deficits, are bound to alienate Republicans and even many independents. So what? said Gerald F. Seib in The Wall Street Journal Online. Brookings Institution scholar Pietro S. Nivola maintains that our current polarization may be a good thing, creating a kind of “parliamentary democracy” in which the two parties stand clearly for a distinctly different philosophy of governance. Voters can now be pretty certain, for example, that if Democrats win the White House and majorities in Congress, they will pursue universal health-care coverage, increase tax rates on the wealthy, and seek consensus abroad. If Republicans win, taxes on the top wage earners will drop, and foreign policy will be more aggressive. If voters don’t like the results of these policies, “they can throw the rascals out.” Besides, “heightened partisanship” has one more benefit: It has made our “elections more interesting.”