Obama: Has he lost America’s trust?

last updated 8 January 2015

“President Obama has a problem: The Teflon’s worn off,” said John Avlon in TheDailyBeast.com. A new CNN/Opinion Research poll shows the president’s popularity plunging in the wake of a spate of scandals, from the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups to revelations of widespread government surveillance of Americans’ phone records. Obama’s approval rating plummeted 8 percentage points over the past month to 45 percent, his lowest in 18 months. And among voters under age 30—traditionally Obama’s most loyal supporters—only 48 percent now approve of the president’s performance, a stunning 17-point decline in just one month. But “the most devastating poll number” shows Americans losing faith in Obama’s “honesty and trustworthiness.” For years, he’s been seen as a stand-up guy by 60 percent of voters. “No more. On this measure, too, the president is underwater at 49 percent.”

The problem, said Gloria Borger in CNN.com, is that voters no longer know who Obama is. They thought they had elected a “constitutional scholar, civil libertarian, and anti-war activist.” But “what he has seen from the Oval Office” has changed his once-naïve perspective. The candidate who once promised to wind down America’s wars is now escalating the U.S.’s involvement in Syria’s civil war. The young senator who railed against President George W. Bush’s warrantless wiretaps now defends sweeping government surveillance. He’s defending drone strikes, too, and aggressive investigations of government leaks to journalists. The president who could once do no wrong can now “do no right,” said Jennifer Rubin in The Washington Post. Obama’s deliberate vagueness and lack of a clear policy agenda at home or abroad has cost him the support of independents, liberals, and the young. “He is more visibly out of his depth than at any time in his presidency.”

“Still, Republicans hardly have reason to gloat,” said Linda Feldmann in CSMonitor.com. College Republicans recently polled wavering young Obama supporters, and asked them to describe the Republican Party. The most commonly used terms they came up with were “closed-minded,” “racist,” “rigid,” and “old-fashioned.” Young voters also see the GOP as devoted only to the interests of the wealthy. So while America’s youth might be growing disillusioned with Obama and the Democrats, “it’s a lesser-of-two-evils proposition.” Ultimately, they still “dislike the Republican Party more.”