President Barack Obama’s presidential approval rating is still tanking, and in the new Fox Poll it is continuing its upside-down decent, but there are three reasons for the precipitation in Obama’s approval rating. Overall, Obama’s approval rating is underwater by 8%, as 43% of voters approve and 51% disapprove of his performance. The implications from these recent numbers are far-reaching for the next generation of conservatives burdened with the task to rebuild a party with national appeal, capable of building a majority coalition.
Likability, or “favorability” as some polls ask, has been Barack Obama’s suit of armor. Americans, for sometime now, have suspected that Obama is simply out of his league. They have given the nation’s first black president the benefit of the doubt, because they like him and the milestone he represents.
However, the president’s personal popularity is down to 47% favorable, and the percentage of those who view Obama unfavorable is up to 51%. This is the first time more than half of American voters have had a negative opinion of Obama, a milestone mirrored in the CNN poll as well.
Americans do not like being lied to, period, by anyone. Not only has this led to Americans’ personal views of Barack Obama to sour, but it has led to a reexamination of the philosophy Barack Obama stands for and on – big government.
Looking into the new Fox Poll, only about a third of American voters say they trust the federal government, very close to a prior survey that found only 35% have a favorable opinion of the federal government, while just 24% of likely voters believe that the federal government “does the right thing most or all of the time” when it acts. Pew Research, as well, found that under the Obama administration trust in the federal government has fallen 14 points, as now only 26% of Americans believe they can trust government “always or most of the time,” while 73% say they can trust the government “only some of the time or never.”
The anti-government sentiment extends beyond the White House, which is a good sign for the conservative ideology, as a solid 71% of Americans think the federal government has too much power. In the Fox Poll, 62% said that they don’t trust the federal government – at all – which again mirrors other surveys conducted over the past month (considering the Fox Poll did not combine the choices “only some of the time or never”).
Despite the fact that 77% disapprove of Congress, and while just 15% of voters approve of the job lawmakers are doing, there’s still a majority consensus that Congress should continue to investigate the IRS targeting of conservative groups (73%), the administration’s handling of Benghazi (71%), the NSA collecting the phone and Internet records of Americans (71%), and the Justice Department monitoring of certain journalists (70%).
A majority of Americans say that these scandals have weakened their faith in the federal government; 60% feel that way in respect to the IRS scandal, 59% for the NSA spying, 54% for the DOJ scandal, and 53% of Benghazi. These numbers include 41% of Americans who said that the IRS and NSA (39%) controversies have weakened their faith in government “a lot,” and by a 69% – 19% margin think that Obama should have ordered a military response to rescue and save the Americans who died in the Benghazi terror attack. That includes almost all Republicans (88%), most independents (71%), just over half of Democrats (52%), and 75% of veterans.
Bottom line, both Rasmussen and Pew Research found that majorities of Americans – 56% and 53% respectively – view the federal government as a threat to their personal liberties. Rasmussen found a jump of 10 points since December of 2013, and Pew saw a jump of 6 points since March of 2010, but neither survey fully encompasses the anti-government sentiment because they were conducted prior to all of the revelations in Obama’s scandal a-day debacle.
Barack Obama, who once promised to “fundamentally transform America,” gave the most unabashedly liberal call to arms speech during his second inaugural address, and assured the graduating class at Ohio State University that they “should reject those voices” that have warned of government tyranny, is now far left of the mainstream political ideology.
Most American voters – 82% – think our Founding Fathers would disapprove of how things are going in Washington these days, and 77% believe that the United States would be a better country if we followed the ideas of the Founding Fathers and the Constitution more closely. While the Obama administration is announcing job killing plans to attack the coal industry, persuading Harry Reid to take up another vote on gun control, and pass the Gang of Eight immigration reform bill that is tantamount to amnesty for illegals, a few days ago Pew Research released a survey underscoring just how disconnected the Obama administration is from the priorities of the American people.
Not only does the American voter feel Obama is disconnected, but they disapprove of his handling of the issues they hold to be in high priority. A majority – 63% – disapprove of his handling of the #3 most important issue of the deficit; 58% disapprove of his handling of the #1 issue of the economy; 57% disapprove on gun control; 55% disapprove of Obama’s handling of health care; 53% disapprove of his handling of immigration, which is way down on the list despite the urgency from D.C.; and foreign policy, a once solid issue for Obama is now down to 50% disapprove.
Rasmussen found similar policy priority ratings, with Obama’s liberal agenda nowhere in line with the American voters’ priorities.
| ISSUE | VERY IMPORTANT |
|---|---|
| Economy | 77% |
| Health care | 73% |
| Job creation | 68% |
| Social Security | 68% |
| Gov. spending | 67% |
| Gov. ethics and corruption | 64% |
| Taxes | 62% |
| Education | 59% |
| National Security | 54% |
| Immigration | 51% |
| Energy | 50% |
| Small business | 49% |
| Gun control | 47% |
| Environment | 36% |
| War in Afghanistan | 34% |
Just as I have identified three major reasons that President Obama’s approval rating is tanking, in my next column I will identify three considerations that the next generation of Republicans must heed if they hope to build a national party appeal, with a majority coalition unbeatable by big government liberal progressives.
Until then, I will leave you with past articles to provide you with background to the upcoming strategy, and since no point to the strategy includes pandering to demographic changes that are greatly exaggerated I would ask you to please read them, share them, and contact your representatives before they doom us to long-term irrelevance due to their ignorance.
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