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Is Obama the most polarisng President in your liftime?

Has Obama created a bigger gap between the right and left.

  • Yes he has.

    Votes: 18 38.3%
  • No it's the same no matter who the president is

    Votes: 29 61.7%

  • Total voters
    47

Higgins86

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Question is mainly directed to the American posters, Obama brings out some strong emotions from both sides of the US political spectrum. So the question is pretty simple do you think Obama has created a bigger gap between the American left and right or is it still business as usual?
 
lifetime*. Sorry on my phone with my big clumsy fingers.
 
Not by a long shot and those that continue this mantra along with "our country has never been more divided since the civil war" are simply incorrect and ignorant of history.

I often find one of many Conservatives biggest issues is putting things in proper context.
 
His predecessor set the bar pretty high with all that "you're either with us or against us" simple mindedness, so I have to say no.
 
I think the gap is bigger with the rise of the Tea Party...but I don't think he caused it.
 
I said Yes....but not because of anything he has done, it is because of who he is.

It seems the extreme partisanship is directed at Obama himself, as a person, rather than the party.

I do not know if this is due to the color of his skin or whatever....but this began pretty much the day he was elected and has snowballed ever since. I have never seen such disrespect for our President or this level of spite, it's rather disgusting and pathetic to see.

I distinctly remember defending W when he was unfairly attacked by the Dems...the onslaught toward Obama is so far beyond that as to be ridiculous.
 
Question is mainly directed to the American posters, Obama brings out some strong emotions from both sides of the US political spectrum. So the question is pretty simple do you think Obama has created a bigger gap between the American left and right or is it still business as usual?

It seems that most presidents are incredibly polarizing in their 2nd term. Clinton experienced it to a degree, Bush certainly experienced it, and Obama is experiencing it. Bush and Obama both had/have opposition even within their own parties in their 2nd terms. I do think the degree of the rift is a little more extreme in the case of Obama because he has a more ideological agenda which is something more prone to disagreement. He will leave in a couple years and then we'll have someone new to piss us off eventually.
 
the onslaught toward Obama is so far beyond that as to be ridiculous.

It was really bizarre how quickly it took place as well.

January 20th 2009 everyone and their ****ing dog suddenly were "Constitutionalists" and you got crap like this:

posters_1678527c.jpg
 
With the advent of the internet, I think each subsequent president will be thought as the most polarising ever. I think the person in charge has little to do with the polarisation.
 
He's not polarizing because of anything he's done. The right-wingers have ramped up the hate train to unprecedented levels. It started before the Obama was even sworn into office.
 
His predecessor set the bar pretty high with all that "you're either with us or against us" simple mindedness, so I have to say no.

Precisely. It's not the same with EVERY President, but Obama is following pretty closely on Bush's heels as far as being polarizing goes. I think a lot of the polarization goes back to Clinton's impeachment actually.
 
Question is mainly directed to the American posters, Obama brings out some strong emotions from both sides of the US political spectrum. So the question is pretty simple do you think Obama has created a bigger gap between the American left and right or is it still business as usual?

No. The rise of the Tea Party is the cause of the polarization, and it would have been at least similar almost no matter who the Democratic victor was, even if he had held the same views as a Republican. The scorched earth approach that they advocate is the way the Tea Party fought for it to be, and they have gotten what they want. I feel that all Republicans must know this on some level, so anyone saying that he is the most polarizing is frankly purposely deluding themselves.

It would be a rare statesman that could overcome the political poison therein.
 
Question is mainly directed to the American posters, Obama brings out some strong emotions from both sides of the US political spectrum. So the question is pretty simple do you think Obama has created a bigger gap between the American left and right or is it still business as usual?

Creating that gap is business as usual. Obama is doing nothing more than carrying on the Bush legacy.
 
the country is as polarized as i've ever seen it. it's not completely because of Obama, though. i left the right wing a little before he was elected. the right's absolute insanity about all things Obama was part of it.

i'm fairly disgusted with the level of partisanship on both sides. before Obama, the left was calling for Bush to resign every night on MSNBC and was making fictional snuff films about him. both sides devote most of their energy to hating each other, and it's ****ing up the country.
 
Question is mainly directed to the American posters, Obama brings out some strong emotions from both sides of the US political spectrum. So the question is pretty simple do you think Obama has created a bigger gap between the American left and right or is it still business as usual?


Hm. Hard to say.


Johnson was pretty polarizing, but that was before my time. I remember Nixon... he was extremely polarizing as well. Carter was originally widely popular on both sides, but by the end of his presidency he was almost universally viewed with contempt.

Reagan was extremely polarizing as well. Many people all but worshipped him, but the haters were VERY hateful.

Bush I was kind of vanilla ice milk, not much to polarize there really.

Billy Boy... that is, Clinton... well, there were a lot of mixed feelings about him, some hated him, some loved him, many just kind of thought he was "okay but DAYUM what a hoe-dawg". :)

Dubyer (Bush the Second) was very polarizing.

Obama... well he's UP there on the scale near the top to be sure, but I don't know if I can honestly say he's the MOST polarizing Prez as of yet. Have to wait until the final curtain call to say.
 
The poll is a little simplistic, but I'm not in the mood for splitting hairs, so "no" is good enough for now. Of course he's not the most polarizing president. He doesn't regularly call into question the patriotism of his political opposition, and certainly didn't make comments about being with us or against us. The most overtly partisan hackish thing he said was that comment about certain people clinging to their guns and their bibles, but that's about it. The most polarizing elements in this country I believe are the tea party, and regular talk show hosts on am radio that paint the Left not merely as political opposition, but as enemies of the state.
 
The ramped up rhetoric by the Democrats and the Republicans are what is polarizing this nation. Obama being a Democrat is just as guilty of such rhetoric. It is nothing more than a bunch of self centered feeble minds that think that their way is the only way. There are many people that equate Obama with Stalin/Lennin/Marx and just as many that equated Bush with Hitler. But both are nut jobs that believe that such labeling will win support for their ideologies. Rationaly it just makes them the cheerleaders for dying ideologies. I mean who wants to support or join a bunch of lying propagandists? Bush wasnt a dictator and neither is Obama. With that established people that made such accusations are exposed as fools. Hence my position that the Democrat and Republican parties are full of fools, a out of touch in your face fear mongering bunch of whining babies, that want nothing less than a polarized nation in order to conquer the opposition through lies and deciet. The cries of impending civil war and revolution are the cries of desperation in the realization that most Americans are not listening to them.
 
Would any of you say that 24 news networks take a huge share of the blame?
 
Precisely. It's not the same with EVERY President, but Obama is following pretty closely on Bush's heels as far as being polarizing goes. I think a lot of the polarization goes back to Clinton's impeachment actually.

Some people think the polarization began with Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork to the SCOTUS in 1987-88.

"...The Bork fight, in some ways, was the beginning of the end of civil discourse in politics. For years afterward, conservatives seethed at the “systematic demonization” of Bork, recalls Clint Bolick, a longtime conservative legal activist. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution coined the angry verb “to bork,” which meant to destroy a nominee by whatever means necessary. When Republicans borked the Democratic House Speaker Jim Wright less than two years later, there wasn’t a trace of remorse, not after what the Democrats had done to Bork. The anger between Democrats and Republicans, the unwillingness to work together, the profound mistrust — the line from Bork to today’s ugly politics is a straight one."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/22/opinion/nocera-the-ugliness-all-started-with-bork.html?_r=0
 
no, he about equal to bush junior.

in both cases the blame lie primarily in the maturity of the citizenry
 
He's not polarizing because of anything he's done. The right-wingers have ramped up the hate train to unprecedented levels. It started before the Obama was even sworn into office.

You don't think attacking the Republicans in every speech he makes is polarizing? He is supposed to the the President to everybody but he has never been more than the leader of his party.

Has any other President in history attacked the other side as consistantly as this president has done? It doesn't even matter the subject of the speech, he attacks the enemy.
 
Obama is, without a doubt, the most polarizing President of my lifetime.

Look at what he did with ObamaCare - all previous social welfare schemes (SS & Medicare and the lesser ones) received bipartisan support. ObamaCare was passed strictly on Democratic votes. All of those town hall meetings which showcased the protests - nothing like that was evident in the past.

Bush doesn't even come close - his big black mark was the Iraq War and plenty of Democrats voted for that.

In terms of polarization, Obama is in a class of his own.
 
Question is mainly directed to the American posters, Obama brings out some strong emotions from both sides of the US political spectrum. So the question is pretty simple do you think Obama has created a bigger gap between the American left and right or is it still business as usual?

I think that during the Obama Administartion we have seen the greatest level of pollarization between the left and right in my lifetime. However I attribute this polarization not to President Obama but rather the polarizing actions of those who set the tone of the right-wing culture such as talk radio, bloggers, pundits, etc. They have convenced their trusting followers that the President of the United States is a socialist/marxist/communist, terrorist sympathizer, closet Islamic radical, black nationalist who hates white people and is a constitutionally ineligible fraud who was actually born in Kenya. If tens of millions of people actually believe all that, its understandable that there will be unpresidented polarization, none of which is the President's fault. Bring it up and you get accused of either using the race card, saying the President cannot be disagreed with on "policy" just because he's black (or half black,) democrats do the same thing or the exponentially greater level of influence the extremists on the right is dishonstly dismissed as be equvalent to that of extremists on the left.
 
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I think that during the Obama Administartion we have seen the greatest level of pollarization between the left and right in my lifetime. However I attribute this polarization not to President Obama but rather the polarizing actions of those who set the tone of the right-wing culture such as talk radio, bloggers, pundits, etc. They have convenced their trusting followers that the President of the United States is a socialist/marxist/communist, terrorist sympathizer, closet Islamic radical, black nationalist who hates white people and is a constitutionally ineligible fraud who was actually born in Kenya. If tens of millions of people actually believe all that, its understandable that there will be unpresidented polarization, none of which is the President's fault. Bring it up and you get accused of either using the race card, saying the President cannot be disagreed with on "policy," democrats do the same thing or the exponentially greater level of influence the extremists on the right is dishonstly dismissed as be equvalent to that of extremists on the left.

-It's easy to convince people that Obama is/was a socialist when he ran for early office under a socialist party banner.
-It's easy to convince people that Obama is a terrorist sympathizer when he is as thick as thieves with a convicted terrorist.
-It's easy to convince people that Obama is a closet Islamic radical when he instructs the director of NASA that his primary mission is to make Muslims in the ME feel good about themselves.

 
I said Yes....but not because of anything he has done, it is because of who he is.

It seems the extreme partisanship is directed at Obama himself, as a person, rather than the party.

I do not know if this is due to the color of his skin or whatever....but this began pretty much the day he was elected and has snowballed ever since. I have never seen such disrespect for our President or this level of spite, it's rather disgusting and pathetic to see.

I distinctly remember defending W when he was unfairly attacked by the Dems...the onslaught toward Obama is so far beyond that as to be ridiculous.

I know people will get their panties in a twist over this comment but I think you are right. Last week my partner was at the grocery story near our home and some man in line behind him starting going off about Obama. This began over a comment about there not being enough registers open. The guy started complaining about that and somehow it was Obamas fault. Then I was at the same store by myself and a woman was charged tax on an energy drink and she got all enraged about it and blamed it on Obama. I'm standing there thinking WTF is going on? I have never seen anything like this towards a President and it's so completely disconnected from reality that it is hard not to think that, for people like that anyway, something else is at play for them.
 
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