5 ms·

Were Obama’s disapproval ratings not always in the 40-55% range, which are right where Trump’s are? The data suggests they were. Considering how laughably bia

Were Obama’s disapproval ratings not always in the 40-55% range, which are right where Trump’s are? The data suggests they were. Considering how laughably biased the media has been against Trump, relative to the exact opposite treatment that Obama had, he’s actually doing amazingly well in this regard. I think Trump has made a tremendous number of mistakes, but just going by the numbers, he seems to holding better than Obama ever did given the headwinds he faces. My guess is Obama’s disapproval rating would have started off far higher too if Republicans were rioting in the streets and claimed cheating in the wake of his election. But Republicans didn’t do that, and took a considerably higher road than Democrats have done since Trump’s election. It has been shocking and terribly disappointing to see how poorly Democrats reacted to losing, and that poor sportsmanship is still playing out. It turns out that the “party of tolerance” is only tolerant of those in its own party.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> Were Obama’s disapproval ratings not always in the 40-55% range, which are right where Trump’s are? No, they were not always in that range, and that's a huge range; the only time Trump has been anywhere near 40% is the initial honeymoon phase, where Obama was in the 20s. > My guess is Obama’s disapproval rating would have started off far higher too if Republicans were rioting in the streets and claimed cheating in the wake of his election. Yes, mass protests tend to be a symptom of widespread and strong opposition (another sign of widespread opposition is getting fewer votes than the other major party candidate; George W. Bush had the same problem, and started with the same poor numbers as Trump; unlike Trump, he managed to improve them to more typical early first term numbers quite quickly, even before the post-9/11 rally around the flag effect.)
- downandout 9y ago
  No, they were not always in that range, and that's a huge range They weren’t always there, but they certainly wound up there as his Presidency dragged on and things like Obamacare began to hit people’s wallets. Where it wound up is what matters, as people can’t disapprove of things that haven’t happened yet (except in Trump’s case, where some Democrats were calling for impeachment before he was inaugurated). Yes, mass protests tend to be a symptom of widespread and strong opposition The protests were driven by the media’s response, which were unlike anything that any candidate has faced before. The media was furious that they were unable to influence the election for Hillary, and then they realized that they could profit from the polarization. With enough negative media coverage, anything can sound like a big problem to those that allow the media to shape their opinions.
  - Flenser 9y ago
    Here's a graph for disapproval ratings for both of them. See for yourself: https://i.imgur.com/5dk3lWg.png https://i.imgur.com/5dk3lWg.png
pjc50 9y ago
> claimed cheating in the wake of his election You're forgetting the birthirism, the claim that Obama was ineligible for the presidency because he was born abroad, complete with theatrical demands for his birth certificate.
- downandout 9y ago
  That was a relatively small number of extreme right wingers, and they were quickly branded by the media as nutjobs (and rightly so, as long as Obama had his papers in order). That movement wasn’t mainstream, unlike the Trump cheating/collusion claims.
  - lazyasciiart 9y ago
    You realize that movement included Donald Trump, right?
    - downandout 9y ago
      Don’t take my assessment of the numbers as a defense of Trump. I didn’t vote for him or Hillary, and I think he is both way off in the weeds on many issues and making us look bad on the world stage. But that doesn’t mean that we should go painting things as being worse than they are, embracing hypocrisy, or misinterpreting facts like the media does.
      - lazyasciiart 9y ago
        We also shouldn't go making up facts in order to paint Trump's approval ratings as better than they are.
        downandout 9y ago
        And I’m not. But I think even you would agree that the overwhelmingly negative press coverage - almost all of it opinion based - has some effect on the disapproval ratings. 50% was going to be built in from the start. Somebody should do the math to figure out the correlation between the ratio of positive to negative press stories and the disapproval ratings for both Trump and Obama. I think you’d find that if you normalize that ratio for both of these guys, Trump actually wins that race.
lazyasciiart 9y ago
The data says that Trump's disapproval ratings are already averaging over 50, which is unusual, and so far his highest disapproval rating has been 58%. The exact range for Trump so far has been 44-58, whereas for Obama's presidency his range was 19-56. Only the most partisan analysis can pretend that those look the same. At this point in his presidency, Obama was at his highest disapproval level so far, and it was 46% - Trump hasn't seen disapproval that low since January 2017. (You may not be aware that disapproval ratings are not actually calculated as 100-approval). Obama never hit the net disapproval levels that Trump is at. I also want to point out that it's pretty facile to assert that if Republicans had disapproved of Obama more strongly, he would have been more strongly disapproved of.
- downandout 9y ago
  I also want to point out that it's pretty facile to assert that if Republicans had disapproved of Obama more strongly, he would have been more strongly disapproved of. I think even the most hardcore Democrat would agree that the vast majority of media outlets are liberal leaning. So their disapproval has a stronger effect on their opposition simply because they are louder and more people listen to them.
  - lazyasciiart 9y ago
    You really need to stop guessing at reality and start actually learning about it https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/02/trump-biased-liberal-media-television https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/02/trump-...

dragonwriter 9y ago

> Were Obama’s disapproval ratings not always in the 40-55% range, which are right where Trump’s are? No, they were not always in that range, and that's a huge range; the only time Trump has been anywhere near 40% is the initial honeymoon phase, where Obama was in the 20s. > My guess is Obama’s disapproval rating would have started off far higher too if Republicans were rioting in the streets and claimed cheating in the wake of his election. Yes, mass protests tend to be a symptom of widespread and strong opposition (another sign of widespread opposition is getting fewer votes than the other major party candidate; George W. Bush had the same problem, and started with the same poor numbers as Trump; unlike Trump, he managed to improve them to more typical early first term numbers quite quickly, even before the post-9/11 rally around the flag effect.)

downandout 9y ago
No, they were not always in that range, and that's a huge range They weren’t always there, but they certainly wound up there as his Presidency dragged on and things like Obamacare began to hit people’s wallets. Where it wound up is what matters, as people can’t disapprove of things that haven’t happened yet (except in Trump’s case, where some Democrats were calling for impeachment before he was inaugurated). Yes, mass protests tend to be a symptom of widespread and strong opposition The protests were driven by the media’s response, which were unlike anything that any candidate has faced before. The media was furious that they were unable to influence the election for Hillary, and then they realized that they could profit from the polarization. With enough negative media coverage, anything can sound like a big problem to those that allow the media to shape their opinions.
- Flenser 9y ago
  Here's a graph for disapproval ratings for both of them. See for yourself: https://i.imgur.com/5dk3lWg.png https://i.imgur.com/5dk3lWg.png

pjc50 9y ago

> claimed cheating in the wake of his election You're forgetting the birthirism, the claim that Obama was ineligible for the presidency because he was born abroad, complete with theatrical demands for his birth certificate.

downandout 9y ago
That was a relatively small number of extreme right wingers, and they were quickly branded by the media as nutjobs (and rightly so, as long as Obama had his papers in order). That movement wasn’t mainstream, unlike the Trump cheating/collusion claims.
- lazyasciiart 9y ago
  You realize that movement included Donald Trump, right?
  - downandout 9y ago
    Don’t take my assessment of the numbers as a defense of Trump. I didn’t vote for him or Hillary, and I think he is both way off in the weeds on many issues and making us look bad on the world stage. But that doesn’t mean that we should go painting things as being worse than they are, embracing hypocrisy, or misinterpreting facts like the media does.
    - lazyasciiart 9y ago
      We also shouldn't go making up facts in order to paint Trump's approval ratings as better than they are.
      - downandout 9y ago
        And I’m not. But I think even you would agree that the overwhelmingly negative press coverage - almost all of it opinion based - has some effect on the disapproval ratings. 50% was going to be built in from the start. Somebody should do the math to figure out the correlation between the ratio of positive to negative press stories and the disapproval ratings for both Trump and Obama. I think you’d find that if you normalize that ratio for both of these guys, Trump actually wins that race.

lazyasciiart 9y ago

The data says that Trump's disapproval ratings are already averaging over 50, which is unusual, and so far his highest disapproval rating has been 58%. The exact range for Trump so far has been 44-58, whereas for Obama's presidency his range was 19-56. Only the most partisan analysis can pretend that those look the same. At this point in his presidency, Obama was at his highest disapproval level so far, and it was 46% - Trump hasn't seen disapproval that low since January 2017. (You may not be aware that disapproval ratings are not actually calculated as 100-approval). Obama never hit the net disapproval levels that Trump is at. I also want to point out that it's pretty facile to assert that if Republicans had disapproved of Obama more strongly, he would have been more strongly disapproved of.

downandout 9y ago
I also want to point out that it's pretty facile to assert that if Republicans had disapproved of Obama more strongly, he would have been more strongly disapproved of. I think even the most hardcore Democrat would agree that the vast majority of media outlets are liberal leaning. So their disapproval has a stronger effect on their opposition simply because they are louder and more people listen to them.
- lazyasciiart 9y ago
  You really need to stop guessing at reality and start actually learning about it https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/02/trump-biased-liberal-media-television https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/02/trump-...