Unpopular Obama......

Obama's popularity in the USA is low and sinking.

 

Initially, a majority of Americans including a near majority of whites felt that O was the perfect candidate. His racial origins gave Americans their first opportunity to demonstrate that skin color was a at best a secondary consideration for a successful election.

 

He was bright, youthful, articulate, and palatable to all blacks, most Hispanics and the rest of us to some large degree. His speeches were riveting and nobody seemed to mind his being slightly left of center.

 

Soon, things began to fall apart.

 

To a large extent, this deterioration was precipitated by a handful of outspoken conservative detractors who enjoyed large radio and TV audiences. Their message was that O was bound to fail because of his socialist thinking and lack of experience.

 

Over time, the list of perceived faults grew longer; smug, indecisive, anti-British, pro-Muslim, unreliable, power hungry, and neither willing nor able to keep his often naive campaign promises. Many of his black American critics felt he was not black enough as he never really experienced growing up black in the continental USA.

 

A nasty campaign was mounted early in his presidency claiming that he was not American born and therefore not eligible for the office of POTUS. 

 

The idea caught fire among people subject to conspiracy theories and soon a small number of 'birthers' were spreading the word that he was not only born in Kenya, but was also a Muslim. The above mentioned radio and TV conservatives began  emphasizing his middle name; Barack HUSSEIN Obama. These people were just stirring the merde as they knew full well he was born in the USA of an American mother and Kenyan father. His reluctance to make public a copy of his Hawaiian birth certificate added fuel to the fire.

 

The issue of citizenship is now dead and the birthers have dwindled to a whisper.

 

Seeing as how Muslims are not baptized or otherwise ordained into their confession, and because Muslims believe everyone is born into the Islamic faith,  it is difficult to say whether Obama is a Muslim or not. The vast majority of Americans are content to view him as a Christian, but of undetermined denomination and not terribly religious. He himself claims to be a Christian. The issue is dead.

 

One might declare Obama to be tolerant to Muslims or even giving them more slack and attention than certainly other Presidents did. He may have been favorably influenced toward Muslims by his father and by his childhood years in Indonesia. In both cases, he learned from religious Muslims who were not culturally Arabs.

 

Such experience could easily give one a softer impression of Islam than if one had lived in a strictly Arab household. Indonesians are known for their acceptance of others and gracious cultural attitudes. Viewing Islam from an Indonesian perspective, therefore, give a much softer impression than viewing it from the perspective of a desert Arab.

 

Just now, it is not popular in the USA to speak kindly of Muslims. As a religious group, they are generally not tolerated. Most Americans do not distinguish between culturally different adherents to Islam. Instead, they bunch Muslims into a single group. Thus, being anti-Muslim is tantamount to being against everyone, Arab, Asian, African, Caucasian, who embrace the religion.

 

It follows that anyone showing sympathy to Muslims is going against a contemporary bias. Thus, Obama's earlier efforts to seek a dialogue with the Middle Eastern world was viewed with suspicions of being pro-Muslim. That aspect of his early  foreign policy failed miserably and it mattered not whether he pursued it out of respect for Islam or out of a desire to make new friends for America.

 

It would be an exaggeration to say the Obama is universally disliked in the USA.

 

He still commands the loyalty of a vast majority of blacks and a solid majority of Hispanics. He is also respected by a minority of whites, mainly liberals and leftists. He maintains good relations with the American version of Champaign Socialists, i.e. wealthy individuals dedicated to a liberal political philosophy and the democratic party.

 

Given today's demography, the preceding groups voting as a block would almost guarantee election. He is decidedly out of favor with the mainstream white population. His popularity rating has plummeted to somewhere in the 30th percentile, but this is a highly mercurial rating that cannot be trusted over any measurable length of time.

 

Aspects of Obama's loss of followers have more to do with his personality than his politics, race or religion. He comes across as bourgeois and noveau riche.  His intemperance over wining and dining, and partying, and sports, and holidays add up, in the minds of the American public, as excessive. It is as if he is eating out of the public trough as long as the food is free.

 

Many feel he is living the good life at taxpayers expense.

 

In another vein, he seems to have lost his magic. His speeches are less riveting. His ability to persuade political allies and enemies alike has waned. He holds no apparent sway in the Senate or the House. Nor does he appear to have the ear of the democratic Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid. He is known to be out of sorts with Bill and Hillary Clinton.

 

It looks as if Obama is in over his head, has lost the stomach for politics and for being POTUS and is just along for the ride. His recent fiasco about drawing red lines and allowing Congress to decide whether or not to sanction the Assad regime in Syria have acted to largely hand over hard-won presidential powers to his political opponents.

 

The only way that history would treat the Obama presidency kindly would be if he were commissioned to write it. His public image is all most Americans have to go by. That persona is not doing well at the moment and the tend is downward.

 

This does not imply that he is a bad person or a poor husband or father. He has become of victim of his own success. He is likely cocooned in a bevy of trusted advisors who feed him on campaign-type propaganda to the extent they now all believe it.