Gallup’s Daily Obama Approval Rating poll shows Americans view president Obama consistently higher now than at any time since 2009.
His popularity is more of a reflection on Obama being a likable person, than having likable policies. It’s also a reflection on the extreme unpopularity of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Complete Failure
Likable or not, Obama’s legacy will be one of complete failure. Vox reports The whole Democratic Party is now a smoking pile of rubble.
Vox missed some things, lots of things actually, but the headline is accurate enough.
Everything Obama stood for is about to be undone, except perhaps his drone policy which was a miserable failure and should be undone.
- Obamacare Failure
- Drone Policy Failure
- Trade policy Failure
- Libya Failure
- NSA Spying Failure
- Guantanamo Failure
- Russia Failure
Affordable Care Act Failure
Obama’s Affordable Care Act was nearly a complete failure. Affordable it certainly wasn’t, except for those picked up by Medicaid and a small group of heavily subsidized others.
- Obamacare Premiums Up 30% in TX, MS, KS; 50% in IL, AZ, PA; 93% in NM: When Does the Death Spiral Blow Up?
- Obamacare “Near Collapse” in Minnesota as Prices Jump 60% Average
Drone Policy Failure
Thousands of innocent men, women, and children have been killed by drones. Obama justified targeted killings under the pretext of wars that were never declared.
Obama escalated the seriously misguided policies of the Bush administration. “Obama authorized the CIA and the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) to fire on targets based solely on their intelligence “signatures” — patterns of behavior that are detected through signals intercepts, human sources and aerial surveillance, and that indicate the presence of an important operative or a plot against U.S. interests. Under the previous rules the CIA and the US military were only allowed to use drone strikes against known terrorist leaders whose location could be confirmed and who appeared on secret CIA and JSOC target lists.”
US warmongers, and their backers became judge, jury, and executioner, of anyone having the required “signature”, even in countries deemed to be US allies.
“According to the New York Times, President Obama has placed himself at the helm of a top secret process to designate terrorists for kill or capture, reserving the final say on approving lethal action, and signs off every strike in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan.”
The U.S. Army’s Law of Land Warfare (Field Manual 27-10) states: “It is especially forbidden * * * to kill or wound treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army. [Article 23(b) of the 1907 Hague Regulations]”
“Daniel Reisner, who headed the International Legal Division of the Israeli Military Advocate General’s Office from 1994 to 2005, has stated that although targeted killing is illegal under previous understanding of international law, “If you do something for long enough, the world will accept it. The whole of international law is now based on the notion that an act that is forbidden today becomes permissible if executed by enough countries.” Reisner continues, “International law progresses through violations. We invented the targeted assassination thesis and we had to push it.
Trade Policy Failure
Obama pushed hard for the Transpacific Trade Partnership (TPP) with Asia, and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the EU.
Both are dead. Both deserved to fail actually because they were loaded with global warming silliness and provisions that allowed companies to sue governments.
I wrote about the collapse of TTIP on September 23 in US-EU Trade Talks “De Facto Dead”.
On November 16 I wrote Australia Snubs Obama, Dumps TPP, Opts for China-Sponsored Trade Deal: Mish Proposed Deal.
New TPP World
TPP discussions started in 2005. The US joined the agreement in 2008. Agreement was finally reached in 2015.
Obama wanted to exclude China from TPP. As with Obamacare, Obama succeeded, but the patient died.
Guantanamo Failure
In 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama gave orders for the detention camp to be closed by January 22, 2010.
As of 2015, the detention camp remains open due to a congressional refusal of funds for its closure.
Rather than, or in addition to ramming Obamacare trough a budget Reconciliation Act, Democrats could have had the decency to get funding for closing Guantanamo.
Instead …
Libya Failure
Hillary Clinton was Obama’s secretary of state. He is responsible for her failures and Libya was arguably the worst. On July 27, 2016, Foreign Policy wrote
Hillary the Hawk: A History From Haiti to Syria, the Democratic candidate’s long record suggests she’s looking forward to being a war president on day one.
Her policies in Haiti, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria were all pro-war. It’s no wonder Wall Street and the banks loved her.
Of all her failures, for which Obama must take the blame, Libya stands out. She was a strong proponent of regime change in Libya. On the death of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, Hillary bragged “We came, we saw, he died.”
Please watch that video. It’s very short, about 12 seconds.
In the wake of that assassination, Libya is now in Civil War. Parts of Libya are under control of terrorists including ISIS.
Foreign Policy states the “Libya regime change intervention was, unfortunately, one that the Obama administration chose to fully support, despite misleading the American people at the time that it was not the goal. Obama correctly labeled not planning for the postwar scenario his worst mistake and correctly described Libya a mess.”
NSA Spying Failure
Obama embraced and extended the blatantly illegal spy tactics of the Bush administration. We learned about those tactics thanks to global Edward Snowden.
Two days ago, I provided a wrap-up discussion and stated Pardon Snowden, Prosecute Clapper.
It seems unlikely. Obama is too big of a coward, and too much like Bush to pardon Snowden.
Russia Failure
Obama’s policy towards Russia has been a complete failure. Trump rates to be more pragmatic.
Did Obama Do Anything Right?
Inquiring minds may be wondering if Obama did anything right in eight years.
I can actually point to one thing: Talks with Iran were a success. Some will disagree.
Unfortunately, Trump may undo Obama’s success on this front, but rates to be better in regards to Russia, and hopefully NATO.
Obama’s Legacy
Obama’s legacy is one of at least seven major failures. His one success, which some debate, may be undone.
Ultimately, that’s his scorecard, no matter what his popularity may be at the moment.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Can someone explain why we give polls like this any credibility after their own failure regarding the 2016 ? For all we know they are polling the same pool of people that led them (pollsters) to believe people preferred Hiliary by 80%…
Can’t explain that, but maybe things like this might tell you where they are coming from. Here’s your big chance to become a Heidelberg project supporter! Why take a chance at aiming high, when you can aim low and never miss.
http://www.heidelberg.org/
Easy. People are afraid to swim upstream. They group together out of a need for safety in numbers and the security a group can provide. Polls, phony or not, tell people who is going to provide the most safety and security if they join in. Loyalty to the group is assumed since banishment is a threat for not being loyal.
Most people are brain dead followers who want the most they can get for the least effort expended. Polls favoring Hillary offered Hillary as a sugar mama. The fact she lost is notice that even brain dead followers have their limits. Those who expect free sh*t from the government in exchange for looking the other way with respect to unnecessary wars and the erosion of freedoms are smart enough to see the hidden costs if they pile up high enough.
George Washington failed too. He said to stay out of foreign entanglements. Failure is the destiny of all Presidents.
Castles made of sand.
I would not say GW failed. I would say the presidents after him failed when they did not take his advice. GW also advised “do not form political parties”. Oh boy!
“Failure is the destiny of all Presidents.”
Which begs the solution………………
Obama, bowing to Israeli racists, has made a big contribution to the idea that life is worthless. Especially but not necessarily restricted to foreigners – or anyone not us.
The elites may always have been of that opinion but that is why they needed to be controlled by the ideas of (International) human rights and common law.
Obama’s Nobel Prize should be taken away but is that likely from an organisation that exists on the proceeds of gunpowder and explosives?
The way the world is moving now will/may? result in sanctioned deaths on a massive scale in the future. Pandora and respect for life and property (except the family dog) is out of the box and putting it back in can be expected to be painful or terminal for many ordinary people.
Commutations of victims of the drug war? A few thousand is a pittance against the millions arrested and imprisoned but its something that can’t be undone.
How about the failure of Obama’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood’s overthrow of a friendly government in Egypt?
I can’t comment on this one because my teleprompter isn’t working.
Obama’s legacy for Trump… Call your Senator and voice your opposition to this, otherwise Trump’s 1st term is going to be spent fighting a war and/or defusing a volitile situation:
Media Silent as House Passes Resolution for Syrian No-Fly Zone — Provoking War with Russia
https://investmentwatchblog.com/media-silent-as-house-passes-resolution-for-syrian-no-fly-zone-provoking-war-with-russia/
And remember:
Obama had a super majority in the house and a filibuster proof senate.
He could have passed anything he wanted without one Republican vote.
And so he did. And surprising absolutely no one, the filibuster-proof, never debated, perfectly partisan progressive wet dream of O’Bamacare is an abject disaster.
Thanks, Free-sh!t Army!
I think what has been discounted this entire election is what I call the fascist Left Wing factor.
I was called a racist several times supporting Trump. My 80 year old mother in law had a sign in her yard and someone driving by threatened her in her own front yard, calling her every name in the book, including MF’er with several racial adjectives in front of it. The sign came down. We all stopped advertising our beliefs.
This is another reason Obama’s approval ratings are so high when his legacy is so abysmal.
If you think people are going to say anything negative about Obama to strangers, with a clipboard or on the phone, and immediately be called a white privileged racist, on top of every other name they can think of, you got another thought coming.
No more than a Jew walking the streets of Berlin in 1941 admitted they were Jewish if they didn’t have too.
Don’t forget the wall street bailout. He could have been a champion of the middle class that got screwed, but instead was a lap dog to the banks.
The most shocking thing was how the liberal voter and media gave him such a pass and did not hold him accountable on the warmongering, the Wall Street bailout, and the TPP. He was likable and deflected attention to social issues (like they always do) from things that really mattered.
Excellent Point!
Nailed it. This short clip is right in so many ways.
That was excellent.
That…was really excellent.
Obama the Divider in Chief. He studied Constitutional law so he could dismantle the United States Constitution. Obama makes Jimmy Carter look successful.
Failure is in the eye of the beholder.
Obama served his masters well.
And his masters were certainly not “the American people”.
Seriously. WTF has he improved other than his golf game?
Unless anyone confiscated his scores and published them, we wouldn’t know anyway, and if they did ever publish them, it would probably be weighted by his friends at the Federal Reserve before.
How could you NOT mention that Bammy more than doubled the national debt. More debt racked up under him than all the previous criminals…er…Presidents combined.
And how could you not mention Bammy’s stimulus spending was an utter failure: Cash for Clunkers, Shovel Ready Projects, Soyndra Scandal, etc, etc…the list is almost endless.
Obama’s biggest failures were the CO2 Global Warming nonsense and allowing the armaments lobby to continue to dictate US foreign policy. Both cost the US and the UK ridiculous amounts of money for only negative results.
You could not be more wrong. The co-operation between China and the US and the Paris accord will probably be the only thing he is judged favorably on in the longer term, when climate science denial will be a long forgotten anomaly.
“Global average temperatures over land have plummeted by more than 1C since the middle of this year – their biggest and steepest fall on record.”
This is Bullshit. Bogus factoids.
e.g. https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/climate-change-wont-stop-in-2016-despite-misleading-reports
Please don’t forget about immigration policy.
Reblogged this on John Barleycorn and commented:
Good read
The Iran deal will be difficult to revise. The chance of getting international support for renewed sanctions will be slim — it’s a different era. It will also be difficult to isolate Iran but keep Russia as a partner. Besides, the whole premise (Iran nukes) has been dissed many times even by “dovish” US intelligence community.
Mish, I think you missed the elephant in the room in terms of Obama successes.
https://mobile.twitter.com/exjon/status/537007913353883649?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
The Yellen FED. The Yellen stock bubble (pending failure).
Bammycare is a spectacular success because it was designed to fail in order to usher in a single payer system. The Harry Reed even said so.
On PBS’ Nevada Week In Review, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) was asked whether his goal was to move Obamacare to a single-payer system. His answer? “Yes, yes. Absolutely, yes.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/08/10/sen-harry-reid-obamacare-absolutely-a-step-toward-a-single-payer-system/
http://truthstreammedia.com/2016/10/27/now-proof-obamacare-designed-fail-heres/
Scarcity, unlimited wants and unlimited needs for limited resources is the first basis of economics.
A kid has a somewhat expensive treatable condition. The sick kid’s parents can’t afford treatment. If you turn the kid away she has a good chance of dying young. Don’t put a faceless white coat manikin in those shoes, put you.
Free market health care forces doctors to allow preventable death or absorb financial losses.
The two biggest arguments against single payer are
1) Government picks who lives and who dies. Death panels.
2) Government corrupts everything it touches. Huge expenses forcibly extracted by taxation in exchange for less service for most.
If you say you’d let the treatable kid die, I can’t change your mind.
If you say you’d treat every sick kid, you must produce unlimited money.
If you say you’d take it on a case by case basis, you must define what expense is too high, what financial metrics determine eligibility and how to split the bill for a million different cases every year. You must make your decisions before people die. You need unlimited lawyers and unlimited liability insurance.
Most Western World humans would not accept real world free market health care. No western nation maintains anything close to free market health care policy. The reality is case by case, and the arbiter is government.
The bottom decile has wanted single payer for a long time. The disappearing manufacturing economy moved the line up to the bottom third. The erosion of employer sponsored benefit value has pushed single payer past the half way point.
Obamacare merely accelerated whats been inevitable since before FDR. Someone has to administrate millions of case by case decisions. In this specific case the western world long ago chose populism over efficiency. Single payer will happen in this generation.
Bammycare is a spectacular success because it was designed to fail in order to usher in a single payer system. The Harry Reed even said so.
On PBS’ Nevada Week In Review, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) was asked whether his goal was to move Obamacare to a single-payer system. His answer? “Yes, yes. Absolutely, yes.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/08/10/sen-harry-reid-obamacare-absolutely-a-step-toward-a-single-payer-system/
http://truthstreammedia.com/2016/10/27/now-proof-obamacare-designed-fail-heres/
Ummm, Mish…. I believe you’ve missed the elephant in the room when it comes to Obama’s legacy.
https://mobile.twitter.com/exjon/status/537007913353883649?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
To give some credit Obama did kill Bin Laden and stabalized the Great Recession. Otherwise, I cannot see much success beyond that.
I agree. He got Bin Laden and the economy could have done worse. But, with an extra $10 trillion and low interest loans, it would have been difficult to completely fail.
10 trillion more in debt I attribute to Obama and congress. Congress has the power of the purse but could not overcome a veto. I suppose this precipitated into — lets spend on everyones agendas because spending is the only thing we agree on! Perhaps more leadership could have solved this.
Do your own “man on the street” type of interaction and ask people how they rate Obama. If they give him good marks, ask them what specific things they believe he accomplished.
Most of those who give him good marks will have no answer or vague replies at best. And if you press them for an answer, they will say that they simply like him because “he’s cool.”
Idiocracy. It wasn’t supposed to be a documentary.
I have some experience questioning people on this. You will get a high volume response that has nothing to do with the question.
I don’t buy the numbers as they are skewed by the left-leaning media and punditry. The Trump geographical landslide was a complete rejection of Obama’s 8 years. People don’t care about gay marriage, transgender bathrooms, and similar social issues in 95% of the country from a geographic standpoint. No matter how many votes Clinton and Dems might have gotten, it proved to be pointless because it was concentrated in too few regions. This was mostly due to people on the ground failing to feel the effects of the economic recovery and making the Democratic party pay for this by sending Trump into the White House.
(Almost) All presidents shed unpopularity in the rear view mirror.
The left made Nixon a cartoon villain for crimes that wouldn’t bat an eyelash if committed with this generations tools.
Despite Hollywood, Nixon’s anomalous low reputation has begun fading with World War Two worship, the Beatles, the Kennedies, Vietnam, hippies and the cold war. Thank god for that.
Obama will be the color barrier footnote. Otherwise he’ll join Rutherford Hayes. Who?