Obama’s popularity is rising even as Trump is president

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2018/01/06/trump-making-obama-great-again/Ge68WgqS6ljwXtwjSpDTYI/story.html

 

WASHINGTON — One American politician is currently dominating the cultural landscape, from social media to late-night television. His poll numbers look great, his Twitter posts are often among the most read in the world, and with every utterance, his impassioned base of supporters reacts with a fervor more typical for celebrities than former civil servants.

Meet Barack Obama.

The former president left office last January with favorable approval ratings, but historians, former staffers, and political observers now say his societal standing has reached a new echelon — and it’s partly due to his successor.

 

Donald Trump spent much of his first year in office attempting to erase Obama’s policy legacy, but experts, backed by loads of anecdotal evidence, say Trump’s unconventional and often divisive conduct has actually deepened the connection to Obama for liberals and independents. As the current president spent 2017 buffeted by scandals and igniting Twitter controversies, Obama seemed to increasing numbers a throwback to simpler political times, more deeply admired by those who find Trump ever more deeply objectionable.

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Most presidents — even the most unpopular ones — tend to grow in public esteem after they leave office. But only one of them may score an invite to the upcoming royal wedding in England; rumor has it that Obama may make the coveted list. Trump, after a string of tweets and remarks ill-received in post-Brexit Britain, may not.

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“Obama’s legacy is being bolstered by Trump,” said Michael Days, author of an Obama biography called “Obama’s Legacy: What He Accomplished as President.”

“People are waking up every morning to tweets that some find upsetting and frightening. And they’re realizing whether they liked or didn’t like Obama, people know they were rarely embarrassed by him,” Days said.

The former president’s enhanced public profile could, however, be a double-edged sword for Democrats. While Obama provides them a ready counterpoint to Trump’s chaotic presidency, he also represents the past, not the still-forming future of the party.

 

In 2016, the party, without Obama topping the ticket, failed to excite key constituencies — especially black Americans and other minorities — and many party operatives acknowledge that this remains a threat going forward. An adviser close to Obama said that he wants to help empower the next generation of Democrats, not overshadow them, but the party still lacks a singular figure who can energize the party.

Douglas Heye, a GOP strategist and former spokesman at the Republican National Committee, said Democrats are now seeing Obama through “rose colored glasses.”

“It’s as if Democrats are turning the 1992 Clinton slogan on its head and are singing ‘Don’t stop thinking about yesterday,’ ” Heye said. “But while it may be a nostalgic diversion from today’s reality, it won’t help Democrats address why they lost to Trump and how they can beat him in 2020.”

On Twitter, Obama’s growth in popularity can be quantified. When he wished the country a Merry Christmas in his last year as president, the message was retweeted about 100,000 times. But when Private Citizen Obama wrote an almost identical message in 2017, it was retweeted 250,000 times, dwarfing his previous total and the response to Trump’s holiday greeting.

The same is true for well-wishes for Senator John McCain, who has cancer, or posts about the new year. When Trump and Obama tweet about the same topic, it’s Obama — not Trump — whose messages resonate more. And it’s not just because he has almost twice as many Twitter followers — 98 million to 46 million — as Trump, whose presidential image has been shaped, as Obama’s never was, by his many, often scalding, tweets.

[The Nature Boy 7,659]

But I thought Obama and Hillary were not in office anymore and were not to be talked about 

[Boiler 45,519]

I always judge these thing by Twitter.

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

2 hours ago, Nature Boy Flair said:

But I thought Obama and Hillary were not in office anymore and were not to be talked about 

Yeah well I know how you love the polls

[Boiler 45,519]

2 minutes ago, Il Mango Dulce said:

Yeah well I know how you love the polls

You are the one who posted this.

[The Nature Boy 7,659]

16 minutes ago, Il Mango Dulce said:

Yeah well I know how you love the polls

[The Nature Boy 7,659]

Not to mention he had the lowest average GDP growth rate of any President in modern history

[jg121783 3,915]

1 hour ago, Nature Boy Flair said:

Not to mention he had the lowest average GDP growth rate of any President in modern history

But it is because of Obama that Trump has had a higher GDP growth for every quarter of his presidency so far than Obama had for any quarter in his 8 years. 

[The Nature Boy 7,659]

Much like Reagan rode Carter's winning 🤣

[Steeleballz 7,550]

3 hours ago, jg121783 said:

But it is because of Obama that Trump has had a higher GDP growth for every quarter of his presidency so far than Obama had for any quarter in his 8 years. 

 

  Not true.