Polls show the support for President Obama continues to fall. Radio VR is looking into the underlying causes of the US President’s lowest-ever popularity rating together with Veronica Krasheninnikova, Sergei Kostiaev (Moscow) and Scott Firsing (Pretoria).
According to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, Obama’s overall approval rating stands at 40 percent, the lowest recorded in a Post-ABC News poll during his six years in office.
Does that imply that the incumbent US President has been so inefficient, or could it rather point to deeper problems the President’s team is currently facing? And — who actually gets a bad mark – is it the President, or his team?
Says Sergei Kostiaev, Associate professor at Financial University under the Government of Russia:
There are two factors in those ratings. First of all, a historical. Every single president is quite unpopular during his second term. Even President Reagan, who was very popular and successful, had some significant troubles during his second term.
And also, there are issues that are specific to the current international situation. First of all, this Ebola outbreak is doing quite a lot of damage to the US and President Obama personally. He is not handling this very well. Two nurses in Texas have contacted Ebola during treating a patient there. So, the CDC was not working very effectively, which through various steps is under the supervision of President Barack Obama. He is the President, he is the Chief Executive.
The second issue is the ISIS. This issue is also very damaging. All these public beheadings were very damaging to Barack Obama’s current approval ratings.
What about the domestic situation?
Sergei Kostiaev: The domestic situation is extremely good. He has an unprecedented economic growth. If he were a republican president, he would be boasting about enormous gains in capital markets. And, as you might know, the US’s pensions are usually funded via capital markets. And for the American senior citizens and for those who are about to retire this is very good news.
But there are some issues like, let’s say, racial riots in Ferguson over this police brutality issue. But mostly the domestic situation is quite good. But — it is hard to control such an entity, as the ISIS. It is hard to manage this in a very effective way. What could you do with the ISIS? Send another ground invasion? It is out of the question. So, the nature of the issues that Barack Obama is handing, is quite difficult to handle”.
Dr. Scott Firsing, research fellow at the Institute for Global Dialogue in Pretoria, South Africa:
There are a lot of factors in play. Yes, like you’ve mentioned, it is not just him, it is his team. But a lot of it comes down to the recent events. I mean, look at the popularity numbers. The first thing that is important to realize, is that the numbers are never going to get extremely high, just because of the Republican and the Democratic break in the US. You know, one relates to the party more than the other. So, it is difficult to get extremely high numbers.
And when you see Obama’s original approval rating when he first came into office, – something around 70%. It is often known as the “honeymoon effect” – a new president, new hopes and a lot of pledges during the campaign, and so on. And for almost every president, we see that from there the numbers start to subside and go down.
But he’s had a tough past couple of months with various issues. Economy is always a big issue. And I think the American economy has grown and he’s done a decent job there. The improving numbers and the like, but there are a lot of people who are still jobless, still looking for jobs, that are have caught up in the economy and still don’t see those numbers coming to fruition yet.
But I think the big push or one of the bigger issues that have been hurting his numbers in foreign policy. There’ve been a lot of events taking place in the recent months that have had a negative impact on his approval.
By the way, the American electorate has not been exactly keen on foreign policy, people used to focus more on their domestic issues?
Dr. Scott Firsing: It is a good point. When Obama came to office, you need to think that we were coming in a period of recession happening. Then, he had his big victory with Bin Laden and so on. But a lot of people see that now, and the economists are proving, the focus has changed somewhat. And there’ve been a lot of events in the recent months that have grabbed the attention of the media, and, of course, have grabbed the attention of the average American.
I mean, we could start off with Ukraine and there are a lot of Americans who thought that President Obama wasn’t strong enough dealing with the Ukrainian issue. They thought that he should have been a little bit tougher on Putin and there is this perception that even Putin doesn’t take Obama seriously.
And even going before Ukraine, we had Obama threatening President Assad in Syria after the use of chemical weapons. And what the Americans, I think, typically don’t like, is when you talk and you say something, and you don’t follow up on it. So, if one may talk the talk, they want him to walk the walk. And I think there’s been some concern there, and especially with the ISIS now. It’s been one of the biggest issues.
The Americans obviously wanted him to pull the troops out of Iraq, but now I think they’ve realized and the Obama administration has realized that was a mistake, as they’ve created a security vacuum for the ISIS to grow and to spread, which has now led to a really difficult situation – almost a terrorism army, as it’s been calling it. And that hurts. So, now the Americans are looking for more action and more robust action in Iraq and Syria as well.
Now we are talking about public perception, but from an expert’s point of view the lack of overly decisive action on the part of Obama might not really be a mistake.
Dr. Scott Firsing: It is a good point. A lot of these issues, I think, the average American doesn't understand that it is very difficult for Obama to control. Yes, maybe he could have had little bit of a stronger hand in Syria. Perhaps, he could have a stronger role with ISIS, more than just airstrikes. We have seen that some of the airstrikes are actually hurting the morale with the ISIS and so on, but from my point of view there's got to be a better understanding from the policy makers of what the US’s role is going to be as things progress over the years and decades. You know, the US is not the US of the 1970’es and 1980’es. Is the US supposed to be getting more involved?
But, I mean, these are some serious issues. You know, to fight against the ISIS is going to be something that is not going to go away quickly, it is going to spread, most likely, in other areas of North Africa and so on. So, is America going to put on it the really strong hand and increase the military engagement or are they going to be the superpower of old, or are they going to be laid back and do what Obama’s been doing – relying a lot on the international community.
It is a difficult question to answer and something that, probably, we will only discover over time. And Obama I think has done the right thing of working with the international community in terms of the Ebola outbreak, in terms of the fight against the ISIS. I think, again, these are ultra-global issues that need to be dealt with not just by the US, but by the allies and other partners and people in the region, the allies in the ME and so on.
But from the expert’s point of view, I think that Obama, if he says he is going to do something, like draw a red line, he needs to back that up.
Veronica Krasheninnikova, Head of the Center for International Journalism and Research with Rossiya Segodnya:
Indeed, among the critics of President Obama himself and his administration there are those people, who are disappointed that he did not deliver on his campaign promises. The healthcare reform didn’t go through the way he envisaged it. And instead of putting an end to wars, President Obama is launching more and more aggressive operations, such as in Libya and in Syria, in addition to Afghanistan and Iraq.
And on the other side there is the right wing, who considers Obama a socialist, just because he tried to conduct that healthcare reform, even unsuccessfully. And they also call him a wimp, because he is not bombing Syria, he is not bombing Iran and by the same occasion Russia, because of the crisis in Ukraine. And all these contradictions are being exacerbated by the midterm elections that are coming up on November 4. And the right-wing criticism is particularly vociferous due to the media outlets, such as Fox News and other media that are funded by the major right-wing personalities.
Does that reflect a general wide-spread dissatisfaction of Americans by their power? Does it reflect their overall uneasiness about lower living standards, about more problems they are encountering in their daily life?
Veronica Krasheninnikova: Indeed, this deep level of dissatisfaction reflects the criticism of the entire system. We have to remember that in a capitalist system there are regular crises. And whoever is in power, at the president’s position – will not avoid a crisis. There are no good solutions during an economic downturn. So, President Obama happens to be at that position at this moment. But, frankly speaking, if anybody else held that position, that person wouldn’t have been able to score much better. These are the fundamental features of the American system and, unfortunately, the American people have to go with it, as they approve it.
We used to be taught that all those crises of the capitalist system are cyclical?
Veronica Krasheninnikova: The current economic crisis is often compared to the 1929th economic crisis, with the Great Depression, as it came into history. Yes, every economic crisis is solved sooner or later, but the question is at what cost and how many people will lose their homes, will lose their lives, in some cases.
Look at what is happening in Detroit. Detroit is such a prominent example of all the dysfunctions of the American system. Look at the living standards that the population of Detroit now has. People have to fight for having water supplies. And for the first time, I think, in 178 years the population of Detroit is losing their right to have water supplies. And it is actually considered one of the fundamental rights of the person. The situation is so serious, that the UN Human Rights Commission came yesterday to the town to look at the situation.
So, indeed, this is one of the deeper economic crises and, unfortunately, for the American people America is not out of it yet.
We are talking about the US now. But, obviously, something similar is happening to the old world.
Veronica Krasheninnikova: Of course, in the current very much globalized and interconnected world any crisis spreads all over the globe very quickly. And the US, holding the dominant position, would suffer less than the other countries, because they have the instruments, the methodologies to transfer the economic suffering elsewhere.
But in Europe the situation is also very serious. The social state in the European countries is taking very hard blows. We saw a few years ago and up to now what is happening in Greece, in Spain. People are losing their pensions – the thing that they were counting on, that was supposedly guaranteed to them. The capitalist economic system necessarily does that in crises.
And the major mistake and the tragic mistake that the US did in the situation of the economic crisis, was to start new wars. Often it was a solution and some American presidents even openly spoke about it. Someone has said that there is no such thing as a small war during a crisis. So, of course, America will get out of the crisis, but at the huge cots to other countries and other people.
