According to a recent CNN/ORC tracking poll, President Obama’s disapproval rate sits at 47%. His approval rate is 50% (George W. Bush was in the low 30s around this point in his second term). According to the Gallup organization, Hillary Clinton has declined to an approval rating of 41%.
While on the polling theme, I thought I’d put up a poll for readers of this site.
What is the biggest birther story of 2016?
- Former birther Donald Trump elected president (48%, 46 Votes)
- Donald Trump states categorically that Barack Obama was born in the US (19%, 18 Votes)
- Birther Sheriff Joe Arpaio defeated in re-election bid (17%, 16 Votes)
- Zullo announces final news conference and proof that Obama's birth certificate is a forgery (17%, 16 Votes)
Total Voters: 96
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Doc, with all due respect, i would add another: the Supreme Court
In 2007, i remember arguing with a male democrat about the supremes and he said what are you worried about, Roe will never be overturned.
We have heard about these “five unelected black-robed lawyers” regarding “religious freedom” YET “five unelected black-robed lawyers” picked the President in 2000.
If i were a one issue voter, the Supreme Court would be my issue. Their decisions are “the greatest threat to American democracy”.
Doc, disrespectfully I would add yet another category to those you have suggested might include the greatest threat to American democracy.
* Creeping Mike Zullo
Gee, I wonder who voted for immigrants?
I have a friend who is moving to Florida and who says that he will not vote for Hillary Clinton. He says that even if Trump is elected, how much damage can he do in four years?
I pointed out to him that George W. Bush invaded Iraq at the beginning of his third year in office and that there may be as many as three Supreme Court vacancies between 2017 and 2021.
Though I don’t want to invoke Godwin’s Law, that’s pretty much what many people in a certain European country and elsewhere thought in 1933.
BTW my top two threats to US democracy are:
1. Uneducated voters
2. Religious bigots
A blowhard like Trump is one issue, but the same crowd would also vote for a charismatic religious hardliner whose first action in office would be to declare Islam a terrorist organization and mandate the teaching of Intelligent Design in all schools.
Aren’t those redundant?
A democracy requires a Demos, that is to say a people who identify as such, and regard their unity as more important than their divisions. Otherwise you get tribalism, two (or more) groups who regard the other as dangerous. The greatest danger to American democracy is a political tribalism that regards the other party, whether Democrat or Republican, as not just wrong, but as would-be dictators. We saw that with some of the opponents of Bush (back at this point in his second term I was closely following a blog like this on 9/11 Truthers, I know), and we see the exact same rhetoric of coups and dictatorship among the Birthers now. Yes, it’s a fringe thing, but the fringe is WAY too long. When someone’s attitude to the other party is to regard them as closet communists or closet theocrats, there’s a problem. It’s not just on the right, not just on the left, but there is a fundamental problem of tribalization in US politics, and it needs to be dealt with.And remember, if you think the other party’s going to stage a coup, you have a reason in your own mind to stage a coup first, or to ban them. If you have folk whose first reaction on the other party’s candidate getting elected is to freak out about martial law, and you have them on right and left, you have a major problem that people in both parties need to address. Bush didn’t make himself a dictator, Obama hasn’t, and he’s not going to. But I don’t see the “the President is an evil tyrant who is going to stage a false flag attack and declare martial law” going away any time soon, I’m afraid.
I was at the Lincoln library a few weeks ago and there was a quote by him that got my attention…
“At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
–January 27, 1838 Lyceum Address
We almost destroyed ourselves once, we are our own greatest danger.
I think letting people like john walk about freely is a top threat to democracy.
Yeah, let’s make ’em crawl about freely.
Certainly and absolutely NOT BIRTHERS.
Birthers are less significant, BY FAR, than ANY of the other choices.
the wingers in the republican party, who are moving closer to fascism every day. And people like John are cheering them on.
The Birthers certainly qualify in that way. You’ve expressed a great perspective here on that.
Additionally, it spoils most of the constructive potential of civil discourse, when such groups endlessly just CALL their opponents dictators, even if they don’t believe it.
You are STEALING MY FREEDOM to choose more than one cause!
Nope. You can be uneducated without being religious at all, and you can be very much informed yet still think your interpretation of the Bibble trumps everything else.
The trouble comes when members of the first group elect members of the second.
I would select this option in the poll.
Oh, for the good old days when we all just assumed that we’d die in a nuclear holocaust.
By the way, I was a bit too quick in answering the poll: somehow I missed the unregulated money option. Please consider one additional vote for unregulated money in campaigns and one fewer for income disparity.
I agree. I know some very well-educated people who believe that “God’s Law” (which varies from religion to religion) has supremacy over the Constitution, which in their minds gives Kim Davis the right to refuse marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Similar arguments were made back in the sixties to defend anti-miscegenation laws.
In Reynolds v. United States (1878) Chief Justice Waite wrote this for a unanimous court:
“Can a man excuse his practices to the contrary because of his religious belief? To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself. Government could exist only in name under such circumstances.”
What they actually mean is that their own personal opinion, styled as “God’s will”, should trump everything else.
Because I don’t believe for a second they would allow the same freedom to ignore the law to people of other faiths, or even another denomination of their own faith.
I like to troll these people by asking them if they would accept “activist judges” (or, specifically, the Obergefell SCOTUS ruling) if only the judges claimed their religious beliefs required them to rule this way.
Or exactly where does their vision (as in hallucination) of ‘God’s Law’ differ from Sharia?
I came up with some scenarios and borrowed a few from others:
1. A Muslim DMV clerk who refuses to issue a driver’s license to a woman.
2. A Seventh Day Adventist soldier who refuses to report for duty on a Saturday.
3. A Jewish USDA inspector who refuses to touch pork.
4. A Mormon who refuses to obey anti-polygamy laws.
5. A Quaker clerk who refuses to issue gun licenses.
6. A Catholic clerk who refuses to issue a marriage license to people who have been divorced.
7. A clerk who refuses to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple.
8. A clerk from any number of religions who refuses to issue a liquor license.
I’m sure this list could go on and on.
Obama himself is the greatest threat to the survival of the United States.
and your conclusion is based on what?
I ask, because it obviously isn’t based on rational thought
Prove it, bitch. And I mean with real evidence, not feelings, opinions, conclusions you’ve drawn using your warped perception of reality, or anything you scrapped off of a RWNJ blog that’s pretending to be a news site. Show us some cold hard facts or feel free to get the hell out of the discussion.
Until replaced by the even greater threat of Hillary, amirite?
Khalese is coming to Westeros!
If only that were true!
Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra!
WTF???
False, misleading paraphrase.
Lupin’s meaning (I am quite sure) was, ‘if only it were true that there is no greater threat to the U.S. than Obama.’
Of course! Apologies to Lupin for misinterpreting his comment. What can I say – I’m a lower life form. Glad there are smart people like you to set me straight!
Yes, indeedy. Sorry I didn’t make myself clearer.
No apologies needed; I just didn’t realize that short pithy comment was wide open to being misconstrued.