{"id":9671,"date":"2016-12-14T10:06:42","date_gmt":"2016-12-14T18:06:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=9671"},"modified":"2016-12-14T10:06:42","modified_gmt":"2016-12-14T18:06:42","slug":"9671-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/9671-2\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

From an Angry Reader:<\/h3>\n

Re: Obama’s initiatives<\/em><\/p>\n

What a horrible president and yet, 57% approval rating! Wow! How is that possible! I think he did quite well considering that Republicans vowed on the first day not to work with him and never did!<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Connie Knapp<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Victor Davis Hanson’s Reply:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dear Angry Reader Connie Knapp,<\/p>\n

Irony noted.<\/p>\n

Obama, I think as of this weekend had a 53% approval according to the realclearpolitics.com<\/a> average. But in just a year, yes, he has jumped 10 points. Why?<\/p>\n

No one quite knows, but I will suggest 5 reasons:<\/p>\n

1) Obama understood that he was unpopular in the flesh and popular in the abstract. So when the primaries started in early 2016 he simply disengaged and we rarely saw or heard him much, as two unpopular candidates, Trump and Clinton, by mid-summer were sliming each other and driving their approval ratings down and in contrast and by default the absent Obama\u2019s up. Seeing Obama wave from the links is one thing, having him lecture that \u201cyou didn\u2019t build that\u201d or \u201cpunish our enemies\u201d is another.<\/p>\n

2) He is now a lame duck, and again the reality of a soon to be gone Obama made him popular in a way that an eight-year long tenure of Obama left him unpopular. The popularity of houseguests rises in the hours of their departure.<\/p>\n

3) He has bailed on offering the hard medicine to treat the $10 trillion in additional debt he ran up, or to deal with the implosion of Syria, Iraq, and Libya on his watch, or his failed Russian reset, or the looming disaster of Obamacare. Instead his attitude is more or less \u201cstuff happens\u201d as he exits the door to a lucrative post-presidency, and welcomes others to deal with de facto zero interest rates, sluggish growth, record labor non-particiaption, crises in racial relations, etc. It is easy to lose deterrence, but dangerous and hard to regain it\u2014as we shall soon see.<\/p>\n

4) The media has sanctified Obama in the manner it has demonized Trump.<\/p>\n

5) We do not yet know what the ultimate approval rating of Obama will be; it may stay strong or gyrate. Truman left with 25% approval and yet his administration is now considered a success.<\/p>\n

As for your assertion, \u201cI think he did quite well considering that Republicans vowed on the first day not to work with him and never did!\u201d, it was irrelevant what the Republicans said or thought, because Obama entered office with both<\/em> the House and a super-majority in the Senate.<\/p>\n

He rammed budgets and Obamacare through without a single Republican vote. When Obama lost the House and his supermajority in the Senate, Harry Reid simply adopted the nuclear option and ended most filibusters (to the regret now of Democrats).<\/p>\n

When he lost the Senate as well, Obama turned to \u201cpen and phone\u201d executive orders and simply ignored Constitutional give and take and bypassed the Congress (amnesties, non-immigration enforcement, EPA fiats, picking and choosing which part of Obamacare he enforced, etc.)\u2014again to the chagrin of Democrats who now fear that Trump might do what Obama did with executive orders.<\/p>\n

We forget the alphabet\u00a0scandals of the last eight years: Lois Lerner and IRS, the NSA mess, the GSA boondoggles, the horrific record at the VA, the crazy EPA director and her fake email persona and the EPA\u2019s unconstitutional fiats, the Wikileaks\/Hillary emails\/Clinton Foundation pay for play at the State Department, the abrupt departure of Hilda Solis at Labor, the strange career and departure of Petraeus at the CIA, the Sibelius firing at HHS after the surreal startup of Obamacare, and on and on and on.<\/p>\n

Obama entered with record good will, both houses of Congress, an upswing in the states, and a likely chance to alter the Supreme Court; he leaves with the strongest Republican position in 100 years, from governorships and state legislatures to the Congress and presidency. The Supreme Court could soon tilt 6-3 or 7-2.<\/p>\n

Such was the epitaph to \u201chope and change\u201d\u2014the greatest gift to the Republican Party in a century.<\/p>\n

Sincerely, VDH<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From an Angry Reader: Re: Obama’s initiatives What a horrible president and yet, 57% approval rating! Wow! How is that possible! I think he did quite well considering that Republicans vowed on the first day not to work with him and never did! \u00a0Connie Knapp Victor Davis Hanson’s Reply: Dear Angry Reader Connie Knapp, Irony […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-2vZ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11242,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/06-25-18-angry-reader\/","url_meta":{"origin":9671,"position":0},"title":"06-25-18 Angry Reader","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 25, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"From An Angry Reader: What is wrong with you? 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I only agree with you 10 percent of the time, but I\u2019m not angry. You are one of the two or three best conservative commentators, in my view.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Angry Reader"","block_context":{"text":"Angry Reader","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/angry-reader\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12220,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/angry-reader-02-28-20\/","url_meta":{"origin":9671,"position":3},"title":"Angry Reader 02-28-20","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 28, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"From An Angry Reader: Subject: Gray Matter Your articles are so offensively lacking in context, thoughtfulness, and reflection on history--basically simpleminded attack ads-- that I am going to erase the National Review\u2019s bookmark from my browser. And there is no case for Trump any more than there was a case\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10197,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/angry-reader-13\/","url_meta":{"origin":9671,"position":4},"title":"Angry Reader","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 24, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"From an Angry Reader: Mr. Hanson, Normally, I would find a credentialed resume such as yours quite impressive and interesting, however, the deluded and incredulous nonsense I witnessed you spouting on FOX News with Tucker Carlson, that Russian involvement with the Trump campaign exists only as a 'trumped up' Dem\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Angry Reader"","block_context":{"text":"Angry Reader","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/angry-reader\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10756,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/10756-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":9671,"position":5},"title":"11\/27\/2017 From an Angry Reader:\u2026","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 27, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"11\/27\/2017 From an Angry Reader: \u00a0 Rarely have I read such infuriating nonsense as intellectual outlier Victor Davis Hanson spouts in his thoroughly delusional commentary about Trump. I know he\u2019s been a blind Trumpeter since the con artist\u2019s campaign began, and he remains steadfast in defending the indefensible. His pack\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Angry Reader"","block_context":{"text":"Angry Reader","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/angry-reader\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9671"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9671"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9672,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9671\/revisions\/9672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}