Who Was/Is the Most Divisive Post-War President?

Strange to say, as hated as Nixon was by those who hated him and as awkward and self-pitying as his public persona was, he was not more divisive than Reagan, the smiling avuncular charmer. My memory is that Nixon had pretty good approval ratings until Watergate broke wide open in 1973 and he crashed and burned.

If I were forced to rate the whole post-WWII crew, I'd lean toward Reagan, in that he quite openly and deliberately dismantled, impaired, or corrupted whole departments of the government. His administration put a wrecking ball to half a century of progressive social policy, while his cabinet officers and appointees treated Congress with open scorn and contempt.

Obama. "YOU LIE!" still blows my mind.

Obama doesn't act divisively. He just is divisive. Even when he's asleep.

My memory is that Nixon had pretty good approval ratings until Watergate broke wide open in 1973 and he crashed and burned.

True--between 50 and 60 for most of the first term (even higher near the beginning), hits a peak of almost 70 early in '73 (some combination of reelection, SALT, and China--China mostly). Straight down after that.

I'd weight that, though, against how intensely he was despised by that 40% right from the start. Students, people who couldn't stand him personally, people who remembered back to Hiss and Jerry Voorhis and Helen Gahagan Douglas.

http://abcnews.go.com/images/US/ap_ronald_reagan_library_21_jc_150915.jpg

what a lineup

the fractional extra width of the gap preceding nixon made me actually lol

Settled: the Megadeth guy says Obama.

http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/dave-mustaine-says-obama-is-the-most-divisive-president-we-ve-ever-had/

the fractional extra width of the gap preceding nixon made me actually lol

― denies the existence of dark matter (difficult listening hour)

notice who replaces Nixon in the he's-allergic sweepstakes

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/politics/Wovaloffice5.banner.reuters.jpg.jpg

That'll make a great slide show one day. Next up in the pariah position, W. probably (pending what happens this year).

LBJ by miles

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

It's still baffling to me that Obama inspires as much hate as he does on the right even though rationally I know that it has to be race and the perception of otherness -- Johnson makes sense because of what the country was like at the time, what he accomplished, and his sort of tank-like way of getting it done. Carter I sort of get because he came across as some kind of namby pamby liberal to the right. Clinton had the whole "slick" thing that people loved or hated, and to people who hated him it was perceived as a sign of corruption and criminality. But Obama is so conciliatory in his rhetoric, he's not really that far left, and Obamacare is hardly a national shakeup on the scale of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act (not to mention the Great Society programs).

Clinto was loathed by the left for more than perceptions of corruption and criminality.

*Clinton

Oh no doubt, but I was going partly based on the wide gap in democrat vs republican approval in the poll #'s cited above. Obama is the widest, Clinton second among Dems. Carter is actually the lowest gap because his approval wasn't very high among Democrats. Johnson actually surprisingly high among republicans -- I think part of it is probably a difference in party alignment at the time, part of it is following Kennedy, and part of it is just that politics was not as polarized.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Agree with three of the zeros completely (Eisenhower, H.W., and Ford--one extremely divisive pardon, but I don't think he was especially divisive otherwise), one of them somewhat (J.F.K.--Oliver Stone tells me there was some hatred out there), and one not really (my understanding is that Truman was very divisive).

truman more divisive for his peri-war acts probably

Truman's approval rating in 1952 were the lowest ever recorded. Before his surprise reelection he was loathed by the left and right.

*was

Baseball writer Bill James was on a real Truman kick a few months ago. Just despises him, argues that his current standing can be traced back to post-Watergate overreaction (searching for "simpler times" and such) and the Merle Miller book. Anyway, if he was hated by everybody, that gets back to the idea that maybe he wasn't divisive at all.