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).
― human life won't become a cat (man alive), Wednesday, 30 March 2016 01:41 (eight years ago) link
Clinto was loathed by the left for more than perceptions of corruption and criminality.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 30 March 2016 01:44 (eight years ago) link
*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.
― human life won't become a cat (man alive), Wednesday, 30 March 2016 01:48 (eight years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.
― System, Thursday, 31 March 2016 00:01 (eight years ago) link
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).
― clemenza, Thursday, 31 March 2016 00:12 (eight years ago) link
truman more divisive for his peri-war acts probably
― art, Thursday, 31 March 2016 00:15 (eight years ago) link
Truman's approval rating in 1952 were the lowest ever recorded. Before his surprise reelection he was loathed by the left and right.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 31 March 2016 00:22 (eight years ago) link
*was
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 31 March 2016 00:24 (eight years ago) link
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.
― clemenza, Thursday, 31 March 2016 00:39 (eight years ago) link