Gallup says Bush is most polarizing Pres in their polling history - w/poll and graph

I know this has been written up before but I want to bring this up for more discussion. Gallup recently analyzed the approval ratings of all the presidents in office since Truman: Bush Ratings Show Historical Levels of Polarization.

In the article Galllup calculates each president's polarization level by subtracting the approval rating among Dems from the approval rating among Repubs (or vice versa) in the May of that president's re-election year. It shows that Bush is the most polarizing president since they started polling in 1948. The article puts it thusly: "An analysis of Gallup Poll data reveals extreme and unprecedented levels of polarization in George W. Bush's job approval ratings...Never before has Gallup data shown such a high proportion of partisans with such strongly opposing views of a president."

I made a chart out of the polarization numbers:

I would like to submit that this is a big problem. Everyone in the country knows it. I don't think anybody is happy with this level of polarization. The point we need to make is this: this president is either actively tearing this country apart, or he's allowing it to come apart. Either he knows how to bring it together but won't do it, or he doesn't know how to do it.

What kind of strong leader allows this to happen to his own country? I think we can reach Republicans and independents at some level with this. Nobody wants a president who is this polarizing. We have got to start talking to people about how polarizing Bush is, how destructive this is for our country, how careless Bush is to let it happen, and how it's time that we work together to reduce the level of polarization.

Side note: right now C-SPAN is showing a recent interview with Kerry that others have said is worth watching.

•  The last 4 presidents are the most polarizing....

  While GW has the biggest problem here, I think it also points to the crumbling of bipartisan consensus and the partisan polarization of the nation in general.

  Truman, Ike and LBJ could command support across the aisles. It would appear that post-1980 that is becoming less and less possible.

  This probably partially due to the ascent of dogmatic right-wing Republicans who deliberately foster and exploit polarization, but I think it also points to the changing nature of both political parties.

  The Republicans are shifting rightward and losing conservationists, moderates and fiscal conservatives (Like Jim Jeffords and others like him) and the Democratic coalition is losing Old South social conservatives in favor of a more uniform liberal/centrist party.

  by Keith Brekhus on Sun Jun 06, 2004 at 03:54:53 PM PDT

  •  Consider also how broadcast

    and print media have devolved into scoreboxes and infotainment.  Few are reporting nuances any longer; unsubtle sound bites are all that break through.  And contention sells, too.  

    Marshall MacCluhan saw the truncation coming.  A Robert Kennedy sound bite from 1968 is long enough to lose the ritalin crowd and make the rest of the audience fidget.  Even presidential debates have changed.  Compared to debates from the seventies and eighties, Al Gore and W. debated at the "bow-wow" level; the contrast with earlier debates is stunning.

    So it does not surprise me that we have trouble with polarization and the politicsof personal destruction.  The great unwashed doesn't give a hoot about anything but mud and pies in the face.
    

    by rhubarb on Sun Jun 06, 2004 at 08:19:04 PM PDT

•  Interesting

  I would agree that it indeed is a problem. There is a definite dichotomy between Bush's "compassionate conservative" meme that he pushed during the '00 campaign, and his hard-right style of governance, which needs to be pointed out.  If elected, Kerry would be somewhat polarizing amongst Republicans, but I suspect that he'd be less offensive than Bush to a number of Americans in the political middle, particularly if he can manage a reasonable fiscal policy and foriegn policy that doesn't tolerate Cowboy diplomacy.

  Interesting to see the historical trendlines. For the most part, it makes sense, especially when one takes into account the "culture wars" brought on by the wingnuts in the 80s and 90s and that helped to get us into the divisive political climate we're in today. However,  I'm puzzled that Carter was considered to be less polarizing than Eisenhower. Can someone explain why? I always thought that Eisenhower had high approval ratings because of his status as a war hero. Then again, that was long before my time, so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about.

  by pine on Sun Jun 06, 2004 at 04:04:59 PM PDT

  •  look at the data on the Gallup site

    What this graph shows is the difference in approval between R's and D's; R's were pretty fed up with Carter (25% approval), but Dems weren't happy with him either (55% approval) so the gap -- the polarization factor (PF) -- is 30. Dems liked Ike, 51% approval, but R's adored him, 93%, so the PF is 42. Truman's PF is so low because EVERYBODY was pissed off with him; R's= 38%, D's= 42%. On the other hand, LBJ was doing well with both parties in May of 64; R's= 61%, D's= 85%, PF=24.

    ISTM that there are 3 possibilities at work here:

    1) R's and D's expectations of a President used to be more similar, and people were more likely to react to a President's actions/policies/"character" more homogenously than we do now;

    or 2) Presidents used to act as if they were President of ALL the people (it's my personal opinion that Ronnie was the first one that didn't);

    or 3) Some combination/synergy of R's and D's diverging expectations and increased presidential pandering to one party.

    (but I sure would like to see similar data from FDR!)

    by rincewind on Sun Jun 06, 2004 at 09:26:37 PM PDT

•  Republicans and Bush

  Hasn't Bush been losing Republican supporters lately? Is this the usual level he gets in Gallup polls, or is he gaining Republicans back into the fold? Can we do anything to stop this? This means that he'll be going back up in polls soon.

  by JamesB3 on Sun Jun 06, 2004 at 04:16:50 PM PDT

•  figures misleading

  Remember that before about 1980, and especially before 1968, lots of Southern Democrats weren't "really" Democrats (that is, they didn't necessarily support the positions the national party took); remember also that between 1964 (Goldwater) and about 1984, plenty of registered Republicans, and some state-level Republican politicians, were very liberal by contemporary standards (the Minnesota Republican party even renamed itself the Independent Republican Party to dissociate itself from the Southern strategy). I paraphrase experts (Ruy Texeira among them) when I say that Gallup's charts may reflect, not just Bush's divisiveness, but the increasing coherence of national party platforms, so that fewer and fewer members of either major party hold views which place them in opposition to their party's national standard-bearers.

  by pangolin on Sun Jun 06, 2004 at 06:29:21 PM PDT

  •  correcting an error

    I wrote "increasing coherence of national parties' platforms"-- but I meant "increasingly good fit between the beliefs of each major party's members, and the policies endorsed by its national platforms." Oops.

    by pangolin on Sun Jun 06, 2004 at 06:30:54 PM PDT

•  Absolutely

       Bush puts the party first, over the nation.  He does what is best for the constituents of his party.  He is shutting out and ignoring half the nation.  Look at all the times he has met with just the republican members of congress, etc., and how much legislation has been forged with no input from dems.

       Watching all this D-Day stuff on TV today, I realized how annoyed I was that the media kept saying things about France's attitude to America now as opposed to l944, how Chirac seemed to be putting his problems with America aside and wanted to be on good terms with America again.
  I wanted to yell, "It's not America, it's Bush!  The French don't hate America, they hate Bush!  Bush usn't America!"

       How sad is that?  FDR stood for America.  Sure, he had critics, but he was the nation's father, and united everyone,
  regardless of party.

      Bush is the Republican president.  We need another AMERICAN president.

  by For Dean in Dixie on Sun Jun 06, 2004 at 09:02:35 PM PDT

•  Could we be returning to the political

  balance that existed in the one hundred years from Appamatox until the election of Nixon in 1968? Up until then Democrats fared best to the south of the Mason Dixon Line, through the southern parts of IN, IL, OH, and MO, across OK, TX, into AZ and NV. Republicans fared well in the areas to the north.

  Could we be returning to that balance, except with the GOP and the Dems changing places?

  by jiacinto on Sun Jun 06, 2004 at 10:14:35 PM PDT

•  Four Years From Now...

  ...if John Kerry wins, pundits will be wringing their hands about how he is the most polarizing President ever.

  The problem isn't Bush, the problem is that we're two separate countries now, and we hate one another. We just project that "elephant in the room" onto whomever occupies the White House.
  

  by AngryElephant on Mon Jun 07, 2004 at 12:43:19 PM PDT