This is a brutal poll in the final year of the Age of Obama. Of course, the Huffington Post positions this as being utterly partisan, with a subhead that reads “Republicans and Democrats may as well have been living in different countries for the past eight years”. The obvious inference, considering it’s the HuffPost, is that the problem is the Republicans
When President Barack Obama delivered his final State of the Union address last week, he was speaking to two very different countries.
One of them he leaves happier and better off than it was when he started his tenure in the White House nearly eight years ago, with an improving economy and a dominant international position. The other is, by almost every measure, worse.
Call them the “liberal America” and the “conservative America” that he decried in his 2004 keynote DNC address as the creation of political pundits.
A majority of Democrats in a new HuffPost/YouGov poll say that since Obama took office, their own lives have improved, the economy has gotten better and the United States has retained its role as the most powerful nation on Earth.
Republicans disagree on all three points.
Darned Republicans. Oh, wait a second
Only 51% of Dems think their lives have gotten better. Only 23% of Independents. The article writer, Ariel Andrews-Levy tries to pain this in as “lockstep partisanship”, before delving into an attempt to say things are not all that bad with the Independents. 41% say their lives have gotten worse, which includes 45% of independents. with 26% saying their lives are the same (25% I).
On the question of on the economy improving, just 40% agreed (71D, 15R, 33I). 41% say the economy has declined. 47% of Independents agreed with that.
Almost no one thinks the relationship between the parties has improved. 69% says it has gotten worse.
Another big deal question, on the US has become stronger internationally, sees 19% disagreeing. Only 45% of Democrats see the US becoming stronger internationally, with just 10% of Independents feeling the same. 21% say it has stayed the same, while 50% say the US has become weaker, with 53% of Independents agreeing to that statement.
Welcome to the Age of Obama.
Crossed at Right Wing News.
Welcome to the world of conservative policy. Senate, House and SCOTUS – all conservative.
Reagan planted the seeds in the ’80s. Clinton, Bush and yes, even Obama, have nurtured the seedlings, and the Teapublicans running the nation are reaping the harvest – trade deals, union busting, tax policies, wage suppression, perpetual war, third world quality infrastructure and services, shadow banking deregulation… all policies that squelch the working classes.
What is “squelching” the working class is progress: the manual labor jobs that used to exist have been significantly replaced by technology and automation. It takes far fewer workers to build an automobile, because robots do so much of the work. When was the last time you called a company and got an actual receptionist to answer the telephone?
Robots and computers don’t take sick days, they don’t show up late for work, and they don’t get vacations or cigarette breaks or maternity leave.
We have long had visions of an automated future, but no one seemed to pick up on the fact that when people have to work less, a lot of them don’t get paid.
Dana,
You, like all Republicans, hate the working classes – They’re lazy, take breaks, get sick, smoke, take vacations, have children, take days off, arrive late etc etc
There is no evidence that robots are taking our jobs and squirmishing the middle and working classes.
When we DO convert to a robot society where leisure time goes even higher as productivity soars – why should the benefits all accrue to the wealthy??
Jeff,
You are the only one who exhibits any amount of hate, racism, prejudice and bigotry. Now, you are off on robots and have no idea as to what you are talking about. Robots are a big deal in our society, you just don’t see them or understand the concept. Once again showing your ignorance. What do you think builds your car. You have something from Amazon, who went to the shelf and got the item? You say you are in drugs, yet you don’t know that robots packed the drugs, got them from storage and sent them to the hospital or pharmacy. Please, please get an education.
Jeffrey gets silly:
Too bad for your argument that I am working class!
But, let’s face facts: employers want to reduce labor costs, and that’s why so many things have been automated, where it has been possible.
Really? It’s already happening! I had already given you the example of computers answering the telephones rather than receptionists, and, by now, you’ve seen restaurants where you place your order via a terminal rather than a waitress.
It’s simple: the income will accrue to the person who owns the robot, not the worker it displaced.
We’ve also seen this in auto worker contracts which seek to limit the amount of automation in the making of cars because it affects workers’ jobs.
And don’t forget that it was Obama himself that claimed ATMs cost workers jobs.
Simple economics tells us that with the robots and automatons putting so many people out of work that productivity (goods/services per worker) must be skyrocketing. Not so.
Unemployment must skyrocketing. Not so.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dean-baker/the-fed-competes-with-rob_b_8744646.html
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-baker-robots-20150507-story.html
http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/2014/03/11/are-robots-about-take-our-jobs
Conservatives like to peddle the robot myth to justify their immigration, tax, trade, union, monetary, patent/copyright and fiscal policies that have decimated the working classes.
N.B. – “Evidence” is not the plural of “anecdote”.
Chili’s, Buckees, some Jack in the Box
Or the person who builds and/or repairs the robot.
Don’t forget you can order a meal online and pick up or have it delivered.