How Obama divided America

September 4, 2020. There is little doubt that American political views have become polarized, divisive. Superficial, biased assertions that Donald Trump is the source of this division simply don't pass the smell test, nor are they consistent with the historical data. Evidence suggests that the division began well before Trump was elected president, and that perhaps and even probably, his election was the result of divisions created by others, including those who are now making accusations directed at Trump.

In a 2017 research report, How Obama changed America, the Pew Research Center offered this opening thought:

The election of the nation’s first black president raised hopes that race relations in the U.S. would improve, especially among black voters. But by 2016, following a spate of high-profile deaths of black Americans during encounters with police and protests by the Black Lives Matter movement and other groups, many Americans – especially blacks – described race relations as generally bad.

Much of the criticism of Donald Trump's 'divisiveness' can be traced back to Obama's tenure. Trump is not only the symptom of the division created under Obama, he is probably best viewed as the result of Obama's tenure, where high hopes for better race relations at the beginning of his term led to a massive swing to division by the end of his term (see survey, below). While Pew's headline is about "how America changed during Barack Obama's presidency," there is an unwillingness to cite Obama as the cause of the change. Yet while many are willing to praise Obama for his "hope and change" message, few are willing to critique the actual result of his impact on America in any negative way.

Under Obama, race relations went from a record high (44-point positive difference between good and bad in April 2009) to a near record low (-27 percentage points in May 2015). Race relations improved before he was elected and declined for most of his eight years in office, moving from positive to negative.

An example of 'credit' Obama earned came not from his own citizens. Instead, Obama's approach and his much praised and much maligned 'apology tour' clearly earned kudos from other countries (see Confidence table, below), yet examples of contempt from some Americans. Attempts to soothe global skeptics produced quite the opposite effect on the domestic front.

At the same time, America had changed demographically, as the silent, 'greatest generation' died off in large numbers and 'Millennials' and 'Post Millennials' became eligible voters in even larger numbers, as the Boomers -- once part of the 'youth' or 'Pepsi' generation -- were replaced by a very different demographic.

And just as Bill Clinton's legacy was a loss of a the White House and control of Congress, Obama produced a similar of even more dramatic effect than the Bush administration. Just as the logical successor Al Gore failed to succeed his mentor, Hillary Clinton failed to succeed her mentor.

Sure, many would be happy to blame Americans themselves for these divisions that occurred under Obama but the better interpretation of this perspective would be that the initial groundswell of support for the Obama presidency was quickly replaced by massive disappointment.

Why the disappointment? There are several good explanations. First, the "if you like your doctor/plan you can keep it," sales pitch for Obamacare produced one of the most expensive misrepresentations in American history. Rather than saving the average family -- as promised -- $2,500 a year in healthcare court, the average family plan doubled under Obama, from $14,000 to $28,000. As a result, business expenses went up and this led to wage stagnation. Ironically, Joe Biden is making the same disingenuous, fatuous claim, that his "plan" will reduce healthcare costs. Second, the Obama "I have a phone and pen" attitude towards making changes by executive order fiat created a sense of the "imperial presidency" attributed to Richard Nixon for similar arrogance. Third, Obama embraced identity politics, open borders, wealth and income re-distribution, and other politically correct positions that played to the growing number of previously non-existent 'special interest' groups, while generally dismissing traditional Democrat support from the less educated, blue-collar, working class segment, the people 'clinging to guns and religion.' There are more reasons, but these alone would explain most of not all of the angst and disappointment that led to embracing a true outsider to 'drain the swamp' to reverse the centralization of power in Washington.