The Reflexive Anti Obama Syndrome and the trivialization of DU

[grantcart]

http://www.gallup.com/poll/121199/Obama-Weekly-Job-Approval-Demographic-Groups.aspx

I have been quietly waiting for today because I had a theory of where the President's numbers were going to be after the Senate finally passed the flawed yet historical and hugely helpful Health Care Bill. I was guessing that the President's numbers among Democrats was going to go up near historic highs. At the same time DU has becomes consumed with a "Reflexive Anti Obama Syndrome" that has made rational conversation almost impossible as DU becomes increasingly trivialized in its approach to policy and governance.

Democrats +2 to an astronomically high 86% among people classifing them selves "liberal" +1 Liberal Democrats +1, Pure Independent +4 Liberal/moderate Republicans +8. Nonwhite + 4 and Hispanic +7.

Conservative Democrats -4, Conservatives -3

First the President's latest numbers

The Monday report by Gallup is interesting because it goes way beyond the daily approval numbers and shows who is supportive and who is not by elaborate category. It also shows who is getting really enthusiastic and who is getting pissed off.

After "selling out the country to the corporatist whore mongers" and other related DU screeds you would expect the President's numbers among Democrats to fall and among Independents and Republicans to increase.

Second the Trivialization of DU

Currently there is a poll that is showing that 70% of DU believes that Obama has abandonded the Left Wing of the Party.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x96457

What can account for the huge discrepancy between the Democratic Party as a whole and the increasingly Reflexive Anti Obama Syndrome. Three currents account for it:

1) Disappointment in a particular policy. Some people are so invested in one particular policy that the President has not yet acted on, or has already taken action on, that their animus towards the President is so personal that they now intend to demonize the President in a fervent and almost religious way. Everything the President does is now seen as part of a larger betrayel, even though the President really has just gotten started on his Presidency having spent the first 8 months just trying to keep the place running after the Republicans had sent the system into a sink hole.

2) Self Appointed Anti-Hero Heros. There are some that have created mini careers and public persona in fighting against. That is their default position. Really there is no satisfying this group because the goal posts will always be moving. Stop unemployment, then the President should have already increased rehiring. Employment figures start to go up then the President could have gotten us to 4% if he didn't love companies so much. When unemployment hits 4% then the wage level will be unacceptable and so on. Some people have become addicted to their own self annointed position as "Leader of the anti" and no matter what set of events happen will never show support for a progressive President.

3) Anti establishment populist sentiment. We are living in a time of spectacular human evolution and there is simply no question that most of that innovation has come because of the power that the market has to revolutionize and popularize consumer products. While much of it is banal, much of it is not. It will take a couple of decades for humanity to catch up with the capacity of the IPhone. Think of a future when people can have frequent Iphone communication face to face with their doctor without having to actually go in for a physical meeting, and so on. Most Democrats want to use the best parts of the private system and expand the government to eliminate private abuses and provide services that make more sense on a federal level, some at DU rail against the "capitalist system" and imagine some kind of post capitalist world without conflict or greed but much like Star Trek never explains how the new system is going to work or how we are going to get there.

The Trivialization of DU

Increasingly the hostile anti Obama rhetoric is becoming more and more trivial as it is becoming increasingly split from the reality of the Democratic Party. Two recent examples come to mind. Recently the President was rigorously condemned for appointing a conservative to a legal aid advisory board. The poster neglected to note that the board was bipartisan by law and required Republican nominees. The convoluted answer was the President should have cherry picked and appointed a 'good Republican' avoiding completely the reality that if we did that to Republicans then they would be free to cherry pick a 'good Democrat' when they were in the WhiteHouse.

The other example was several posters posting attacks against the President for taking military action against Al Queda in Yemen last week. The Al Jazeera report quoted both "a tribesman" who said that only innocent civilians were killed and Yemen government sources that advised that top leadership in AQ in Yemen were killed. Today we see on CNN eulogies of AQ militants for the loss of their leader at an AQ funeral followed with a story that AQ in Yemen took credit for the attempted blowing up of the Northwest Airlines flight from the Netherlands as a retalilation for the US attack on their leaders.

As more and more DUers become reflexively anti Obama and increasingly at odds with not only the Democratic Party but also with people who identify themselves as "liberal", "Democrat", and "Liberal Democrat" we should expect to see more and more attempts to discredit the President on increasingly trivial points. Closing down GITMO, eliminating torture, prosecuting GITMO detainess in civilian courts is all to be dismissed because of a particular phrase used by a professional prosecutor in case that may only have passing relevence as the President and Attorney General have more time to address the entire system of the Justice Department, and so on.

Rather than using DU as a fair barometer of how the "liberal base" of the Democratic Party seek other more objective sources and you will find that the President's standing among the base is very high and going up, not down.