Likewise, protester Wilford, a father of four, can’t be convinced to support Obama’s health care reform, which he opposes on principle—even though he cannot afford to buy health insurance for his own family, but earns too much to qualify for Medicaid, the program for low-income people. “We don’t have health care. We will pay for it on our own. We’re health conscious,” said Wilford. If he gets a large bill, “We’ll work it out with the hospital.” He has no interest in the health care reform which is supposed to help make it more affordable for people in his position to buy insurance. “It’s all a power grab. It’s disgusting,” he said.
The Pew Center has been polling on a variety of political questions over the year, and Dimock sees two major trends that both point to political divisiveness and alienation. First, Democrats and Republicans are growing further apart on fundamental questions. “There is more divisiveness on social welfare and the government safety net,” he says. “There are bigger gaps over affirmative action. There is more divisiveness on assertiveness in foreign policy, on environmental issues. Our polls suggest that Republicans have grown much more conservative in recent years.” The second trend is a growing alienation of grassroots America from Washington and the two-party system. One striking result is that more people identify as “independents” than at any time since 1992, when a strong independent candidate, Ross Perot, ran for president. “We have been tracking for a long time a growing divisiveness in American politics and a growing frustration with the federal government and the way politics is done,” Dimock says. “Maybe it was always there, but it has gotten a lot more intense in recent years,” he adds.
The growth in divisions between Republicans and Democrats does not mean, however, that Democrats are becoming more liberal—another obstacle for Obama’s agenda. On the contrary: when Pew did a major survey on Americans’ values in May, they realized it was a major misperception that Obama’s election was a vote for a bigger role for government.
In fact, fewer Democrats supported government borrowing to support a social safety net than had two years earlier. “On virtually every question on the role of government we saw the numbers keep steady or decline, especially on the social safety net, which is remarkable in a time of economic crisis,” Dimock says. “Even on regulation, in light of the failure of financial regulation, there was no huge decline in basic belief [among Democrats and Americans at large] that the free market is essential. There was no sea change in liberal direction with Obama’s election. Skepticism of government only grew with the crisis.” As a result, there has been no populist pro-government wave for Obama to ride.
Obama has so far not been as confrontational with his opponents as Bill Clinton, who gambled on a stand-off with Republicans in 1995 over a budget dispute, in which their filibustering shut down the government and hurt the GOP’s image with voters. “If Obama was more confrontational he might just say, okay, filibuster, talk yourself to death and we’ll see how the population responds to your holding up the government,” says Ribuffo. But Ribuffo also notes that Obama does not need to unite the country behind his agenda to get it done. “It’s a myth that important legislation gets passed when the country is united,” he says. “It gets passed when one group has a manageable majority and the minority is complaining. That was the case with Social Security under Roosevelt and with tax cuts under Reagan.”
In fact, several recent polls show Obama’s favourability ratings stabilizing. “The people who are put off by the nature of the health care bill formed their opinions early on and the impact has happened by now,” says Dimock. “Obama is not losing more people over health care anymore. Those people were turned away in July and August. The vast majority of Americans want to see health care reforms. Whether they are comfortable with the details is contestable, but he still does have the basic balance of public opinion on his side when he stands before Congress and says he wants something done this year.” Obama may not be able to claim he has unified the nation, but, at least for now, he doesn’t need to.
