Although American society is drastically changing every day, one aspect of American culture continues to provide the U.S. government with vital information about U.S. officials, particularly public opinion. Public opinion “consists of the views held by the population of a state that influence those in power” (SparkNotes Editors). According to Willam Biano and David Cano in American Politics Today, public opinion matters for three reasons:
(1) citizens’ political actions are driven by their opinions, (2) public opinion helps explain the behavior of candidates, political parties, and other political actors; politicians look to public opinion to determine what citizens want them to do, (3) public opinion can also shed light on the reasons for …show more content…
Moreover, in 2014, telephone and in-person interviews were conducted around the world by the Pew Global Attitudes Project in order to create comparison chart that calculated the approval rating of Obama in 2014 and Bush in 2006. On a scale of 0% to 90%, indicating a high no confidence to high confidence. Results indicated that U.S. citizens had about the same amount of confidence in both presidents during these years of their administrations. While Bush scored averaged a 50% approval rating in 2006, Obama’s averaged an approval of 57% rating in 2014. These approval ratings indicate that confidence in President Obama has recently been almost equally low as confidence in President Bush during one of the most a crucial times during the Bush administration, the FEMA debacle of 2005-06 (Shoup). While these approval ratings reveal a large number of U.S. citizens who are displeased with Obama, what could be the reason for …show more content…
citizens to become dissatisfied with him over time? For instance, the economy was in recession when Obama was sworn in president, and it’s still experiencing a decline, due to inflation and other on-going issues. The U.S. was also in an ongoing war in the Middle East at the time, which some believe did not resolve any major issues, even after many troops were able to return home. There are also race relations, which have seemingly decreased due to the recent police brutality incidents across the country and the most recent Charleston shootings. Since these random acts of violence against African-American continue to happen, maybe some feel that Obama, an African-American, himself, has handled each incident poorly. While the crime rate is at an all-time low, there is still fear from many Americans that the national crime rate is on the rise (Chettiar), which could be due to the way that the recent major, publicized crimes have been handled (i.e. the Jodi Arias case, the Baltimore riots, and the Aurora shootings). Based on recent social media movements, like the Black Lives Matter movement, even young people, especially of color, are unsatisfied with the way that violent crime is assessed by the U.S.
(1) citizens’ political actions are driven by their opinions, (2) public opinion helps explain the behavior of candidates, political parties, and other political actors; politicians look to public opinion to determine what citizens want them to do, (3) public opinion can also shed light on the reasons for …show more content…
Moreover, in 2014, telephone and in-person interviews were conducted around the world by the Pew Global Attitudes Project in order to create comparison chart that calculated the approval rating of Obama in 2014 and Bush in 2006. On a scale of 0% to 90%, indicating a high no confidence to high confidence. Results indicated that U.S. citizens had about the same amount of confidence in both presidents during these years of their administrations. While Bush scored averaged a 50% approval rating in 2006, Obama’s averaged an approval of 57% rating in 2014. These approval ratings indicate that confidence in President Obama has recently been almost equally low as confidence in President Bush during one of the most a crucial times during the Bush administration, the FEMA debacle of 2005-06 (Shoup). While these approval ratings reveal a large number of U.S. citizens who are displeased with Obama, what could be the reason for …show more content…
citizens to become dissatisfied with him over time? For instance, the economy was in recession when Obama was sworn in president, and it’s still experiencing a decline, due to inflation and other on-going issues. The U.S. was also in an ongoing war in the Middle East at the time, which some believe did not resolve any major issues, even after many troops were able to return home. There are also race relations, which have seemingly decreased due to the recent police brutality incidents across the country and the most recent Charleston shootings. Since these random acts of violence against African-American continue to happen, maybe some feel that Obama, an African-American, himself, has handled each incident poorly. While the crime rate is at an all-time low, there is still fear from many Americans that the national crime rate is on the rise (Chettiar), which could be due to the way that the recent major, publicized crimes have been handled (i.e. the Jodi Arias case, the Baltimore riots, and the Aurora shootings). Based on recent social media movements, like the Black Lives Matter movement, even young people, especially of color, are unsatisfied with the way that violent crime is assessed by the U.S.