The Future President, Donald Trump

It sure is. He's running 7 wars, killing indiscriminately via drone murders, making back room deals with Monsanto, and bullying Britain about Brexit.

He is one powerful guy.

Obama makes Bush look like a Boy Scout.

Don’t look now, but Barack Obama is suddenly popular

When the ball dropped in Times Square on Jan. 1 of this year, more than half of the country disapproved of the job that President Obama was doing, according to Gallup. That boded poorly for the Democrats over the course of the year; presidential approval correlates to both how his party fares in the presidential race (even if he's not on the ticket) but also to the results of Senate races. An unpopular Obama suggested a less popular whoever-was-about-to-win-the-Democratic-nomination.

But over the course of the year, Obama's approval numbers changed -- quickly, and a lot. In Gallup's most recent weekly average, Obama is at 51-45 -- the exact opposite of where he was on Jan. 1 and a 12-point swing since then. He's been at 50 percent or higher in every week since March 1, save one.

We looked at this shortly after Obama first hit the 50 percent mark, noting that his approval had been climbing pretty steadily for a few months. At that point, we speculated that it was probably linked to the campaign; after all, the last time he was above 50 percent, he'd been propelled there by his own reelection.

Looking at quarterly averages of Obama's approval, you can see how stark the improvement has been by party. Democrats have slowly looked at Obama more favorably since the beginning of 2015, but independents have begun to look at Obama much more favorably. After a sharp slide following his reelection, independents turned their opinions of Obama around at the beginning of 2014. Over the past year, that's escalated. And since ratings from Democrats and Republicans are more stable, that shift by independents moves the needle a lot.

Gallup has data on a number of demographic groups, but those numbers tend to move around a lot. If we average group approval ratings for Obama over four-week intervals, we can get a better picture for which groups have seen the largest and smallest shifts toward Obama over the last year.

Among the groups that have seen the biggest increases in approval of Obama since last May are Hispanics, people under 30, women and people who identify their political ideology as "independent." (This isn't the same as those who identify their party as independent. It's on the liberal-conservative spectrum, not the Democrat-Republican one.) There's probably some overlap between those independent people and young people, since younger Americans are less likely to pick an ideological label. The increase among Hispanics may also be linked directly to the presidential election.

The groups that have moved toward Obama the least? College graduates, older people, weekly church-goers -- and black Americans. Blacks have consistently been among those most supportive of President Obama, so this, weirdly, is probably a function of not having much higher to actually go.

It's impossible to know what the future holds, of course, and the correlation between approval strength and outcome for the president's party demands data from much closer to the election. In an election where both of the likely major-party nominees are largely unpopular, though, a moderately popular incumbent will almost certainly do more good than harm.

I think facts should outweigh partisan politics.

I remember rantings from the left on these pages about how Bush was using 911 to erode personal liberties in the US. Obama has done WORSE, and hasn't had an unprecedented attack against our country to blame.

What I said about Obama is true. I notice you didn't try to refute it.

The reason we will have another Wall Street crash soon; the reason the sick gap between the Haves and the Have Nots will continue to grow until you finally get pissed; the reason big money will gain more power
in this country - is because of the stealth-but-in-your-face losses of personal liberty that is increasing under Obama's leadership.

And that's a fact.

Lash wrote:

I think facts should outweigh partisan politics.

I remember rantings from the left on these pages about how Bush was using 911 to erode personal liberties in the US. Obama has done WORSE, and hasn't had an unprecedented attack against our country to blame.

What I said about Obama is true. I notice you didn't try to refute it.

The reason we will have another Wall Street crash soon; the reason the sick gap between the Haves and the Have Nots will continue to grow until you finally get pissed; the reason big money will gain more power
in this country - is because of the stealth-but-in-your-face losses of personal liberty that is increasing under Obama's leadership.

And that's a fact.

2 to four more years of this crap is unnecessary. Vote Bernie, vote often.

I disagreed with Bush not going by the FISA courts first before implementing spying programs, not spying on terrorist in general, that was fixed in 2007. I never really had an opinion on drones since I don't know how they work and I also don't the know the facts verses the myths. I do know Obama never really disproved of drones even in his campaigns. He has tried endlessly to get rid of Gitmo but he has been blocked by congress, both democrats and republicans. Even today, drones in the US are not really unpopular, I don't know what that says about us but there it is.

The critics of the drone program always talk about the collateral deaths that result. They never have an answer for the fact that the collateral damage is less than with conventional boots on the ground warfare. They never have an answer when you ask them "If the choice is between doing something and doing nothing against identified enemies, what 'something' would they do?" Obama has also pushed hard in diplomatic initiatives. But when he has to take action, I would rather he does it with drones than the other alternatives.

Pshaw! In my opinion, drones are akin to Intervention Interruptus. Boots on the ground can require more than the nation is willing to commit. Do we have a third choice? Twenty-four hours for everyone to vacate a village that's occupied by an enemy, and then bring in the B-52's. As LBJ might have said (a great Democrat), "Let's stop pussyfootin' around."

Ive been silent on Sanders -I think hes a dumb idiot who has no real plans . Hes one step away from Alzheimers

I think Trumps constant lying , to an almost pathological level, ill be his downfall.
Anyone with a pulse has only to listen to his early announcements about this or that, things that he now denies saying at all.
"OK Mr Trump, were you lying then or are you lying now?"