Red, Black, Blue and Gray: Polarization and the American Presidency from FDR to Obama
Posted: 31 Oct 2011
Date Written: October 31, 2011
Abstract
In his celebrated speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention Barack Obama declared “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America – there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America, there is the United States of America.” With these words Obama began his career in national politics, presenting himself as a politician who could transcend the nation’s ideological partisan and racial divides. Yet, within less than a year of his election he became the most ideological (red), partisan (blue) racial (black) and regional (white south, white non-south) polarizing president in the history of modern polling. This paper, a prolegomenon, uses Gallup poll data to compare ideological, racial, partisan and regional polarization in Obama’s first week, first six months and first year compared to all presidents from Eisenhower to the second George Bush (data are only available for these early periods starting with the Eisenhower administration). In order to understand the polarized Obama presidency, we construct an “attitudinal history” of polarization in American presidential history from FDR to Obama. This preliminary study focusing on the first year, attempts to begin to explain how Obama, the pragmatic centrist so quickly became the great polarizer.
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