Donald Trump: polls of approval and favorability

[pbrower2a]

(08-30-2017, 04:39 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-30-2017, 12:19 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: If I didn't mention Eisenhower -- you know from my posting record how similar I see the two in behavior and temperament. If the next Republican President does not appear until after the current Crisis, then I expect the taste to be for a sixty-something, mature Reactive. Except for going from age 45 to age 55. Obama fit that pattern well.

I'm not sure how much Eisenhower counts.  He's a war hero who could have won under either party.  He didn't try to fight FDR's perspective or agenda.  I respect him a lot, but don't see him as a partisan trying to fight the other factions perspective.  He was in power during the high, a period where the prior crisis's values are forced on everybody.  As such, he had a role to play, and he played it reasonably well.

I see a generational similarity. I think of Obama as the best sort of Reactive leader possible*, the sort who shows reverence for protocol and precedent as a way of avoiding trouble. That might be pre-seasonal in a Crisis Era, but even if Obama is more liberal than the political average of the time and Eisenhower was a bit more conservative, such marks the two well. Obama is just too pragmatic to be a Boomer (and in view of the lack of pragmatism of Boom leaders so far the pragmatism is refreshing), and he is not the reckless optimist that a liberal GI or Millennial might be.  A Kennedy-like leader when Obama was President would have been off by about a full saeculum, which would be awkward.

I see an analogy between school desegregation (Eisenhower) and same-sex marriage (Obama) as expanding human rights. Eisenhower may have been unenthusiastic, but he recognized a Supreme Court ruling as the essence of the rule of law and went along with it rigidly.  Obama chose to do nothing, letting the Supreme Court make its decision.

*the worst sort of Reactive leader possible? Here's a more recent example than the usual choice from the last Crisis Era:



(US PSYOP leaflet)

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (Arabic: أبو مصعب الزرقاوي‎‎, ’Abū Muṣ‘ab az-Zarqāwī, Abu Musab from Zarqa;  English pronunciation (help·info); October 20, 1966 – June 7, 2006), born Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh (أحمد فضيل النزال الخلايلة, ’Aḥmad Faḍīl an-Nazāl al-Ḫalāyla), was a Jordanian jihadist who ran a paramilitary training camp in Afghanistan. He became known after going to Iraq and being responsible for a series of bombings, beheadings, and attacks during the Iraq War, reportedly "turning an insurgency against US troops" in Iraq "into a Shia-Sunni civil war".[1] He was sometimes known as "Shaykh of the slaughterers".[2]

He formed al-Tawhid wal-Jihad in the 1990s, and led it until his death in June 2006. Zarqawi took responsibility, on several audio and video recordings, for numerous acts of violence in Iraq including suicide bombings and hostage executions. Zarqawi opposed the presence of U.S. and Western military forces in the Islamic world, as well as the West's support for the existence of Israel. In late 2004 he joined al-Qaeda, and pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden. After this al-Tawhid wal-Jihad became known as Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn, also known as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), and al-Zarqawi was given the al-Qaeda title "Emir of Al Qaeda in the Country of Two Rivers".[3]

In September 2005, he declared "all-out war" on Shi'ites in Iraq, after the Iraqi government offensive on insurgents in the Sunni town of Tal Afar.[4] He dispatched numerous suicide bombers throughout Iraq to attack American soldiers and areas with large concentrations of Shia militias. He is also thought to be responsible for the 2005 bombing of three hotels in Amman, Jordan.[5] Zarqawi was killed in a targeted killing by a joint U.S. force on June 7, 2006, while attending a meeting in an isolated safehouse in Hibhib, a small village approximately 8 km (5.0 mi) west-northwest of Baqubah. One United States Air Force F-16C jet dropped two 500-pound (230 kg) guided bombs on the safehouse.[6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Musab_al-Zarqawi

This fellow makes Dubya look like an exemplar of refined principle by contrast.