Are We Too Critical of the President?

The president of the the United States is considered by most to be the most powerful person in the country if not the world. Obviously, this title comes with a level of responsibility for what is happening in the country, but does this mean we should blame the president for every issue that happens to the U.S.? Moreover, are the expectations we set for the person in the presidency higher than they should be?

The answer to the latter question, at least in recent history, seems to be an overwhelming yes. If we take a look at the approval ratings of all the presidents of the last fifty years, six out of nine have not had an average approval rating over fifty percent. This means that the majority of Americans have not been happy with the job of two-thirds of their presidents. This seems like too critical of a look at the presidency, considering the presidents over this time have been able to keep the U.S. a the premier world power and have not given us any total disasters to the county.

Another interesting thing about this job approval data is that the three presidents who had an average job approval rating over fifty percent all came in a row: Regan, HW Bush, and Clinton. This is most likely because the state of the economy during this time was strong, but that does not mean these presidents did not bring other issues in their terms. Regan had the Iran-Contra affair, the lack of support for the aids crisis, and other issues. George HW Bush went against his major campaign promise to not raise taxes. Clinton obviously had his share of sexual scandals, such as with Monica Lewinsky. Yet, the solid economy seemed to be enough to keep all three of these men in good support with the public.

Pieces of legislation like the appeals of major financial regulations obviously helped spur growth to the economy during this time. And while this can be attributed to these presidents, that does not mean that they should get all of the credit. The poor state of the economy during the 1970s from the OPEC oil crisis was something that was not necessarily Jimmy Carter’s fault, but it did cost him a second term and gave Ronald Regan a great opportunity to take a ton of credit for improving a poor economy that most likely would have improved anyway.

Another example of presidents taking too much blame for the economy is Herbert Hoover. He was in office for less than a year before the worst financial collapse in U.S. history took place. Obviously, he was not even close to being fully responsible for this event, yet he took heavy criticism at the time and is still considered one of the worst president’s in U.S. history by many. Although his handling of the aftermath of this financial collapse was not great, it would be absurd to give him all of the blame for it tasking place to begin with.

Although there are reasons to be critical of any president, it is important to remember that they are not the reason for every aspect of the current state of the country, especially economically. If we spend more time judging what the president is doing rather than what the economy is doing, we might be better off and able to judge our future leaders more effectively.

Sources

http://news.gallup.com/poll/116677/presidential-approval-ratings-gallup-historical-statistics-trends.aspx

https://www.history.com/topics/1929-stock-market-crash

5 Responses to "Are We Too Critical of the President?"

Kelly Gough says:

April 11, 2018 at 11:57 am

Thomas,

You bring up a great point. Being the president is no easy job. Managing the ranging expectations from those who elected you, work with you, or funded you seems like a daunting task.

Although the president does not have it easy, I do not believe the expectations set for the person in presidency is too high. The high expectations that we set are necessary because of the amount of power the person in this position yields.

Although the approval ratings reflect an unhappy majority, and appear to be too critical, there have been many issues in the country. The debt of the country has risen tremendously throughout the time frame of the last nine Presidents, more companies have moved overseas, among several others. While some may not see this as “disasters” they do have negative effects on the quality of life for many Americans.

One of the points you made that I found most interesting was that three presidents who had “an average job approval rating over fifty percent all came in a row.” As mentioned, the state of the economy during this time was strong. I suspect that this is the primary reason most presidents have high approval ratings. Earlier in President Trump’s term the economy was doing particularly well and his approval rating was relatively high. Once the economy started doing poor, Professor McGowen pointed out the drop in Trump’s approval rating. I would be curious to see how much this is correlated throughout all of the presidency’s.

Thank you for your post!

Kelly
James Weakley says:

April 11, 2018 at 4:31 pm

Thomas,
I enjoyed reading your blog post on the criticism that recent presidents have faced. While I agree that the state of the economy has a lot to do with the approval rating of the President I believe social media and the internet are driving factors behind the increased criticism towards the President. Social media has connected the American public more closely to the President than ever before. The President can no longer hide scandals from the public as any shady actions are put under a magnifying glass by news outlets and social media bloggers. News stations are increasingly running more infotainment stories, usually investigating political scandals. Social media has created a desire for scandals and juicy news stories concerning our politicians.
The economic factor you discussed on the blog really interested me. I know that fiscal policy is an important issue to Americans, but I did not know how influential it really is. I agree that the American public should judge the President on all policy and legislation, not just fiscal ones. Social factors, however, do limit the influence of the economy. Since President Trump has been in office the stock market has performed phenomenally, mirroring the whole economy. However social scandals and controversies policy have kept President Trump’s approval rating hovering below 50%.

Thanks for the post.

Dominick
Holden Powers says:

April 12, 2018 at 7:05 pm

Thomas,

I really enjoyed your blog post and it made me think about who is really responsible for the state of our economy. I do agree that the President is not the sole reason an economy does well or poorly, however, I think the President’s decisions and actions in office do have a large effect on the economy. As a result, I think the President should have some responsibility on the state of the economy unless it is poor do things out of anyone’s control (i.e. a natural disaster).

For example, when Trump announced these large tariffs against other countries in the last couple weeks, the economy has taken a hit. Trump’s actions have caused the stock market to decline and investors have been worried. Examples like these in the past display that the President’s actions and decisions do in fact have a direct correlation with the performance of our economy. As a result, the state of the economy throughout a presidency should be taken to account in a President’s performance.
Cassandra Martin says:

April 13, 2018 at 10:51 pm

Thomas,

This is a very interesting post, and I enjoyed learning about your perspective of the relationship between the public and the president. While I agree with you that being the President is undoubtedly a difficult job, I believe that this is only to be expected when a candidate runs for a position which he/she knows will require them to lead a superpower in the international system. It is true that the public may be misinformed to how much the president actually controls, but at the same time, that doesn’t mean the public should lower their expectations for the leader of their country. One of the foundations of democracy and popular sovereignty is having competitive elections, where the candidate selected should be the best fit for the job in the majority of the country’s eyes. So I’m afraid that encouraging the public to lower expectations (decreasing competitiveness) just to have better approval rating numbers would not be beneficial.

I do find your point about the economic link interesting, but I think your point further shows that while the President is not solely responsible for everything happening in the economy and politics, they are responsible for helping to make both effective as best as they can for citizens. Therefore, if a low approval rating causes the President to listen and respond to what the people want, then there is no reason for people to be overly-optimistic in their opinions.
Akshit Sharma says:

April 22, 2018 at 7:13 pm

Thomas, thank you for your blog post. I enjoyed reading it. I think to answer your question, the one you pose in the title of the post, I would say yes. I have only lived in the United States for 4 years now but I was fortunate enough to follow the transition from the Obama White House to the Trump White House. What I have noticed over the past 4 years is that both President’s were disliked, even if it was for different things. When I lived in India before moving here, everyone in India thought, along with all my international friends, that Obama was a fantastic President. I did so myself and I just assumed that he was loved all over the U.S. as well. But when I got here, I started to realize that he was actually disliked by a lot of people, in my personal experience, by republicans for the most part. Same goes for Trump, he is disliked by majorly democrats. My take on the whole “I will support my party’s President, no matter who it is” is that is the wrong way to look at things. Americans need to realize that it should not matter which party holds office, it should matter what the leader can do to make a difference to America and make it a better country than it already is.

Comments are closed.