Obama’s ratings plummet after surveillance scandal

President Barack Obama’s approval rating has dropped from 53 to 45 percent in the past month, with 61 percent of US poll respondents criticizing his handling of domestic government spying in wake of the NSA surveillance scandal.

The latest national CNN poll offers evidence that the president is suffering the political consequences of the National Security Agency’s spy tactics, which were first revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden this month.

The president’s approval rating is now the lowest it has been in more than a year and a half, with the majority of Americans expressing ill feelings toward Obama. Fifty percent of poll respondents said they do not believe Obama is honest and trustworthy, 54 percent disapprove of his job handling, and 61 percent disapprove of the way he’s handling US government surveillance, according to the CNN/ORC International survey.

About 60 percent of respondents also said that the US government is so large and powerful that it endangers American freedoms.

Obama’s disapproval rating has been on the rise for months, increasing from 51 percent in January to 54 percent in April and 57 percent in June.

“The drop in Obama’s support is fueled by a dramatic 17-point decline over the past month among people under 30, who, along with black Americans, had been the most loyal part of the Obama coalition,” CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said in the news agency’s release of the findings.

Obama’s approval rating among independent voters plummeted by 10 points in the last month, with only 37 percent agreeing with his job handling and 61 percent disapproving of it this month.

Yes, I agree, I was thinking the same thing myself. Eveil powerful centralized government, heroine/heroes are from a working-class-disadvantaged area, creepy President Snow, etc.

And I also was thinking that these kids who read it might be coming to votying age infleuced by the books.

But then again, they flocked to Avatar like zombies.

However; they’ve also spent their movie-going years watching a lot of small-heroes-against-big-government movies. The ‘big government’ I am sure was meant by Hollywood to be seen as the dreaded Bush, but that’s switched.

But it’s something to think abotu. Our political class, however, have had their heads eaten by mainstream media. the Repubs are bowing and groveling too much to read or think about Hunger Games.

>>But then again, they flocked to Avatar like zombies.<<

Yes, but even Avatar was a story about an overbearing government oppressing a people.

My point is that the Hunger Game series was read by millions of teenagers just a few years ago, and the movies are still coming out. I read 1984 at their age, but I’ll bet less than 1 percent of my peers at the time ever even heard of it. Yet the overriding message of both is that an all-powerful government is bad, i.e., that absolute power corrupts absolutely.

1984 ended badly, hopelessly really, and to be honest, I haven’t read the third book (Mockingjay) in the Hunger Games series yet, but the threat of big government has clearly been established. I just don’t know if it ends like Avatar or like 1984.

Nevertheless, if Hunger Games primed young minds to be wary of all-powerful government the way 1984 primed mine to be wary of totalitarianism, then I think a few surprises are in store in the 2014 elections, especially if the limited-government politicians don’t write off younger voters. The NSA snooping scandal is the match being set to this fire. Kids don’t follow foreign policy so Benghazi scandal didn’t matter. They are primed to suspect Republicans/Tea Party so the IRS scandal didn’t matter. They don’t read newspapers or watch the nightly news so the AP scandal didn’t matter.

But the government snooping on their texts and emails. That’s an entirely different matter. After all, many young people are deserting Facebook and heading to other social networks because they don’t like their own parents snooping through their posts on Facebook. And now they find that the NSA probably has everything they’ve posted stored at a giant facility somewhere. Devotees of Hunger Games will recognize the threat this poses.

Tell you what, if a Rand Paul or Ted Cruz can’t get his message through to young voters given this setup, they’re not even trying.

Obama’s favorability among young voters has recently plummeted. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. It’s quite possible that Hunger Games has primed the young to be very wary of the sort of government we’re seeing in DC today.

Now, the book suggests rebellion (so far anyway, through book 2), but a limited government politician can suggest rebellion at the polling places in November 2014 as an alternative. I don’t have any idea whether this will get traction, but I find it quite interesting.

Incidentally, there’s a strong parallel between the way this administration celebrates in DC all the time and takes expensive trips and vacations, and the way the elites in the Hunger Games Capitol behaved while the rest of the populace was struggling to put food on the table.

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