MOSCOW, August 4 (RIA Novosti) - US President Barack Obama celebrates his 53rd birthday on Monday with little to celebrate, as most recent polls reveal his approval rating in the United States has sunk to as low as 39-41 percent, with more and more Americans disapproving of US interventionism.
“The president [Barack Obama] is highly unpopular. His foreign policy advisors urge him to become even more involved in Ukraine and elsewhere. His Republican neoconservative opponents blame recent US foreign intervention disasters like Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine on the president doing too little rather than too much,” Daniel McAdams, the director of Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, told RIA Novosti.
A July Politico poll reveals that 67 percent of surveyed Americans agreed that “US military actions should be limited to direct threats to our national interest.” A Pew poll, conducted in late 2013, demonstrated that the majority of Americans believe the “US should mind its own business internationally.”
“The American public is tired of US interventionism, but the voices of non-intervention are not permitted access to the mainstream media. There is a media blackout on commentators who urge that the US do less overseas,” McAdams added.
McAdams also pointed out that there is a trend in mainstream American media of demonizing Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Events like the recent crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 are broadcast on virtually every American mainstream media outlet in the same, highly sensationalistic manner. Headlines blaming Russia for the attack before an investigation took place offer the American viewer the evidence to back up the constant US government and media demonization of Russia in general and its president in particular,” the director said.
Despite all this, some experts say President Obama’s declining rating is hardly anything out of the ordinary.
“When somebody is elected they have high approval ratings and then over time they go down and then settle in 40-, 50-, 60-percent range,” Paul S. Herrnson, the director of The Roper Center and the founder and former director of the Center for American Politics and Citizenship, told RIA Novosti.
Herrnson went on to say that that Americans put more importance on domestic issues, rather than foreign affairs. The Roper Center director said he assumes that at this point people have already shaped their opinion of the president.
“Few people would say they had changed their minds on the basis of things with Ukraine or Russia or things like this. People might speak about it, but it will not change them from approving to disapproving. It will not change their opinion, but instead confirm it,” Herrnson said.
According to Tim Malloy, the assistant director of Quinnipiac University, Obama’s 40-percent approval rating is an increase since December 2013 when Obama hit his all-time low of 38 percent.
Malloy pointed out that every US president, with the exception of John F. Kennedy, experienced diminishing approval ratings in the latter half of their second term of presidency. Obama is currently serving his second term as US president, which ends in 2016.
