Why Obama's Poll Numbers Keep Falling

One of the interesting facets of the Obama administration has been how he’s managed to make his poll numbers not only hit bottom, but how he’s managed to keep them there without a single upward blip. Some people say it’s his leftist politics. Other say it’s his incompetence or his arrogance. But I think the answer lies in something far more interesting. I think the answer lies in a very famous book from 1513 A.D.

Niccolo Machiavelli has gone down as history’s most cynical thinker. Indeed, many people claim that Machiavelli was an evil man whose views are the stuff of dictators and tyrants and deceivers. But that’s the ignorant view. The reality is that Machiavelli was a keen observer of the human condition, and he well understood the relationship between rulers and their subjects. And it is Obama’s failure to understand the principles laid out by Machiavelli that have caused his steady unpopularity.

In his seminal work, The Prince, Machiavelli makes two key points about leadership. First, if a leader is faced with taking negative or unpleasant actions, the leader must do so swiftly, quickly, and all at once. The leader should never drag out such actions. But, secondly, if the leader has the opportunity to take pleasant actions, i.e. to hand out goodies or patronage, the leader should stretch that out over a long period of time. Obama violates both points.

1. Cruel Actions

Machiavelli warns that a leader who must take “cruel action” must be decisive in their actions, must act swiftly and effectively, and that these cruel actions must be short-lived. The reason is simple. Cruel actions anger people and generate fear.

Think about this in terms of your job. If you came to work one day to find that your boss fired half the staff, this might be startling, but it won’t terrify you so long as you know that these are the only firings that will happen. But if your boss starts firing people every day, that will terrify you, whether you are likely to be fired or not. The reason is that human beings crave certainty. Even though we may hate the idea that so many of our colleagues have been fired all at once, the first scenario still gives us the comfort of knowing that we will not be next. Combined with the remarkable human ability to put unpleasantness behind us (and to turn a blind eye to injustice that does not affect us directly), this scenario allows time to heal the wounds and happiness to return.

But in the second scenario, where the boss keeps firing people, there is no certainty. Thus, we instinctively fear that one day it will be us. Moreover, the unpleasantness of seeing our colleagues fired cannot be healed by time because the wound is refreshed every day that more people are fired. Thus, even if it's the same number of people fired, the "moral" effects are much worse in the second scenario.

The same is true in politics. If you keep raising taxes over and over, people will fear that their taxes will be next. If you cut benefits or fire employees or impose regulations, the results are the same. The longer you stretch out the pain, the more upset people will be, the greater the number of people who will be upset, and the longer the pain will last.

Obama, however, fails to grasp this concept.

When Obama came to power, there were a lot of “cruel actions” that had to be taken. We had a recession that was being prolonged with overly-generous government benefits. We had a banking industry that was out of control and sucking the public treasury dry. We had foreign “friends” who were harming our interests. We had a public sector that was over-paid and under-worked. We had a deficit that was too large to be sustained. Thus, Obama needed to cut federal pay and benefits, fire workers, cut off the banks, regulate and break up the “too big to fail” institutions, and slap down our ungrateful friends. He did none of these things. But the need to do them didn’t go away. So rather than taking these actions and getting them over with, Obama now imposes the prospect that he will be taking these steps over the next one, two, and three years. This is exactly what Machiavelli warned never to do. Rather than inflicting the pain once on a defined set of people, Obama has created a situation of uncertainty where no one knows who will be next to suffer, and everyone fears it might be them, and no one knows when the pain will end.

Even the legislation Obama proposes violates this principle. For example, ObamaCare slowly hands out the pain by triggering new provisions slowly, year after year. The same is true with his proposed cap and trade system, which brings on an increasing amount of regulation and restrictions each year, and with each of his other proposals; they drip out the pain like Chinese water torture.

Thus, Obama has undertaken a course of action that leads to a fearful and angry population that is nervously awaiting the next cruel act to beset them. And time can never heal these wounds, because they are constantly refreshed.

2. Patronage

Obama also fails to grasp the other side of the coin. Machiavelli tells us that when a leader hands out benefits, i.e. patronage, they should do so slowly over time. There are several reasons for this. First, this prevents recipients from getting everything they are going to get at once and then becoming ungrateful. Keep in mind that the same human trait that lets us move beyond bad things also makes good feelings fade into memory; hence the adage “what have you done for me lately?” Spreading out benefits keeps those good feelings fresh. Moreover, if people come to expect (or depend upon) favors from their ruler, then they will be loath to replace them. But if they think the benefits have stopped, then they have no reason to remain loyal.

Obama is doing this wrong as well. When he came to power, he handed out all kinds of benefits on day one. He gave GM to the unions. He gave a wad of cash to various interest groups. He handed out massive increases in benefits, pay raises to government employees, money to states and businesses, and he promised free lunches to everyone in the form of a massive stimulus plan to spur job growth. But that was then and this is now, and what has he given lately? Indeed, since the golden handouts of the first few weeks, Obama has given out nothing, and there’s nothing left on the schedule to be handed out.

Think about this. If you were an Obama supporter, either on the left or the near-left, what has Obama given you since that first week and what has he done to make you think you’ll get anything else if you continue to support him? Environmental protection? No. Jobs? No. Any more increases coming in benefits? No. You got everything you’re ever going to get.

Conclusion

This is why Obama’s popularity has steadily collapsed and why it stays down so relentlessly. He has created an environment of anger and fear by slowly dripping out cruel acts, and by delaying others that everyone knows must still be coming. At the same time, whatever benefits he handed out when he first took office have long since faded into memory and there is no prospect of any more coming. These are the exact conditions that Machiavelli warned his Prince to avoid, and this is why Obama's poll numbers stay down without respite.

Who knew an ancient text could teach us so much?