Gallup Poll: Black “Well Being” Down Since Obama

African Americans say that their lives are worse off during President Barack Obama’s second term than during his first four years in the White House, a new Gallup Poll released Thursday says.

In a “well-being” poll conducted by Gallup and Healthways, Americans were asked whether they considered themselves as “thriving,” “struggling” or “suffering” based on a numbered scale.

Their responses were then averaged on a percentage basis. They were asked these questions earlier this year and in 2012.

The results:

Do you consider your life to be “thriving”?

Blacks: 53 percent in 2015; 57 percent in 2012; down 4 percent;
Whites: 54 percent in 2015; 52 percent in 2012; up 2 percent;
Hispanics: 55 percent in 2015; 54 percent in 2012; up 1 percent;

Gallup attributed the ratings drop among African Americans to the “highly publicized civil unrest during Obama’s second term, such as the events of Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore.”

The initial shifts in life evaluation after President Obama first took office underscore the power of the presidency in providing a window through which Americans view certain aspects of their lives — even aspects seemingly not directly related to politics.

However, the apparent effect of Obama’s presidency on blacks’ and whites’ life evaluations seems to have waned during Obama’s second term. [Sources: Gallup.com 10/29/15 and Newsmax.com 10/29/15]

When Obama was first elected in 2008, Oprah cried publicly in Chicago and you would think it was the Second Coming — only far better than that.

What happened?

Gallup attributes the drop to unpleasant living in the cities. Obama’s time in office was supposed to be about “change,” for blacks most of all. Yet the trillions of dollars in social welfare spending have only hardened the dependence of many blacks on the welfare and entitlement state. More people (including whites) are on food stamps and Social Security disability than ever before. How is this progress?

None of this is “change.” In fact, it’s more of the same, particularly for those depressed, unhappy and stuck in a welfare state where the larger economy is stifled by government regulation and taxation.

On top of that, the media and federal authorities have essentially declared war on the police. Specifically, white police. However, as the Baltimore incidents showed, the police do not even need to be white. The Obama administration, through its Justice Department, has fed and played into this. Obama has made it clear he would like to nationalize local police forces by making them politically correct and, of course, to strip peaceful citizens of any remaining right to gun ownership for self-protection.

Intentionally or not, Obama’s policies are making it impossible for police to do their jobs. A disarmed public combined with a demoralized police force is not a good thing — particularly for those living in the highest crime areas.

Harming the ability of people in poor neighborhoods to benefit from police protection or self-protection is cruel and sick. For white (or black) Obama policy makers sitting comfortably in Washington DC and elsewhere, it’s an opportunity to feel virtuous, enlightened and caring. But in actual, objective reality, it’s not so nice to keep people dependent on feeble government handouts, transfers of wealth which themselves are increasingly dependent on government debt because — even with increasing taxes — the private economy no longer appreciably grows.

If your heart truly bled for blacks, other minorities or anyone struggling in life, you’d do everything possible to fight for the resurgence of capitalism, free markets and for-profit economic growth (the only kind of economic growth there is, by the way.)

Free minds and free markets lift everyone willing to work, and even those unwilling (or genuinely unable)  to work, because there’s more charity in a prosperous society than a poor or stagnant one.

Socialism is not about compassion; it’s about control.

Obama’s time in office has been one long string of victories for control freaks and light dictators, but it has been a devastating blow to the prosperity and innovation that only capitalism and prosperity can generate. Those hit hardest by these trends are those at the bottom of the economic ladder. In these polls, blacks seem to reflect it in their emotional reactions. Will they ever blame the true culprit? It seems unlikely, as they line up to vote for Hillary Clinton to carry on the march to oblivion.

Clearly, there’s more to life than politics, including the race (or gender) of whomever happens to reside in the White House.

For power lusters everywhere, the White House is the ultimate destination. However, the more we permit our politicians to wreck our economy and defense credibility, the less impressive the office once held by the likes of Jefferson, Washington and Lincoln actually becomes. Put simply, the presidency will not matter as the United States comes to matter less and less as the inspiration for liberty and prosperity it once was.

These Gallup polls suggest that for many black people, there was an invalid sense of “hope and change” when Obama got elected in 2008. Hence the initial emotional “stimulus.” However, as time went by it became clear that nothing had changed. In fact, with Big Crime returning to the inner cities, things are actually getting worse.

It was all entirely predictable, using all we know about past experience. Government programs do not create wealth but they do foster debt, depression and ultimately even despair. On top of that, we go after the police for reasons of social consciousness. In the process, the physical safety of innocent people living in poor sections of Baltimore and elsewhere becomes impaired.

Ideas have consequences. Obama was a fraud, from the get-go. He said he would change things, but he blazed into town determined to spend trillions on failed, destructive and inherently unjust programs rather than mere billions. Obama has done untold damage to our economy and the military, damage which will become more and more apparent over time. These polls already reflect how people sense it.

However, with a little critical thinking (even just a little) people should have been able to see what a fraud Obama was from the beginning. They would have grasped, first of all, that one’s race is not an achievement. Ideas are what matter. It’s ideas that translate into policies with real, life-altering consequences people can see, sense and feel.

Wealth redistribution, food stamps, welfare, Social Security disability, Medicaid … none of these were new ideas, and none of these were new programs. They go back to the 1960s and earlier. Whatever led black people or anyone else to think that Obama presiding over these programs would lead to anything different than white liberals or white conservatives presiding over these programs?

Wrong is wrong, dysfunctional is dysfunctional, and toxic socialism is toxic socialism — regardless of the race of the person imposing it.

Yet like Charlie Brown and Lucy with the proverbial football, a majority of blacks will keep going back for more of the same stagnation, dependence and unhappiness that these policies keep bringing them. Bring on Hillary, and let the decline continue.

Aren’t we better than that? The next election will be telling.