Arts and Culture

New Book Explores the Rise of the Polarized Presidency

Published

10 years ago

May 5, 2015

By Jonathan Morales, SFSU

Love him or hate him.

That is the dynamic that defines the modern American presidency, reflecting a polarization that began with Franklin D. Roosevelt and kicked into high gear with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

The reason, according to a new book from San Francisco State University Professor of Political Science Robert C. Smith, is Roosevelt’s creation, and the Republican party’s eventual rejection, of the welfare state.

“Roosevelt established the idea that it was the government’s responsibility to provide retirement income, health care, housing and social security for the people,” Smith said. “He was bitterly opposed by those who, correctly, claimed that he was breaking the American tradition of limited government.”

Smith and his co-author, Richard A. Seltzer of Howard University, explore the role of presidents and presidential candidates in polarizing American politics in “Polarization and the Presidency: From FDR to Barack Obama,” published earlier this month. In the book, they define a polarizing president as one for whom the difference between Democrats’ and Republicans’ approval rating is greater than 40 percentage points.

“Presidents have the attention of the public and media in a way that Congress will never have,” Smith said. “When they pursue polarizing policies, and in addition are polarizing characters overall, they have a much larger effect on dividing the country than 535 members of Congress.”

Roosevelt became the first modern polarizing president when he enacted the New Deal. But while the reforms were initially controversial, they eventually became quite popular. As a result, subsequent Democratic presidents worked to expand the programs, and Republican presidents accepted them.

Everything changed, however, in 1964, when the GOP nominated Barry Goldwater for the presidency.

“It was the first time Republicans had nominated someone who opposed Roosevelt’s reforms,” Smith said. “The conservative faction of the Republican Party took control and nominated Ronald Reagan in 1980, who immediately began to try to undo the reforms.”

Actions by the Democratic Party — specifically Lyndon Johnson’s embrace of the civil rights movement and the 1972 nomination of the anti-war George McGovern — sent conservative Democrats into the arms of the GOP and, conversely, attracted liberal Republicans, creating the more ideologically homogeneous entities seen today.

“You now have this almost irreconcilable difference between the parties, where one wishes to raise taxes on the wealthy to expand the welfare state and the other wishes to do the opposite,” Smith said. Since 1980, George H. W. Bush has been the only non-polarizing president, as defined by Smith and Seltzer.

Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama have all been divisive figures in American politics, but Smith said the research outlined in the book indicates their polarized presidencies are the result of policies, not personality.

“The polarization is about real issues in terms of the future of the country, it’s not a matter of personality or a matter of people not being able to get along,” he said. “The Democrats and Republicans have serious differences as to how the country can be governed.”

According to Smith, the fever is unlikely to be broken until one party clearly triumphs by winning the presidency and both houses of Congress and is able to enact its agenda unimpeded.

The Democrats are better positioned to do this in the long term, he said, because of their demographic advantages and the growing unpopularity of the GOP agenda.

But, he added, the nomination and possible election of the highly polarizing Hillary Clinton could ensure at least another four to eight years of gridlock.

“This polarization is not good,” Smith said. “The country is not being governed, you just have this oscillation back and forth. The country is not served well when the divisions are this deep.”

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New Oakland Moving Forward

This week, several socially enterprising members of this group visited Oakland to explore ways to collaborate with local stakeholders at Youth Empowerment Partnership, the Port of Oakland, Private Industry Council, Oakland, Mayor-elect Barbara Lee, the Oakland Ballers ownership group, and the oversight thought leaders in the Alameda County Probation Department.

Published

2 weeks ago

May 18, 2025

Oakland Post

iStock.

By Post Staff

Since the African American Sports and Entertainment Group purchased the City of Oakland’s share of the Alameda County Coliseum Complex, we have been documenting the positive outcomes that are starting to occur here in Oakland.

Some of the articles in the past have touched on actor Blair Underwood’s mission to breathe new energy into the social fabric of Oakland. He has joined the past efforts of Steph and Ayesha Curry, Mistah Fab, Green Day, Too Short, and the Oakland Ballers.

This week, several socially enterprising members of this group visited Oakland to explore ways to collaborate with local stakeholders at Youth Empowerment Partnership, the Port of Oakland, Private Industry Council, Oakland, Mayor-Elect Barbara Lee, the Oakland Ballers ownership group, and the oversight thought leaders in the Alameda County Probation Department.

These visits represent a healthy exchange of ideas and plans to resuscitate Oakland’s image. All parties felt that the potential to impact Oakland is right in front of us. Most recently, on the back side of these visits, the Oakland Ballers and Blair Underwood committed to a 10-year lease agreement to support community programs and a community build-out.

So, upward and onward with the movement of New Oakland.

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Arts and Culture

BOOK REVIEW: Love, Rita: An American Story of Sisterhood, Joy, Loss, and Legacy

When Bridgett M. Davis was in college, her sister Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

Published

1 month ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Love Rita Book Cover. Courtesy of Harper.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: Bridgett M. Davis, c.2025, Harper, $29.99, 367 Pages

Take care.

Do it because you want to stay well, upright, and away from illness. Eat right, swallow your vitamins and hydrate, keep good habits and hygiene, and cross your fingers. Take care as much as you can because, as in the new book, “Love, Rita” by Bridgett M. Davis, your well-being is sometimes out of your hands.

It was a family story told often: when Davis was born, her sister, Rita, then four years old, stormed up to her crying newborn sibling and said, ‘Shut your … mouth!’

Rita, says Davis, didn’t want a little sister then. She already had two big sisters and a neighbor who was somewhat of a “sister,” and this baby was an irritation. As Davis grew, the feeling was mutual, although she always knew that Rita loved her.

Over the years, the sisters tried many times not to fight — on their own and at the urging of their mother — and though division was ever present, it eased when Rita went to college. Davis was still in high school then, and she admired her big sister.

She eagerly devoured frequent letters sent to her in the mail, signed, “Love, Rita.”

When Davis was in college herself, Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

First, they lost their father. Drugs then invaded the family and addiction stole two siblings. A sister and a young nephew were murdered in a domestic violence incident. Their mother was devastated; Rita’s lupus was an “added weight of her sorrow.”

After their mother died of colon cancer, Rita’s lupus took a turn for the worse.

“Did she even stand a chance?” Davis wrote in her journal.

“It just didn’t seem possible that she, someone so full of life, could die.”

Let’s start here: once you get past the prologue in “Love, Rita,” you may lose interest. Maybe.

Most of the stories that author Bridgett M. Davis shares are mildly interesting, nothing rare, mostly commonplace tales of growing up in the 1960s and ’70s with a sibling. There are a lot of these kinds of stories, and they tend to generally melt together. After about fifty pages of them, you might start to think about putting the book aside.

But don’t. Not quite yet.

In between those everyday tales, Davis occasionally writes about being an ailing Black woman in America, the incorrect assumptions made by doctors, the history of medical treatment for Black people (women in particular), attitudes, and mythologies. Those passages are now and then, interspersed, but worth scanning for.

This book is perhaps best for anyone with the patience for a slow-paced memoir, or anyone who loves a Black woman who’s ill or might be ill someday. If that’s you and you can read between the lines, then “Love, Rita” is a book to take in carefully.

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Faces Around the Bay: Author Karen Lewis Took the ‘Detour to Straight Street’

“My life has been a roller-coaster with an unlimited ride wristband! I was raised in Berkeley during the time of Ron Dellums, the Black Panthers, and People’s Park. I was a Hippie kid, my Auntie cut off all our hair so we could wear the natural styles like her and Angela Davis.

Published

1 month ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Karen Lewis. Courtesy photo.

By Barbara Fluhrer

I met Karen Lewis on a park bench in Berkeley. She wrote her story on the spot.

I got married young, then ended up getting divorced, raising two boys into men. After my divorce, I had a stroke that left me blind and paralyzed. I was homeless, lost in a fog with blurred vision.

Jesus healed me! I now have two beautiful grandkids. At 61, this age and this stage, I am finally free indeed. Our Lord Jesus Christ saved my soul. I now know how to be still. I lay at his feet. I surrender and just rest. My life and every step on my path have already been ordered. So, I have learned in this life…it’s nice to be nice. No stressing, just blessings. Pray for the best and deal with the rest.

Nobody is perfect, so forgive quickly and love easily!”

Lewis’ book “Detour to Straight Street” is available on Amazon.