Unpopular Obama

Very quick post, simply to note that Obama was quite unpopular throughout most of his presidency. Moreover, he provoked sheer rage in a large minority of the population. This is an important fact to remember as we consider the future of the Democratic Party. I am not now trying to re-litigate the 2016 primaries. But it's worth noting that for all his personal electoral success, Obama was a highly unpopular President whose unpopularity helped drive large Democratic losses down the ballot. And the crazy thing is that I think this had almost nothing to do with Barack Obama! My hypothesis is that practically any Democratic politician can be made comparably unpopular, because the conservatives have developed an extremely effective multi-pronged propaganda machine. (Thoughts inspired by this Richmond Ramsey post via David Frum. By the way, what idiot called it Frum Forum instead of View Frum Nowhere?)

[Edited to add: Nancy Pelosi is also extremely unpopular. I'm not saying it's trivially easy for conservatives to take down big-name Democrats, but it's something they seem to have the ability to do, and it appears to be a fact of life we'll have to live with for the foreseeable future.]