In the first sixteen months of his Presidency, Barack Obama’s popularity has continued to slide. Now, people are judging him by more than his campaign rhetoric. They are seeing his policies in action and the way in which he is fundamentally transforming this great nation. As a result, the majority of Americans now have an unfavorable view of the President.

But any President, no matter how unpopular he becomes, will still have supporters. So what do these die-hard Obama supporters look like? What type of people are they? I came across two articles yesterday that revealed some interesting, though not surprising, poll results that shed some light on who makes up Obama’s base.

Obama remains popular among those with graduate school experience. There is a reason why colleges and universities are full of professors with liberal, socialist, and communist views. As they remain in the schools, they are allowed to reason from theory instead of reality. In the real world, we all know that communism and socialism do not work. We have seen that, despite all the money that is spent to help the poor, we still have people who are poor. We know that taxing the wealthy (the job-creators and economy-drivers) and redistributing wealth from the successful to the unsuccessful is not sustainable. But common sense is not necessary in academia. They are detached from reality. Therefore, Obama’s liberal agenda and socialist policies are still generally popular among this group.

Obama is popular with those who rarely or never attend church services. This Gallup poll found that the more often one attends church services, the less favorably they view the President. This should be of no surprise for several reasons:

• Those who regularly attend church services, in general, will view God as the source of blessings (James 1:17), personal strength (Philippians 4:13), and guidance (Psalm 119:105). We do not need or want the government providing for us, protecting us from ourselves, or filtering information to tell us what we ought to believe.
• We believe in the sanctity of human life, which will naturally be a point of contention with the President on the issue of abortion. It will also generally lead one to disagree with tying the providing of health care to federal budget concerns (which will naturally and inevitably lead to rationing of care) through the President’s signature achievement – Obamacare.
• Those who regularly attend church services are likely to recognize civil government’s primary and divinely-given obligation to punish evildoers (Romans 13:3-4) and to protect its citizens from harm, thus allowing them to carry out their lives without hindrance (1 Timothy 2:1-2). Yet Obama has proven himself to be on the side of those who break the law (such as those who enter this country illegally) and attacks those who want to uphold the rule of law (the state of Arizona) for the protection of the American people.
• When it comes to helping the poor, we should expect that those who regularly attend church services will put a priority upon this. But we prefer to follow the Biblical model (voluntary charity by individuals) rather than the liberal model (forced “charity” imposed upon us by the government).

So yes, it’s no surprise that church-goers have turned cool towards Obama. Many of his policies are in direct contradiction with the Bible’s teachings about personal responsibility, righteousness, and the role of government. While Obama enjoys popularity among the intellectuals and irreligious, he continues to become more and more unpopular with those who are the regular, hard-working, religious Americans.

Our Constitution was framed by those who were of the hard-working and religious sort. While they were not perfect men, they generally believed in God and the Bible and it was from this perspective that they wrote the Constitution. Its Bible-influenced themes of personal responsibility and limited government are the reason why this country has reached the level of greatness it has obtained. It would be a tragedy to move away from this. Most Americans know this. They also know that Barack Obama is actively trying to take us away from this foundation. That is why he’s unpopular, and will only become more so and his term in office winds down.