*Fewer and fewer viewers are tuning in for President Obama’s annual State of the Union address.
According to Nielsen, 37.7 million viewers watched Tuesday night’s speech on 14 networks. That was down more than 13 percent compared to last year’s speech, which averaged 42.7 million viewers across eleven networks, notes The Hollywood Reporter.
In fact, the high point for Obama came right after he was elected, when 52.3 million viewers on ten networks watched his February 2009 address to the joint session of Congress. His 2010 State of the Union speech pulled in 48 million viewers.
President Barack Obama hugs U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) before delivering his State of the Union address on January 24, 2012 in Washington, DC.
Fox News Channel topped the cable news competition for the speech on Tuesday night. The network was watched by 3.8 million viewers with 1.1 million in news’ target demographic of 25-54-year-olds during the speech, which ran from 9:11 p.m. to 10:17 p.m.
MSNBC beat rival CNN among total viewers – 2.8 million to 2.6 million. That marks the first time MSNBC has surpassed CNN for a State of the Union speech. But CNN still topped MSNBC in the demo, averaging 1.0 million viewers to MSNBC’s 818,000.
Among the broadcast networks, CBS pulled in the most viewers with 7.4 million followed by NBC (7.2 million), ABC (6.0 million) and Fox (5.3 million).
Maybe more and more people are getting disillusioned with Obama.
Folks are getting tired of drinking his Kool-Aide. They know he’s going to come out with these campaign speeches to get the base riled up, but at the end of the day, it’s going to be the same Obama pandering to the Republicans and Wall Street.
And you also got to remember that NDA act. Maybe the ones who were still holding on some hope for change, finally realized that is impossible from a man who would sign up to allow indefinite detention without charge, just so the Republicans won’t campaign against him for being weak on national defense. Appeasing the Republicans is now more important to him than even his legacy. He’s now a certified lap dog for them, so there is no telling what else he will do to gain their favor. You would think that by now he would have figured out that that will never happen.
But he still has his solid black base who seems hell bent on supporting him no matter what. This is even though he can’t even acknowledge them and their issues anymore. His justice dept. is still unrelenting in its racist so called war on drugs and his administration won’t even admit that blacks are more affected by unemployment, more more do something about it. But they wouldn’t touch someone like Ron Paul with a ten foot pole, even though he has consistently indicted the justice dept. as racist and promise to end the war on drugs which only targets blacks.
But if they are this determined to support this man, even at their own self-interest, then more power to them.
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Reds, you are deluding yourself about Ron Paul. I find it highly hypocritical for you to be down w/the black cause, but will support a man who didn’t even think that business owners shouldn’t be barred by law, from disallowing blacks from being served at their establishments.
A man who allowed to be published under his name, ranting attacking MLK as a philanderer who seduced lil boys and girls.
A man who wants to eliminate the DOE and HUD.
Now come on, let’s get real here. Based on your current disatisfaction with the President and your belief that he hasn’t done enough for us, I find it hard (way hard) to believe that you wouldn’t be chomping at the bit had Obama had ANY association with people who believed and behaved as Paul.
I have no doubts that you would be beside yourself if Obama suggested closing DOE and stopping federal student loans which actually HELP the same black people u dont’ believe Obama has done enough.
I think it’s important, timely, and appropriate to criticize Obama for what we see as his many fails and dissappointments…but let’s not get besides ourselves here.
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I agree with you completely! What sticks out for me whenever I hear black people complain about the POTUS is how he isn’t ‘doing enough for us.’ What exactly is he supposed to do when too many of us aren’t, or haven’t been doing anything prior to or after he was elected? How many of US who have dropped out of high school have decided to go back at get GED? How many of US are still not taking care of our children, and I’m not talking about just the men either? How many of US are still foolishly spending the nearly trillion dollars in income we as a people have on sneakers, jewelry, clothes, cars, and hair? If we truly want to be helped, then it starts from within. Don’t ask for guidance if you’re not going to move your feet!
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I will admit that I was conflicted about supporting Ron Paul. I knew that he had some extreme libertarian views about government not interfering in public life and there was also the Newsletter issue. But I’m looking at it now from the perspective of what he’s saying now, and what he may or may not have said then.
On his libertarian views, are you sure you are not mixing him up with his son that business owners shouldn’t be barred by law, from disallowing blacks from being served at their establishment? I don’t remember Ron Paul himself saying anything like that.
On the Newsletters, it’s pretty much proven that he did not write them and was not necessarily aware of all their contents. Youtube: Ron Paul Racist Newsletter’s EXPLAINED.
Now I’m not saying that he was not aware of at least some of them, and shouldn’t therefore have done something more about them. But I’m going to be honest with you, and this may be frustration on my part, as far as people ignoring instead of confronting some of the most blatant forms of racism in this country. the criminal justice system for example. I’m just so impressed by his honesty and candidness in talking about the racism faced by blacks from the justice system, that I’m willing to forgive and forget anything which he did or said in the past, as long as he is willing to renounce them. He has renounced the Newsletters and I don’t’ hear him talking no really crazy shit about government allowing those types discrimination like barring blacks from business establishment to continue. As far as HUD and DOE, I don’t believe he have the power as president to abolish them. And even if he seriously wants to abolish them, that doesn’t necessarily means that his desires are motivated by race. Presently, more whites benefit from HUD and DOE than blacks. And I’m not the only black person who is so fed up with all the hypocrisy towards racism from the Democrats to want to suppor t Ron Paul.
South Carolina civil rights activist Kevin Alexander Gray said:
“I’ve been telling people, unless you’re going to be a delegate to the convention or you’re a party officer, then why not go into the Republicans’ house and influence at least that very narrow part of the dialogue, Those issues are important, and Ron Paul keeps those issues on the table.”
You can call my support for Ron Paul delusional and hypocritical if you want, but Ron Paul is the only person who is not only willing to declare the criminal justice system responsible for the mass incarceration of blacks racist, but to also pledge to reform it. If supporting such an individual is hypocritical, then I wear that as a badge of honor.
So if black people want to keep on blindly supporting the same ol’ Democrats like Obama who can’t even admit that the system is racist, then more power to y’all. If someone can’t admit that something is wrong, how do you expect them to fix it? Your argument against supporting Ron Paul is a defeatist one. It’s like we as black people shouldn’t even bother to dream of true redemption, a country where we are not rounded up like animals to be warehoused at politician’s leisure. As for me, I will try anything which gives me some hope to escape that perpetual dismal future. It may be delusional, but at the end, I’m no worse off from where I would be with Obama and the Democrats.
As TransAfrica founder Randall Robinson said:
And the result is that we now see our future as a people in America being warehoused. How can we not be concerned, in some relentless way, about the fate of all of these young black people who are being imprisoned? Because we are indissolubly bound up with them. Their future is our future. Our future is their future. And we have to be mindful of that. But it doesn’t so much penetrate if we don’t have news of it every day. So many people don’t know.
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Reds, I couldn’t agree more with you. I am a Ron Paul fan despite so many folks’ attempt to paint him into a box. I honestly believe his brand of politics is above a lot of folks’ heads. He is radical and wrong about some things, but he must be given credit for at least having a dialogue about things that neither major party has the courage to. I say kudos to him. Truly
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TGen, at the end of the day, the hypocrites are the people like Tavis Smiley who constantly rail against Obama, lamenting his attitude towards blacks, but when it comes time for them to do something about it other than complain, they won’t even give it a second thought. It’s like they want to keep on beating a dead horse. By now we have to realize that the Democrats don’t have any plans to go against the status quo on our behalf. As long as we continue to blindly support them, instead of trying something else, they won’t see the need to change their attitude towards us.
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Ok, both of you sound like utter nutcakes. I gives a damn that Ron didn’t write them. It’s under his watch. The people posting that bs apparently knew that he wouldn’t look at them sideways for posting it. There is nothing much in Paul’s legislative history demonstrating his effectiveness as a politician or helping minorities.
If voting against the status quo means supporting Ron Paul’s looney ass, then both of ya’ll need ya voting card taken back QUICKLY!.
Hell I’d rather you not vote at all then for Paul.
Ron Paul has not offered any redemption for black folk beyond his talk about the criminal justice system. Well gess what,. most of us ain’t criminals. How bout some damn policies. Oh wait, he doesn’t believe much in the same type of gov’t that you think we need under this administration.
Let’s not be idiots just because…
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“Ron Paul has not offered any redemption for black folk beyond his talk about the criminal justice system.”
You are right about that, but guess what? The loss of income resulting from racial bias in the criminal justice system, is one of the most significant factors limiting black wealth to 20 times less than that of whites. So if that’s all that Ron Paul can do for us, that’s a whole lot more redemption than what we can expect from Obama and the Democrats.
The effect of high imprisonment rates goes beyond crime to employment and enfranchisement. More than 4 million prisoners or former prisoners are denied the right to vote, and in 12 states that ban remains for life.
“Well gess what,. most of us ain’t criminals. How bout some damn policies.”
Most of us ain’t criminals, but the number of us affected by the criminal justice system is significant enough for us to consider any alternative to what the Dems have been willing to do for us, so far.
Consider these numbers:
Black men born in the United States in 2001 will have a one in three chance of going to prison during their lifetime if current trends continue, according to a report by the US justice department.
In 2001 a sixth of African-American men were current or former prisoners, compared with one in 13 Latinos and one in 38 whites. The incarceration of women remains lower than of men but has increased at twice the rate since 1980 and shows similar racial disparities.
Human Rights Watch says African-American adults have been arrested at a rate of 2.8 to 5.5 times higher than white adults in every year from 1980 to 2007, yet African Americans and whites have similar rates of illicit drug use and dealing. And then how that plays out right to deciding who will vote for these laws?
Today there are more African Americans under correctional control, whether in prison or jail, on probation or on parole, than there were enslaved in 1850. And more African-American men are disenfranchised now because of felon disenfranchise laws than in 1870.
There are more African Americans percentage-wise imprisoned in the United States, than were at the height of apartheid South Africa.
And you may want to know that these numbers did not came about by accident.
MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Numerous historians and political scientists have documented now that the war on drugs was part of a grand Republican Party strategy, known as the Southern Strategy, of using racially coded, “get tough” political appeals on issues of crime and welfare in order to appeal to poor and working-class white voters who were resentful of, anxious about, fearful of many of the gains of African Americans in the civil rights movement.
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