But he rose to power not on the strength of his liberal policies, but because he sold himself as a "messiah" who would wash away the country's original sin of slavery and racism. He is unpopular today because of his liberal policies, on that I agree. But he'd have never been elected on the strength of those policies. The American electorate does not buy into liberalism, socialism or progressivism. Such ideas must be mixed with a spoonful of sugar first, and that spoonful was called "Hope and Change."