There were few people in politics less popular than Hillary Clinton over the last 20 years. The people who loved her, and there were a bunch of them, really loved her. But the people who hated her truly despise her the way kids hate eating vegetables. Knowing that, she barely lost the 2016 election. Polling showing Joe Biden is about as popular as an infected foot is reason to be hopeful about next year’s election, but it does not mean he will be easy to be.
I say it all the time, but only because it’s true: Never spike the football on the 5-yard line. With a candidate as unpopular as Biden – his latest polling numbers show only a 36 percent approval rating – it’s tempting to think knocking that senile hair-sniffer out of office would be a tap-in putt. That would be stupid.
There are plenty of examples of unpopular politicians throughout our history who’ve won reelection – Harry Truman, anyone? In fact, Joe Biden has never been popular outside of Delaware. Maybe there’s something in the water over there that causes dumb people to win elections – sure, “cream rises to the top,” but anyone who’s ever looked into a freshly used toilet knows other things float too.
Whatever the case, Joe Biden has been a bad father, a corrupt politician enriching himself and his family by selling his positions to the highest bidder, a creep getting handsy with women and little girls, a racist and a very dumb person for his entire political career. Yet he’s won every general election that has had his name on the ballot, locally or nationally.
I don’t get it either. I’d rather have a used, smelly shoe in office than Joe Biden (at a minimum the conversation would be more stimulating), sadly that’s not how it is right now. But if Republicans think beating a man who’d lose a reading contest to that old shoe will be easy, they’ve got another thing coming.
Joe Biden has never been popular nationally. Barack Obama didn’t pick him as a running mate in 2008 because he was worried about carrying Delaware or that he would bring along the old, corrupt white guy vote. He picked Biden because Joe was portrayed as a foreign policy expert and Obama had zero experience in that area. The joke, however, was on Obama, as Joe was seen as a foreign policy disaster by the people who knew him best. Former Obama Defense Secretary Robert Gates famously said, “I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
Still, didn’t stop him. Obama won twice, Biden won in 2020.
It’s not that he’s invincible, Joe Biden is very beatable, it’s about who runs against him and how they run. You think John Fetterman was inevitable? He could barely speak and didn’t know where he was most of the time, needing 6 weeks of stroke rehab disguised as anti-depression therapy (have you ever heard of anyone being hospitalized for that long for depression? He was clearly trying to make up for rehab time he lost during the campaign, when he should’ve been focused on recovery). Fetterman ran against someone less popular and less liked than he was. It’s really that simple.
On the national stage, it’s not just that Republicans need to nominate a candidate people dislike less than Biden, but they also need to educate the public on the issues on the ballot and the ramifications of them.
We all know the media is as faithful to the truth and reporting it as Ted Kennedy on a bender with a wad of cash in a brothel would’ve been to his marriage. That means the right has to step up and do it ourselves. Since most people don’t have millions of dollars laying around, or the ability to do political fundraising, this responsibility falls to candidates and the party. Why aren’t they doing it?
The southern border is a mess, the economy is teetering on disaster, Democrats are doing all they can to wipe out civil liberties, the Biden family got rich off corruption, etc., etc., and none of it is being reported accurately. How hard would it be for the Republican Party, either national or in various states (or both), or any of these candidates or their super PACs that have raised hundreds of millions of dollars to put together 30-second spots educating the public on these and other issues? And do so in an interesting/entertaining way, then run them on television, not online and hope they go viral (they likely won’t, and even if they did it would be people who agree with them watching them over and over).
Yet they don’t, and probably won’t. They’re too busy getting rich and firing down the Republican trench because they’re idiots who are fighting for themselves more than principles. They think Biden will be easy to beat because he’s unpopular. Again, he wasn’t personally popular in 2020, nor were his policies. He was just not as disliked as his opponent, even though his opponent’s policies worked well.
It’s not right, it’s not healthy or good, but it is reality. Republicans better have a better plan for how to win than “We’re not Joe Biden and the Democrats” because that’s what they tried in 2022 and we all know how well that worked out.
Derek Hunter is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F*cking Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.