Joe Biden’s presidency is one year old—and it’s a total nightmare. The nation is still divided. Omicron is sweeping the nation. Inflation is through the roof. The grocery store has bare shelves. The supply chain crisis is ongoing. The border crisis is out of control. The Afghanistan withdrawal was a nightmare. We might see another embassy evacuation in Ukraine. The jobs reports are trash. It’s not going well. The only person who thinks all is well is…Joe Biden. That doesn’t account for much since he’s dementia-ridden. He’s old. He’s slow. He’s stupid. Three things the president of the United States cannot be in this world. The scent of weakness is present for all to see, which is why Russia and China are flexing big league right now. As Russia prepares for a possible invasion of Ukraine, China is probably smiling looking at the Taiwan Strait.
What’s become clear is that one year into his presidency, Biden can’t do the job. That’s what jumps out in this Washington Post piece about Biden’s “slide” in the polls. The other thing that comes to mind is this question: how did this get published? It’s quite a searing piece, with even members of his own party slamming his performance. Even swing voters polled by Democratic pollsters see a bad word association brewing when it comes to Joe Biden, ones that are election killers. It’s why many Democrats probably cringed when Joe declared he was going to be active on the 2022 campaign trail for the midterms. Biden’s approvals are circling the drain, with numbers ranging from the 30s and 40s. He’s a cancer to his party, with its more centrist members probably hoping he just forgets where they are on the district map. Congressional Democratic leaders told their members to gamble on Build Back Better, with moderates voting for the lefty action items only to have Joe Manchin torpedo the bill. Now, their names are attached to this Bolshevik package. For progressives, Biden promised he could sway Manchin. That failed miserably. It was a disastrous push toward the end of the holiday season that pretty much captured the Biden administration as one of being incompetent and being outright blind to the political realities at hand. You can’t go hard left with a 50-50 Senate and a four-seat majority in the House.
With Biden losing middle America, he’s rapidly becoming irrelevant. No one is afraid of the bully pulpit of the White House when the president is weak sauce. No one. It’s even worse since you know Biden will choose to be that type of president on battles he cannot win, making him look even weaker and more aloof (via WaPo):
Biden was supposed to be the anti-Trump — steady, stable, competent. But the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal undercut that image, and facing a cascade of crises — covid, etc — Biden has never been able to recover. W ?@tylerpager? + ?@WaPoSean?. https://t.co/tg6x0MG54g
— Ashley Parker (@AshleyRParker) January 19, 2022
Biden is not “facing a cascade of crises.” He created all of them. Biden IS the crisis. https://t.co/6uLKQsI0Bd
— Eddie Scarry (@eScarry) January 19, 2022
In post-election briefings with Democrats after McAuliffe lost, campaign aides argued that the crises the Biden administration faced in August undercut the president and his party’s message of competence and a return to normalcy.
Biden presented himself as an antidote to his predecessor, offering the promise of what his own campaign ads called “strong, steady, stable leadership” after four years of bedlam under President Donald Trump. But the tumult surrounding the administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan offered an early glimpse of the cascade of crises that have badly eroded Biden’s image of restoring calm.
Biden on Thursday marks the first full year of his presidency facing intraparty Democratic disarray, stalled legislation, supply chain issues, worrying inflation, rising tensions with Russia and another highly transmissible coronavirus variant called omicron — all of which have led to an approval ratings average stuck in the low 40s.
[…]
…the administration has also repeatedly underestimated the magnitude of the nation’s challenges, including failing to anticipate the delta and omicron coronavirus variants, and has struggled to unite the liberal base and the more moderate wing of the Democratic Party. The president and his team have also stumbled in offering a clear and reassuring message, unable to convince many Americans that they understand their travails or that better days are ahead.
[…]
Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) said: “If I were giving them a grade — and I was a political science professor for a long time — I’d have to give them an incomplete.”
The decline in Biden’s poll numbers, which already were dropping, accelerated dramatically over the summer. By early September, more Americans disapproved than approved of the way Biden was handling his job for the first time in his presidency, according to a Washington Post average of polls since May 2021.
Post-ABC polls showed a 10-point drop in approval of Biden’s handling of the pandemic from late June to early September. The September Post-ABC poll also found that 60 percent disapproved of his handling of the situation in Afghanistan, and by November, Biden’s overall job ratings had dipped further amid rising disapproval of his handling of the economy and the coronavirus.
[…]
“Old.” “Incoherent.” “Lazy.” “Sleepy Joe.”
These were among the first descriptions that came to mind for 10 suburban women swing voters who gathered late last year for a virtual focus group conducted by Democratic pollster Celinda Lake on behalf of several liberal organizations. The results were reviewed by The Post on the condition of anonymity to protect the identity of the participants and the groups.
Asked to elaborate, the women in the focus group said it seemed as if “he’s trying,” but that Biden shuffles and frequently seems to lose his train of thought. Biden is “wishy-washy” in standing up to his own party, one woman said, explaining that she thought the president seemed more like an actor in a “supporting role.”
“He doesn’t convey being strong to me,” she said. “He seems weak.”
Others offered suggestions: “If he needs a nap beforehand, take that, because we need him to be there for us.”
It cannot be all doom-and-gloom; this is The Washington Post. Buried deep in the lengthy piece is the hope from the Democratic operative class that Slow Joe can turn it around in time for 2024 if he’s healthy—which he won’t be. By then, the oatmeal that has occupied his cranial cavity will be past its expiration date. In the immediate, it seems everyone knows the game is over.
“One Democratic strategist said the Biden team can turn his presidency around — but probably not in time to stave off defeat in the November midterms,” noted the Post.
“They’re in a tough spot,” this person said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to share a candid opinion. “Can they recover? For the 2024 reelection — yes. For 2022 — probably not.”
If Biden can’t run, and it’s looking like that might not be outside the realm of possibility, who else is there? Kamala is done—shot. That’s a candidate who will surely lose 45 states in 2024. Mayor Pete? He’s been on what seems to be the longest paternity leave in American history as the supply chain crisis strangles grocery chains.
It’s a mess, much like Joe. The fish rots from the head.
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