The comparisons between the Biden and Carter administrations have come for a while now, especially from many Townhall columnists, especially when it comes to those who make the case for how Biden is worse. As the Biden administration progresses, however, it's seemed even more similar to the one-term Democratic president from the 1970's. And, President Joe Biden has only been in office for just under nine months.
Now, perhaps the person most qualified to make the comparison has done so. Les Francis, who was the former deputy White House chief of staff during the Carter administration, spoke to POLITICO about how "it’s so reminiscent of reliving those times," as he also lamented "the guy can't catch a break" when it comes to Biden.
Francis referenced the Mount St. Helens, Three Mile Island, truckers rioting, and the Iran hostage crisis, as well as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
He went on to draw parallels with the crises the United States is facing now, as well as to how Biden will be affected by it:
Francis added: “Now you’ve got a hurricane and a million people without power in Louisiana. You’ve got wildfires in the West. You’ve got the Delta variant on Covid. Nobody could criticize him for those things, but they have a way of infecting the overall political environment. What it does is, it sours people’s attitudes, and if you’re the guy in charge, people sort of take it out on you, their frustrations, their anger, whatever it is.”
Another Carter alumni weighed in, with perhaps an even more grim perspective:
If Biden doesn’t regain his footing within the next few months, many party veterans fear, his party’s chances of holding on to its narrow majorities in Congress are almost non-existent.
“There’s no good news here. This is all on his watch,” said Paul Maslin, a top Democratic pollster who worked on the presidential campaigns of Jimmy Carter and Howard Dean. “You can argue what he’s doing or not doing, but it’s almost irrelevant. If things are chaotic and wrong, it ain’t going to help him.”
David Siders' piece for POLITICO also discussed the outlook of the 2022 midterms, which are already not looking good for Biden as a matter of history. With few exceptions, the president's party tends to lose seats in the midterm elections.
It's worth emphasizing that Democrats have a majority in the House by just a few seats. When it comes to the 50-50 Senate, Democrats are only in the majority because they have Vice President Kamala Harris as a tie-breaking vote.
One Democrat cited is William Owen, a Democratic National Committee member from Tennessee. Biden "is doing pretty doggone good," Owen actually claimed. He said that "just from a Machiavellian standpoint, you want to get all these problems out as soon as possible. He’s only been in office eight months now, so you do these problems, get the problems out of the way to begin with, and then you deal with the day-to-day problems as they come up."
It's unlikely, though, that the American voter will care much about holding a Machiavellian perspective when it comes to November 2022.