President Biden's flagging popularity with the American people is not anything of a secret, nor are the reasons for his tanking job approval numbers. There's the botched Afghan withdrawal, lasting unemployment and inflation, his alleged plan to defeat COVID, back-and-forth Wuhan coronavirus mandates, and many more broken promises that have seen many Americans — especially independents — stop supporting him. Not only do they not support his actions so far, a majority of Americans now say Biden doesn't have the competence to run the government according to this week's Quinnipiac poll. And now the White House press corps is asking questions about what's going on.
Raising Biden's "very tough approval ratings these days," AFP's Sebastian Smith asked Psaki what's gone wrong. "You might say that they don't mean anything" he noted, adding "when there are good polls you publicize them so what do you make of these really terrible polls?" Smith asked before giving Psaki a menu of explanations to choose from: "He's doing something wrong? Is it just the communication? Is he doing unpopular things that have to be done? Or something else?"
Psaki opted to go with none of those explanations and instead spun a blame-avoiding tale of why there's nothing wrong with the way President Biden has governed and instead it's the fault of unvaccinated Americans... because of course.
REPORTER: "What do you make of these really terrible polls?"@PressSec: "This is a really tough time in our country...we still have 20% of the country who've decided not to get vaccinated." pic.twitter.com/1YJCx39J8g
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) October 8, 2021
"Well, look, I would say that this is a really tough time in our country," Psaki said. "We're still battling COVID, and a lot of people thought we'd be through it, including us," she reasoned. "And because of the rise of the Delta variant- because of the fact that even though it was a vaccine that was approved under a Republican administration, even though we now have full FDA approval, and even though it's widely available across the country, we still have a quarter of the country — less than that, 20 percent of the country — who've decided not to get vaccinated, no question that's having an impact," insisted Psaki.
"And of course as the president has said, the buck stops with him," she added at the end of her answer despite just blaming the "tough time in the country" and those "who've decided not to get vaccinated" as the things responsible for the president's plummeting approval among the American people.
As a rhetorical follow-up, does Psaki think the reason 58 percent of Americans disapprove of Biden's foreign policy and actions as Commander in Chief of the military is because of unvaccinated Americans? What about the 67 percent who disapprove of his handling of the illegal immigration crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border? Or the 55 percent of Americans who think Biden is not competent in running the government? Can those numbers be blamed on the unvaccinated, too?
The White House was already implementing something of a "everything I hate is unvaccinated Americans" communications strategy, but this confirms that Biden, Psaki, and the rest of the administration are set on demonizing any American who opt to not get vaccinated. As part of this strange plan — that's clearly not working as polls show — they'll also use unvaccinated Americans as the scapegoat for Joe Biden's ailing presidency.