Before reading on, you might want to make sure there’s a box of tissues within reach.
Today in the Washington Post, there’s a tale so sad as to make strong men weep—if strong men were to be found in ranks of progressivism, which they aren’t. “Biden said to be increasingly frustrated by dismal poll numbers”: Well, duh! Why wouldn’t the President (and Doctor Jill) be “frustrated” by his patent lack of popularity? For if the polls are to be believed, Joe Biden is on track to lose in 2024 to the guy he beat in 2020: Donald J. Trump, he of the ninety-plus felony indictments and a record of scandal—personal, political, financial, sexual—as long as your leg.
If only Shakespeare were living now! Who but the man who turned out Titus Andronicus—a farce masquerading as a tragedy— would be equal to the task of dramatizing that monument to absurdity, the Biden presidency?
Here’s how bad it is: Biden’s overall approve/disapprove rating stands at 38-58 percent. In the battleground states, he trails Trump by ten points in Michigan, five points in Georgia…well, you get the idea. If the election were to be held today, the former president would win in a walk. Yes, yes, I know. The general election’s a year off and there’s reason to think that Trump’s liabilities—whose name is Legion, for they are many—might trip him up. But there’s no denying the fact that right now, as of December 18, 2023, Joe Biden so disliked by a strong majority of Americans that they actually prefer Trump.
His supporters in and out of the media affect to be perplexed by Biden’s unpopularity. Isn’t the economy humming right along? Aren’t hundreds of thousands of jobs being created? Isn’t the stock market soaring to new heights? Hasn’t inflation come down? Yes, yes, yes, and yes. So what the %$#*@& is wrong with those ingrates, the American people? Why aren’t they more appreciative of all that the President has done for them?
Take a stroll through the progressive fever swamps and you’ll hear many complaints that Biden and the Democrats must fight harder and get the good news out—on Bidenomics, on infrastructure, on green jobs, on abortion! They must redouble their efforts to demonize those mega-mooga-MAGA Republicans! Somehow, the American people must be made to realize that they’re suffering from false consciousness. What they feel isn’t real: Actually, things are great and getting better.
The Democrats need to get their message out: If I had a quarter for every time I’ve run across that line and its variations in the media, I could go out right now and purchase a case or two of vintage Port. It’s the mantra of loserdom, and it trails the rank odor of flop sweat. That’s your big idea, comrades—getting into an argument with the voters over their ingratitude? Good luck!
The bafflement, denialism, and impotent rage felt by progressives over Biden’s travails may be sampled in many quarters, including here. One symptom of it is the obsession with Donald Trump, the fascist who’s plotting to stamp out democracy in America. That’s rather a comical charge, coming as it does from an ideological quarter that has little time for “democratic norms” when they derail some beloved item on the progressive agenda. Case in point: progressives’ jihad against the Supreme Court, whose conservative majority stands athwart the road to the Radiant Future. And when Trump was duly elected president in 2016, he was immediately denounced as “illegitimate,” a crook who’d deprived Hillary Clinton of her rightful due.
No doubt their focus on Trump is a welcome distraction from the unpalatable fact that the presidency of Joe Biden has been a colossal failure. All the promises put forward by him and on his behalf in 2020 have come to nothing. He did not renormalize American politics. He did not restore faith in the probity and competence of government. He and his family have been outed as money-grubbing influence peddlers. And no, the grownups were never back in charge.
On the global stage, Biden’s disgraceful Afghanistan skedaddle was perhaps the most shameful incident in the history of American policy, dismaying our allies and emboldening our enemies. After a decent start, he botched Ukraine. His response to the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack in Israel has touched off a mutiny within his own administration that he seems unable to quell. A large segment of the Democratic Party base has succumbed to the virus of antisemitism; Biden & Co. pretend not to notice. He needs those votes, after all.
On the economic front, the Biden Administration’s reckless fiscal policies played a large role in igniting the inflationary conflagration that ruined the economic recovery it was bequeathed. And though inflation has subsided, prices remain high and interest rates have ticked sharply upward, placing American families in a financial squeeze that’s the primary source of the public’s discontent. By a large margin, Americans say that the country is on the wrong track. And mostly they blame the whole mess on the old guy behind the Resolute Desk.
Joe Biden’s political obituary would have been signed, sealed and delivered by now were it not for the fact that his likely 2024 opponent is Donald Trump, a man whose unpopularity rivals that of our current president. Biden’s only hope is that the American people judge him to be marginally less detestable than the Prince of the Golden Escalator.
Dems don't seem to realise that many people on the centre and the right lent their votes to them at the last election because they were afraid DJT was a threat to democracy. All Dems had to do was be moderately competent and sane. People would have stuck with them if the oppenent were DJT again. But instead, Dems have gone insane, amping up the wokeness to 11, making DJT seem like a safe choice in comparison. Centrists can see the authoritarianism on the left, so they no longer fear authoritarianism on the right.
Rather, Joe Biden's best hope is that he'll get frauded into the presidency as happened in 2024.