Why It’s Hard to Explain Joe Biden’s Unpopularity
Why It’s Hard to Explain Joe Biden’s Unpopularity
A theory of why Biden’s presidency has so far been a political flop.
Wow. The NYT will just publish an opinion piece for anything. I learned nothing from reading this
I’ve made a habit of skipping any outlet’s “Opinion” section and have been much happier for it.
Opinions are like buttholes...
Amazing. Not a single mention of Palestine.
Putting his backing of Netanyahu aside, there's a number of things he could do to up his popularity. Naming two from the top of my head, he could forgive medical debt at the federal level and federally legalize marijuana and remove it as a Schedule 1 drug.
He can only forgive debt owed to the government, and people don't generally owe the government for medical services.
This was an issue before Israel was attacked.
As far as I can tell he’s done a lot of the right things, and has been as effective as you can given the political situation. I never understood why so many people seem to have an issue
Most Americans do not give a flying fuck about the Middle East.
Uh... A good number of Americans give two or three flying fucks about genocide. Israel is getting off lightly because they can call anyone who opposes them antisemitic, but historically ever since they finished their own Americans have been pretty intolerant of genocide. This especially applies to Muslim Americans who are taking this personally, and young progressives who are becoming disillusioned with the Democrats. Now remember that Biden needs both of these groups to have 2020 level Democrat turnout to win the election.
I'm not familiar with overall demographics, but an important demographic for Democrats is Arab Americans and young people, where Democrats have had a stronghold on them for some time now.
Biden used to have I think it was 60% support among Arab Americans. Then after October 7th that support tanked, and all you have to do is look at Michigan's uncommitted vote in the primaries to see the effect that it's had for his support with them and young voters, especially in communities like Dearborn.
Like at first glance the Michigan polls show that Biden completely dominated the primary, but you also have to keep in mind that the Uncommitted movement was aiming for maybe 20k votes at most. Instead they got over 100k votes.
Back in 2016 Hillary Clinton lost Michigan to Trump by an incredibly small margin. When you add together the Uncommitted votes with the votes for Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips (who I understand has dropped out and has the same stance as Biden), you get an amount similar to that which Hillary lost by.
Arab Americans and young people have made their voice clear in focus groups that while some of them will not vote for Biden come the federal election, others will if he just simply condemns Israel properly and stop sending them weapons and aid while also calling for a ceasefire. Biden can either lose these crucial votes and possibly lose Michigan to Trump, or he can do what the voters want and regain at least some of their support come November.
It's not hard. It's easy if you see with your eyes instead of understanding the world as others would like you to.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
As The Washington Free Beacon’s Joe Simonson noted recently, just surfing around most American media and pop culture, you probably wouldn’t realize that Biden’s job approval ratings are quite so historically terrible, worse by far than Trump’s at the same point in his first term.
When Barack Obama was at his polling nadir, most observers blamed the unemployment rate and the Obamacare backlash, and when Bill Clinton struggled through his first two years, there was a clear media narrative about his lack of discipline and White House scandals.
Attempts to reduce his struggles to the inflation rate are usually met with vehement rebuttals, there’s a strong market for “bad vibes” explanations of his troubles, a lot of blame gets placed on partisan polarization even though Biden won a clear popular majority not so long ago, and even the age issue has taken center stage only in the past few months.
Some of this mystification reflects liberal media bias accentuated by contemporary conditions — an unwillingness to look closely at issues like immigration and the border, a hesitation to speak ill of a president who’s the only bulwark against Trumpism.
But in practice, this push tended to treat representation and progressive politics as a package deal, making nonwhites with moderate-to-conservative views more exotic, not less — as mystifying, in a way, as any MAGA-hat-wearing white guy in a rural diner.
But if you take that kind of constituency as a starting place, you may be able to reason your way to a clearer understanding of Biden’s troubles: by thinking about ways in which high borrowing costs for homes and cars seem especially punishing to voters trying to move up the economic ladder, for instance, or how the hold of cultural progressivism over Democratic politics might be pushing more culturally conservative minorities to the right even if wokeness has peaked in some elite settings.
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he's a shit president. you're just now allowed to say that because people jump down your throat about how donald trump is worse