US President Joe Biden has had an unfortunate summer, and his popularity is falling sharply. The reason is the weariness of Americans caused by the ongoing coronavirus epidemic, but also the growing impression that the president is often wrong and unable to push his agenda among the divided Democrats.
When analyst Sarah Longwell held a debate last week with a group of Democratic voters in Pennsylvania, one by one they complained about the problems caused by the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic.
The public understands that the Delta variant reversed the optimistic numbers from this past spring, as it again led to an increase in the number of infections. But people expected their lives to return to normal, as President Biden promised. But this did not happen, and it is not at all certain when and how the epidemic will be definitively suppressed.
Moreover, after the confusing approach of his predecessor Donald Trump, the Biden administration did not avoid mistakes. In May, for example, it lifted the obligation to wear face masks on public transport overnight, even though it was too early, according to health experts.
Biggest drop in popularity among independent voters
In a debate in the state of Pennsylvania, a group of voters rated Biden’s performance so far with a score of 3, but it’s even worse in national surveys.
In May, the president was positively assessed by 54 percent of Americans; now, by a minority of 43 percent. Biden saw the biggest drop among independent and middle-class voters.
With his arrival in the White House, 6 out of 10 independent voters trusted Biden. Now only 37 percent do, similar to Donald Trump’s weak results with this constituency. Democratic strategists and advisers are sounding the alarm, saying that the Democratic Party would lose the congressional elections next year and could lose the White House in 2024.
“The president’s slump is alarming, it’s serious,” Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg told Politico.
“As a country, we are having a hard time. We are still struggling with Covid; many people, including us, thought we would get over it by now,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki admitted a few days ago.
No more fantasies about an experienced president
In addition, analysts, commentators, and some Democratic politicians point out that the ongoing fight against the epidemic is the most serious, but far from the only problem that significantly deprived the president of voter approval during the summer.
Upon joining the White House, Biden portrayed himself as an experienced, professional politician who would deliver competent state management, as a politician who could enforce laws in congress despite party divisions.
However, the expulsion of troops from Afghanistan severely damaged his credit, as well as the extremely bad (even worse than his predecessor Donald Trump) immigration crisis on the southern border. “Only 23 percent of people see Biden’s performance on the border crisis positively. It’s a disaster,” Robert Collins, a professor of public administration and politics at Dillard University in New Orleans, told the Voice of America.
Democrats unable to push their own agenda
Biden and his Democrats have not yet been able to push their own agenda, which is stuck due to a dispute between the center and the progressive wing of the party. At the same time, both of Biden’s key domestic political goals are at stake: the renewal of American infrastructure and a massive spending package that was supposed to expand state social and healthcare programs and support the green agenda.
Moderate Democrats fear that $ 3.5 trillion would be too wasteful for their constituents. For progressive politicians, on the other hand, their constituency would be disappointed if they did not fulfill the commitments for which they were elected.
The two wings of the party do agree on one thing: It would be a complete loss if the Democrats did not take advantage of the fact that they have a president and a majority in congress and not pass anything due to their differences.
According to FiveThirtyEight.com, Joe Biden has a worse rating at this point in his presidency than all of his post-1945 predecessors except for two, one of whom was Donald Trump.
