Nothing that comes out of the White House seems to alter the trajectory of Biden’s presidency which is stuck on a steep downhill slide. More and more Americans keep waking up to the reality that Joe Biden has nothing to offer the country in terms of vision or leadership and couldn’t negotiate his way out of a paper bag.
As a result, this chart from the latest Pew Poll shows where public confidence in Biden is heading, and it ain’t good if you work in the White House:
There is no single issue or category of issue that the public feels Biden is prepared to handle. Perhaps the second to last item on that list, “deal effectively with China” could just as easily say “deal effective with Russia,” since we’re on the verge of watching a war unfold in Ukraine.
The least amount of confidence the public expresses support for Biden in is his ability to “bring the country closer to together.” That part of his presidency has been an abject failure as every policy decision and speech he’s made has been to wedge people further apart and use divisive language and tactics. It has basically ruined any credibility he once had of being some kind of “moderate” uniting force to play “friendly Grandpa” and bring everyone together.
The best that can be hoped for in Biden’s numbers would be a natural subsiding of Covid cases which might give him an artificial bounce. Then Americans will turn around, however, and realize that inflation and other issues are still raging, so the bounce won’t be very high.
On job approval in general, Biden’s got another downhill slide:
As Pew says in their intro summary, when it all started back in January of 2021, Biden had positive ratings across the board. Now, though, the story is very different:
Joe Biden began his presidency with positive job ratings and broad public confidence in his ability to deal with a number of major challenges – particularly the public health impact of the coronavirus. He starts his second year with diminished job approval and majorities expressing little or no confidence in him on many of these same issues, the coronavirus included.
Currently, 41% of U.S. adults approve of Biden’s job performance, which is down slightly from September (44%) and substantially lower than last April (59%).
With the omicron variant continuing to spread across the United States, fewer than half of Americans (44%) now say they are very or somewhat confident in Biden to handle the coronavirus; that share is down 21 percentage points since March (65%).
It’s difficult to see a path forward for Biden to strengthen much before November. He made his bed with progressives in his party, and he’s paying the price for it dearly.
The political calculation must have been related to keeping the left-wing base happy so that Democrats don’t get entirely blown out in the midterms. That strategy doesn’t seem to be making headway as Biden wasn’t actually able to pass any of the progressive agenda items and Democrats in Congress have proven just as unpopular and feckless as Biden himself.
The question must be asked now whether Biden is, for all intents and purposes, a lame duck? It’s year two of his presidency, but few believe he will be able to run for reelection in 2024, and his leadership has been void and derelict for the past twelve months.
Democrats made constant hay over Trump’s propensity to play gold frequently on the weekends. There hasn’t been one word, however, of Biden’s habit of returning to Delaware for days at a time while the crisis fires burn around him. Reports indicate his staff is terrified he’ll get Covid, so they’re keeping him locked away where he can do no further damage to himself.
America has no leadership right now. That’s not a statement about whether Biden’s leadership is good or bad, it’s simply nonexistent.
