If you look up “out of touch” in the political dictionary, the first entry will be President Biden followed closely by Democratic leadership in the House and Senate. It’s true that Biden did enjoy a slight bounce following his first State of the Union address last week, most presidents do, but that bounce wasn’t enough to dig him out of the polling basement or set his party on a better track for the midterm elections in November.
However, if you ask Biden, in his mind he’s polling at 90% approval and voters have already forgotten why they soured on his brand of swamp-first leadership in the first place.
According to Politico, there might be a light at the end of the tunnel for Democrats in the midterms. Depending on who you ask, it’s either a slightly better than expected loss in November, or it’s an oncoming train of a devastating red wave wipeout:
Over the years, Joe Biden has come to the Democratic National Committee to express regret, as he did in 2007, after calling Barack Obama “articulate” and “clean.” He has come to rally his party, as he did during the bleak midterm year in 2010.
And on Thursday, he came once more, this time with the hope of a reset.
Biden told a ballroom full of DNC members at a Hilton in Washington, “we are in the strongest position we’ve been in in months.” Democrats, he said, could keep the House.
That’s likely wishful thinking. Even in an improved position, Biden and his party are in trouble, with Democrats still widely expected to lose the House in November. But with Biden’s poll numbers ticking up in recent days — after his State of the Union and with the country rallying ever so slightly behind his handling of the war in Ukraine — even skeptical Democrats are feeling oddly optimistic that a Biden rebound might last and that the party’s midterm losses might not be so severe.
Can you blame Biden and the Democrats for feeling overly optimistic when things have gone so badly that even the most gentile array of hope looks like a scorching storm of victory?
The hope Democrats are currently feeling relies on the ability of Biden and the friendly mainstream media outlets to blame America’s problems on Vladimir Putin. Hence the wall-to-wall Ukraine coverage and why domestic issues have been put on the back burner.
Inflation? Blame Putin.
Gas prices? Blame Putin.
Supply chain problems? Blame Putin.
Afghanistan debacle last summer? Again, Putin was to blame because of something, not sure what, but something.
Everything that ails America has been caused by Putin’s Russia and the Ukrainian invasion. That’s the official position of the White House moving forward. If you disagree, it’s probably because you’re a Russian asset or enjoy spreading Russian disinformation, also an official position of the White House.
The only thing, and I mean literally the only thing Biden has going positive in his corner is the Covid-19 case numbers which have trended downward. This is not, despite Biden’s SOTU victory lap, thanks to anything that his policies have done. The vaccine mandates were an unconstitutional burden on American workers and businesses. The plan to send free tests was too late and too limited. Nothing Biden proposed or offered in terms of “shutting down the virus” ever amounted to more than lines in a speech and a campaign slogan.
Instead, the last three months provided a great lesson for the restriction-happy holdouts to see seasonal virus cases ebb and flow entirely unabated by anything we do. Masks, no masks, the only way to slow or stop the spread of a highly contagious airborne virus is to shut down society in total, and that ship has sailed so here we are.
Democrats can take their minor celebration and enjoy two points in additional approval for Biden. See how that’s going in a month or two when gas is still well over $4 a gallon and the President still refuses to unleash domestic energy.
