The administration hasn’t always done a good job of drawing a direct line between Biden’s priorities – infrastructure and an even larger social spending bill that hasn’t passed – and the lives of those who don’t. the average American, even though each has every measure to create jobs, and reduce health care, education and other living costs for millions.
“We’re able to deliver real results to real people … in ways that really matter every day, for every person out there. And we’re taking a huge step back to building back a one.” better country,” Biden said. signed the infrastructure bill into law surrounded by Democratic and Republican lawmakers on Monday.
A dark political environment
But even if Biden has the marketing genius that former President Donald Trump claims to have, simply doing a better job of laying out infrastructure legislation won’t make the layers of complexity in the nation’s mood go awry. equal.
The president faced a dark political environment a year before his first presidency, which history shows has been accompanied by a high probability of losing control of Congress. Some of his own mistakes – like his overly one-sided predictions about the end of the pandemic, his previous attitude of being one-sided in the face of rising inflation, and his denial of the chaos of the Afghan withdrawal over the summer — all of which helped drag down Biden’s approval rating and ability to sell his programs.
Washington’s story of an economy slipping out of control was not helped by a miscalculation that caused a staggering underestimation of 626,000 jobs created this year. The initially reported numbers made for bad headline days for Biden, and it’s unclear how the correction – which he touted at Wednesday’s event in Detroit – will change public perception. on the economy may have been baked in.
Many Democrats believe they will be rewarded if they distribute them to voters. But that idea may be flawed, at least in the short term. The passage of the Affordable Care Act didn’t stop then-President Barack Obama from getting a midterm dump in 2010 when Democrats lost the House. It took many years for Obamacare to become so popular that the GOP tried to repeal it for a failed crusade that overshadowed their 2017 tax-cut proposals and contributed to their loss of House in 2016. 2018.
It is always harder to make a valid case for a rule than to break it. Republicans are loving the opportunity to blame post-pandemic economic troubles on Biden’s policies. It may not be fair, but it plays into the immediate interest of voters.
Multiple factors are behind the price increase, including pandemic-induced supply chain logjam, skyrocketing consumer demand and higher energy prices making it more expensive to ship goods.
But nuance is the first casualty of the campaigns.
“This will be the most expensive Thanksgiving for American families in history,” said Senator John Thune of South Dakota, #2 Republican on the panel. Senator Dan Sullivan, his fellow Republican in Alaska, warned: “Many Americans will drive around to see family and friends and they will start to go into shock.” According to GOP Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas, “This year, there will be no blueberry pie, and there won’t be any pumpkin pie.” Florida Senator Rick Scott – head of the GOP Senate campaign division – discovered a Grinch. “It’s Thanksgiving, Hanukkah and Christmas. The Biden administration is doing nothing.”
It’s fair to argue about whether the trillions of dollars Biden has poured into the economy with his spending plans spiked inflation, despite strong evidence that the consequences of The pandemic is more to blame than Biden’s law. And the fact that other countries that are not stimulating their economies are experiencing the same pain should show that government spending is not at fault. However, “Bid Inflation” is simply too tempting for Republicans to resist. Their glee prompted White House press secretary Jen Psaki to accuse them this week of being “rooted in inflation”.
Biden’s conservative media path
While Biden must advertise his track record to push Democratic voters to the polls next year, he also faces another major obstacle: the conservative media machine limits his audience. approachable. Pro-Trump broadcasters rarely stream Biden’s speeches or give him the opportunity to make his case. When he signed the infrastructure bill this week, social media feeds geared toward conservative readers were filled with misinformation about the legislation, mocking Biden’s age, claiming that the Party Democrats — not Trump’s rising GOP allies — are autocrats and lobbyists for Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenage gunman on trial for murder in a Wisconsin political case.
But to dramatically improve his position, Biden must break through in key battleground states of the Midwest. In some cases, he has done so in 2020. But the right-wing media are also constantly presenting such voters with cultural rather than economic, import-focused messages. immigration, race, and guns, these messages can resonate loudly. So even if Biden’s policies improve the living conditions of millions of working Americans, they may not believe that evidence or recognize Biden for it.
The idea that better marketing will help Democrats also eases the question of whether they’re really giving voters what they want.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has often made the point that a very small Democratic majority means there is no mandate for the kind of broad political reform Biden is attempting. Even a threatened House Democrat, Representative Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, caused a stir when he claimed that no one voted for Biden – who has created a more moderate image during the campaign. 2020 – is Franklin Roosevelt, the father of the New Deal.
The fact that Biden outperformed congressional Democrats on the ballot suggests that the 2020 election could be more of an anti-Trump vote than a pro-Biden vote. So maybe he misunderstood his mission.
But while the political climate looks dire for Biden and the current Democrats, they may have bottomed out. America is always changing, as forces emerge to reshape national politics. So House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy may not want to put his prediction of a more than 60 seat increase next November to the bank. Anything can happen – from a foreign crisis to a domestic controversy – to change voters’ minds in 12 months.
It is also reasonable to expect that the national mood could improve next summer, after a public health crisis that has lasted nearly two years, if an abundance of booster vaccines, antiviral treatments, etc. The new virus and high natural immunity make Covid-19 a disease rather than a pandemic. Investment bank Goldman Sachs this week predicted that the unemployment rate could fall to a 50-year low of 3.5% by the end of 2022 and inflation will stabilize. So Biden’s approval rating – a key success metric for first-term presidents – could go up and selling his policies could become much easier.
And even if they don’t, Biden is doing what all presidents are supposed to do. Power is always used because it quickly erodes, and presidents are often only remembered for some big deal after the fever of political timing has passed. So it makes sense for Biden and any other Democratic or Republican president to have them, even if they struggle to sell what they’re doing in the short term.
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