Go West, Older Man
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Let’s continue the conversation we were having yesterday about how President Biden does not seem to be on a trajectory to do much between now and the midterms to improve what his own pollster says is the worst political environment he has seen for Democrats.
A few throat-clearing points before the updating, a full news cycle later:
1. For my Blue readers whose attitude is “Trump not being president is all that matters, so please do not ever utter a single negative about Joe Biden, who is not Trump,” I say: My job extends beyond just decrying the horrible things Donald Trump has done and might do in the future – although my job most assuredly includes doing those things as well.
2. I agree with those who say that the single most pressing matter for our politics and society now is figuring out how to break the bond between Mr. Trump (including and especially his lies about the 2020 election) and both elected Republican officials and the tens of millions of voters who believe his lies -- or don’t seem to care about them. That important project must succeed and it must succeed even as Trump only continues to make things worse and more difficult. Those, such as Utah Senator Mike Lee, whose conduct on Trump’s behalf demand scrutiny must be held accountable.
3. There is plenty of journalism and commentary produced about Donald Trump in every news cycle – and plenty of aggregation and analysis of that content. For instance, just now there is a lengthy New York Times look at the very unoriginal topic of Mar-a-Lago as the physical headquarters of the Trump political operation. This piece pretty much breaks zero new ground, but it gets a lot of visible column inches and is longer than all but a handful of scrutinizing pieces done on Joe Biden’s record as president. My point is, you don’t need Wide World of News to tell you in minute detail every day about Donald Trump.
4. Writing about and analyzing the manifest political problems of Joe Biden is not about celebrating or rooting for Donald Trump. Nor is it to cheer for Biden’s failure. It is, right now, to listen to the icy-eyed anxieties of pretty much every Democratic strategist with a candidate on the ballot in 2022, including, speaking on the record, the president’s own pollster.
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In fact, there are reasons to think that bad is about to get worse for President Biden, both in how the media covers the pending Red tsunami and in terms of facts on the ground – two dynamics that are not always closely correlated but are very much so right now.
Three writers who most Republican strategists view as comically in the tank for Team Blue have pieces that paint a dark November for the Ds:
1. CNN’s John Harwood (while largely absolving Joe Biden from any responsibility for what ails his administration and the nation – and suggesting Donald Trump could still save the day for the left) acknowledges that times are tough:
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell observed last week that the Democratic-controlled White House and Congress had hit a “perfect storm of problems.” Every available gauge indicates he’s right.
2. Harwood’s CNN colleague, Chris “The Artist Formerly Known As ‘The Fix’” Cillizza, adds to the cannon of literature slicing and dicing Mr. Biden’s weak poll standing into different pieces of horror:
Young Americans have turned on Joe Biden.
That’s the shocking finding of a Gallup analysis of its polling over the breadth of Biden’s term released this week.
In the early days of Biden’s presidency (from January 2021 to June 2021), an average of 6 in 10 adult members of Generation Z – those born between 1997 and 2004 – approved of the job Biden was doing. During the period spanning September 2021 to March 2022, that number had plummeted to an average of just 39%.
Among millennials – those born between 1981 and 1996 – the collapse is similarly stark. Biden’s approval rating among that group stood at 60% in aggregated Gallup numbers in the first half of 2021, compared with 41% more recently….
There are a lot of reasons for Democrats to be concerned about the midterm elections. This finding is right at the top of that list. (Emphasis in original).
3. And the New York Times’ Charles M. Blow, writing under the ominous headline “A Biden Blood Bath?,” says
I think the problem is more on ground level, a gut level: How do people feel? They feel stuck and angry, they’re tired and overwhelmed, and that energy is being directed at Biden.
Biden is a decent man. As a matter of course and tactic, he strikes me as not entirely built for hyperbole and hype, for beating his chest while he boasts. It’s not part of his character. He is sober and straightforward. Many Americans wanted him as an antidote to Donald Trump for precisely this reason.
But America has changed its mind and its mood. It wants a show and a showman to distract from its misery. Biden is not that. And he is being punished for not being a huckster….
All the while, two major perennial issues are resurgent: crime and the economy. The fear of crime and the pinch of inflation aren’t abstractions, or complicated foreign policy, or perks for special interests. They creep into every door and lurk under every kitchen table….
[A]ll this taken together — in addition to voter suppression and racial, political gerrymandering — may prove hugely problematic for Democrats and for the administration, unless they can turn things around before Election Day. If not, we could well be looking forward to a Biden blood bath.
While the elite Reds will look at that triptych and say “when you’ve lost Harwood, Cillizza, and Blow…,” Team Blue is fighting back.
Wartime leader Joe Biden has planned for this week one of his presidency’s most aggressive domestic travel schedules:
This is good news for those Democrats who believe what the party needs is more Joe Biden speeches out in real America.
I have to say that, while I don’t know much about much, I do know that presidential travel to the West Coast (especially if it is not to California) gets about zero coverage in the media that breaks through. And some will surely ask if this trip has anything to do with Ron Wyden and Patty Murray having something to worry about.
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