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Biden and his aides have long said his political fortunes are tied to the pandemic response. After a difficult summer highlighted by climbing covid cases, a chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and supply chain disruptions, White House officials were optimistic about shifting the focus to the president’s economic agenda as the ravages of the delta variant subsided. But the emergence of a new and potentially more dangerous variant has complicated the president’s messaging efforts.
“I expect this not to be the new normal,” Biden said Monday when asked whether the country should get used to the idea of new variants and occasional rounds of travel restrictions.
There’s a scenario in which Team Biden-Harris-Klain-Pelosi-Schumer go into the president’s State of the Union address with
* the 2021 passage of three mega pieces of legislation (the COVID relief, infrastructure, and Build Back Better bills)
* the government funding, defense spending, and debt ceiling matters all addressed
* the latest variant and the pandemic in general under more control than now is feared
* a booming economy
* inflation and supply chain issues on a better trajectory
* stronger midterm hopes because of all of the above, the Supreme Court and abortion, Democratic unity, and Republican division
Despite the Dominant Media and the Gang of 500 largely having turned against the president (no longer casting him as the “hero” in the national drama), the possibility of this confluence of events should not be discounted.
However, one way to crystalize the current state of the Biden presidency is to say that just because a series of events is possible does not mean there is a high probability that it all happens. And/or/but/also that even if all that does happen, it doesn’t mean that the perception and reality of the administration would be improved.
Joe Biden’s loss of the support from the Dominant Media and the Gang – and their shared skepticism about this scenario – actually makes the scenario less likely to happen.
To be sure, it is more facts on the ground than the Chattering Class’ chattering that represent the real obstacles Team Biden faces.
But it is the incessant feedback loop between reality and the painting of reality in the press and elite circles that makes Ron Klain’s life much, much harder.
Here is what the Dominant Media and the Gang of 500 think about the current Perils of Joe:
1. His new plan for the pandemic is unlikely to work, meaning there is no light at the end of the tunnel, and, to mix the metaphors, his quiver is arrowless.
2. Any positive economic news (about growth, about the supply chain, about inflation) is illusory; all negative economic news is a greater reflection of reality.
3. Team Biden might pass its legislative agenda, but that agenda won’t have a meaningful impact on the pandemic or the economy (at least not anytime soon).
4. Barring abortion becoming the dominant issue in the midterms if the Supreme Court strikes down Roe, there will be a shellacking by the Reds in November.
5. Republican obstructionism in Congress and the machinations of Mitch McConnell are no longer cast as evil, but rather just part of the furniture – and as a sign of the political impotence of the commander-in-chief.
To be sure, the two most recent Democrat presidents before Joe Biden (Bill Clinton and Barack Obama) would say that they faced the same skeptical/hostile dynamics with the Dominant Media and the Gang of 500 during much of their combined sixteen years in the Oval Office.
Why this moment is different – and more perilous for the current incumbent than for his predecessors – is a topic for another day (and a future edition of Wide World of News, a speech, and a book).
I could give you literally hundreds of examples to illustrate this deep and difficult dynamic the White House faces, but let’s run through just a few.
First, the commander-in-chief announces a new national battle plan against the most threatening pandemic of our lifetime, and look at the play the Washington Post gives it:
And check out what Politico thinks of the new plan’s chances for success:
President Joe Biden has staked his presidency on defeating the pandemic. But nearly a year into his term, the administration is crashing into the limits of its power to end the nation’s fight against Covid-19. And in the few places where it could go further, it seems unwilling to do so, as of now.
Beset by rising cases, falling approval ratings and the emergence of a worrying new variant, Biden on Thursday pleaded with Americans to get vaccinated and promised more measures to slow the virus’ spread — unveiling what the White House is touting as a wide-ranging plan to avert a winter resurgence of the virus.
The reality, however, is that most of the steps the administration plans to take are continuations or modest expansions of existing initiatives, and some experts doubt they will do much to change the pandemic’s current trajectory.
“He’s facing a hostile public, a hostile political opposition and a hostile judiciary,” said Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown University global health law professor in touch with the White House. “And so the only things left to do are things that are largely ineffective.”
Now, you don’t have to be a student of David Axelrod’s long-running skepticism of Joe Biden’s capacity to be even 1/100th as amazing as Barack Obama to see in this quote gobs of doubt, reflecting the overall Gang view:
“He has to go out because people expect to hear from the president at times like this,” said David Axelrod, former senior adviser to President Barack Obama. “He is working with what he has. He has been trying to use this as a moment to regenerate a sense of urgency on vaccinations. We’ll see how that goes.”
We’ll see how it goes, indeed.
Biden’s own Treasury Secretary billboards the potential for additional rounds of the toxic brew of a-pandemic-surge-leading-to-economic-troubles:
The Omicron variant of COVID-19 could slow global economic growth by exacerbating supply chain problems and depressing demand, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told the Reuters Next conference on Thursday.
And the folks at the White House won’t like Kim Strassel’s latest column, but, if they are being honest with themselves, they will admit there is a lot of hard truth in her thesis – that Joe Biden’s overpromising on the pandemic will be his political undoing (until and unless he stops overpromising, which at this point would be hard to do…).
50% out of frustration, and 50% because they are looking for a tactical pushback, Team Biden is trying to make the case that Republicans are rooting for a bad economy and for a raging pandemic in order to win the midterms.
So you have stuff like this:
“It’s clear that Republicans have decided that the fate of the Biden presidency is tied to COVID,” said Democratic communications strategist Eric Schultz, who worked in the Obama White House. “And Republicans have chosen to be on the side of the virus.” (Associated Press)
The problem is, when a Democratic president loses the traditional homefield advantage with the Dominant Media and the Gang of 500, those arguments are trumped by this:
If the run-the-table scenario above happens, Biden will get some better coverage.
But until inflation and the supply chain are truly fixed (and fixed in terms of perception), no skein of December/January legislative success is going to turn around how the presidency is currently viewed.
Oh, and immigration and Putin and Xi.
Lots to ponder and discuss at Camp David and Lauriol Plaza this weekend.
See you Saturday — and apologies in advance for the typos I’m sure are here!
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If the NBA still captured the imagination of WWoN readers, this would be a very interesting development.
