Why is Biden failing?

Apr 29, 2022, 7:47 AM

I've been thinking on this for awhile now, and just from what I've seen from Joe Biden (and not seen from Joe Biden) I would say the reason comes down to three simple concepts: vision, messaging, and engagement. He's pretty much a flat zero at all three. He seems completely rooted in a past time, leading like it's 1982 instead of 2022.

He's actually doing pretty well at the Cold War stuff. No shocker, he lived through the Cold War; this aspect of the job he's grounded in. Standing up to Russian aggression, marshalling NATO, doing diplomacy, using the (justified) fear of an aggressor to build alliances. I'll give him an A- or at least a B+ for that, it's the one area he's really shone. I'll ding him for being a little timid and more than a little slow to help the Ukrainians actually win as opposed to initially trying to help them lose slower, but in his defense we had just pulled out of Afghanistan, where we left billions of dollars of military equipment in the hands of people who didn't stand up for themselves or their democracy literally a week after we pulled out. You can understand why he was feeling skittish. Until the Ukrainians proved they were willing to fight for themselves - and could! - why throw more taxpayer money away?

But vision? Nope. What is his "vision" for America? Everything he does just seems reactive. Where's his plan for a tomorrow that's better than today? (And don't say "Green New Deal", he's never been that radical.) "Build Back Better" looked like a whole lotta free-spending pork to me, a Dem masturbatory fantasy, nothing resembling a "plan for the future." Where's his identification of future issues, his idea of where America could be, and a realistic road map on how to conquer those?

I've never seen one. He had a Dem-controlled Congress...and exactly like Trump before him, he went for too much, failed to broker any sort of attainable compromise across the aisle...and squandered it. His next Congress isn't going to give him anything. His one accomplishment is going to be a pared-down infrastructure bill. He isn't going to get Build Back Better. He isn't going to get voter reform. (And that could cost us our democracy if we get a particularly crazy Republican Congress to go with a revived Trump in 2024. If that happens, Biden will be the guy who put the final nail in democracy's coffin here in America, quite a legacy, that.)

Messaging is another huge problem, IMHO. Say what you want about Trump, the man was everywhere. Social media, the TV. Ditto for Zelenskyy. I just saw the biopic "Navalny" and the first thing that struck me was how much a master of the modern communications medium Putin's #1 rival and gadfly truly was. Biden, on the other hand, hides from the camera. He's the Man Who Isn't There, and even on the rare occasions we actually find Waldo, he does some rigid, not particularly inspiring (at best) minimal prepared speech, throws down his ninja smoke, and vanishes again, leaving behind Jen Psaki to kind-sorta answer questions vaguely while spatting back and forth with Peter Doocy.

And lastly...engagement. Joe Biden isn't engaged at all with huge chunks of people. He's treated rural America like it's ungettable - it isn't, not at all, IMHO - and has just left it to Fox News and populist politicians, who shoot their guns and shake their fist at all things liberal. This might be a tactical decision - sorry, MAGA's, you're not exactly receptive to anything Joe has to say - but he could have swayed some opinions there if he'd just expended some energy trying. Instead he's let the urban-rural divide just accelerate. Not good.

But his worst failure is with kids.

Gen Z is souring on Biden fast. His approval rating with the younger generations is plummeting and that really ain't good for a Dem politician. He isn't talking to them at all. Kids especially need somebody to present a vision, message them in the way they understand - which means social media, nowadays - and they need a purpose, a place in the world you intend to build, and you have to ask them for it. Kids don't respond well to commands; they do respond to opportunity.

Lest the GOP's eyes light up on this, they shouldn't. These kids aren't going to the right. They're going increasingly leftwards. That's worrisome. If the GOP is souring on the idea of democracy, the kids are souring on the idea of capitalism because their share of the pie sux. And America's founding ethos was small-market capitalism. Give the kids a vision for the future that aren't restricted to entry-level positions at megacorps that own everything and give them some opportunities to surge forth and seize their places in this world you want them to build. But no, Biden's just looked at the DNC's demo maps and just assumed - much like Hillary Clinton did - that the younger generation was "his".

Nope. No bloc of voters are "yours" if you don't engage with them. Ask the Latinos.

Biden, IMHO, was the wrong guy for the job from Minute 1...and these were predictable outcomes. This is the problem with when you go and elect "safe" seeming compromise candidates, especially ones that are pushing 80 years old. Their vision is rooted in the past instead of the future, the energy isn't there, the worldview is dated, and they've lost their ability to relate to the younger gens. Again, you have to expect that, say, Mayor Pete would have done a lot better for the Dems here.

Just my take on Biden's presidency so far. FWIW.

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They're really not the same party. At all.

Much as I hate equating the words "Commie" and "Liberal" the far left wing of the party - Bernie, AOC, the Squad, etc - have jettisoned the idea of capitalism and self-empowerment and just gone all the way to wealth redistribution. There's always been an aspect of this but they tend to treat corporations like they're The Enemy. This wing is gathering steam precisely because there's increasingly little social mobility. This is reflected by a very simple stat people have mostly missed but shouldn't, IMHO: people don't move anymore. They can't afford to. They're pretty much stuck where they are.

I've even noticed there's a huge, huge number of Gen Z's who can't drive...well into their 20's. They've never owned a car...mostly because they can't afford one.

Can you imagine that for our generation? I bought my first car - a Firebird, that I then put a 4.3-liter Pegasus conversion kit in because my dad wouldn't let me have a V-8, so I was gonna show him - when I was 16...working 25+ hours a week at Burger King. (And promptly discovered that that alleged "40-hour install time" for the Pegasus kit was actually more like 250 hours when you didn't have a clue what you were doing. And I ended up blowing the engine in a few months anyhow because I don't think I ever really got the compression right. But dayum the thing could peel rubber. Ah, youth.)

But this new gen is looking out and not seeing opportunities. They see low-paying wage slavery, and lives that are only getting worse than what their folks had. And we assuredly didn't have what the Leave It To Beaver Boomers had.

My worry is that we're going to push back this Fascist MAGA reaction...only to have to turn around and face a Bolshevik revolution right behind it.

Why is Biden failing?

You are missing the obvious….***

Re: You are missing the obvious….***

Biden is doing exactly what Biden was elected to do

Re: Biden is doing exactly what Biden was elected to do

I agree. Unfortunately we have two parties

Re: I agree. Unfortunately we have two parties

Unfortunately the last 250 years of elections in this

That's the Dems in a nutshell

A lot of lip service. Very little action***

Re: That's the Dems in a nutshell

Their strategists probably do

Until they realize Twitter is not IRL they'll

Re: Biden is doing exactly what Biden was elected to do

So who's in the bullpen waiting for 2024 ?? Mayor Pete ??

well said. another aspect infects each of your

Re: well said. another aspect infects each of your

Your generation could buy parts for their cars

Re: Why is Biden failing?

If he did the opposite of whatever he thinks is right

His presidency has also been confounded

^^^ Thinks Romney and Cheney are true American heroes ^^^***

Because he only truly represents an extremely partisan

Re: Because he only truly represents an extremely partisan

Don't confuse them with reality ... they can't handle it.***

Re: Why is Biden failing?

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