How is Joe Biden doing these days? Courtesy of CNN, here are his approval ratings from a variety of national polls over the past few months:
From August through October Biden's approval dropped about 1.5% per month. Since the Israel-Gaza war broke out a month ago, his approval has improved by about half a percent.
I'd like to generate a chart like this just for young Democrats, but I can't find the data to do it. My suspicion is that Biden has been hemorrhaging approval from young voters for a long time and the Israel-Gaza war hasn't really had a big effect. But I don't know that.
In any case, even if it has had an effect, it's apparently been counterbalanced by increased approval from older voters. Taken as a whole, the war has rather surprisingly had only a very small effect on Biden's approval, and probably a positive one.
POSTSCRIPT: The change is even more dramatic if you draw two separate trend lines for the before and after periods:
All the usual caveats about small time frames and limited sample sizes apply here. This is all suggestive of what's happened, but not definitive.
Polls are much less reliable than a decade ago, primarily from increased participation bias. But at least they can reflect momentum.
Thanks for this chart! I wasn't hearing anything hinting a pick-up in approval, but it might be there. Or at least the Gaza-related disaproval is dissipating.
I think comments like this help to demonstrate just how deeply the Left, or the Far Left, or Leftists, or whatever you want to call them (we don't have a single good term) is increasingly isolating itself on Israel among many other topics:
"Taken as a whole, the war has rather surprisingly had only a very small effect on Biden's approval, and probably a positive one."
And that's despite the Left's attempts to shut down freeways, walk out of classes, graffiti their messages all over urban settings, stage die-ins (in which Jews have been assaulted), and, among other things, explicitly single out Jews for contempt. And that's all in a failed and self-destructive attempt at influencing opinion against Israel.
But how does any of this actually look in practice? Here's one of countless similar stories from the Jweekly of Northern CA:
"Arizmendi [a local bakery] in Oakland was raising money for Middle East Children’s Alliance, specifying that the money goes to children in Gaza. On Nov. 5, I asked the cashier if they would consider putting a #BringThemHome flyer next to the MECA donation jar. Surely, we can support both Palestinian children and Jewish children who were stolen from their homes. Dual support doesn’t diminish the plight of children in Gaza.
"His response was to ask if I was aware that Israel was bombing children. I shared facts about rockets into Israel and a broken cease-fire and was ordered to leave. I asked his co-worker if the collective could vote on placement of a #BringThemHome flyer. She said, 'No way.' I explained that I wasn’t asking for donations to Israel but wanted to bring awareness to the children being held hostage. She said no again, so I asked her directly if she believed the hostages should be returned home. She said no, thereby making it clear that her support for humanitarian children’s causes is conditional and excludes Jewish children."
All I can say, as a decades-long member of the DEM party, is F*#K the Left.
Proof positive that there's damn little in the way of "left" in the democratic party. They are, in main, pro-corporate centrists in contrast to increasingly fanatical right wing republicans.
@gs:
I'm not certain what it is that you're referring to.
If you're referencing a schism between Democrats like Biden (who have been outspoken against anti-Semitism) and Leftists (who have been openly hostile to Jews), then I agree with you: there is indeed such a schism.
Similarly, if you're referencing an open rift between promoters of free speech among Liberal democrats vs advocates of censorship among Leftist anti-racists then, again, I acknowledge it: that rift is there.
But I see this break as good and necessary. The DEM party, if it is to have a viable future on the national stage, needs to explicitly break from the bigoted and censorious Left.
You, on the other hand, seem to see this break as a bad thing?
What, both of them?
You're right about this. A radicalized, illiberal, Marxist Left is incompatible with liberal governance. They can try to take over the Democratic Party and sane Democrats make sure they both failure and show the electorate that a national political party can reject the insane members of its base and still be viable unlike the GOP.
My opinion all along was that the sub-sub-group who were dropping their support for Biden over his backing of Israel was tiny.
Of course Leo, our resident concern troll, was writing off everyone to the left of David Duke as Hamas cheerleaders.
And all along, Biden has been publicly cautioning Netanyahu against excess. Not that jawboning is likely to change Israeli behavior; but perhaps some things were being said or done behind the scenes that has led to the apparent temporary cease-fire.
ETA: Oh, and while I was writing this (and baking frozen pizza for the grandchildren and ourselves) -- here's Leo!
Biden is to the Left of David Duke, and he has been a firm opponent of anti-semitism, and, as you point out, a careful supporter of Israel.
So, your comment regarding my commentary is seemingly without merit. Was it intended as a joke?
Or do you honestly not comprehend the difference between Democrats and Leftists?
Or are you the deeply misguided type of DEM who refuses to acknowledge any enemies to the Left?
And, if that's the case, do you simply discount the type of all-too-common anti-Semitic incident (perpetrated by Leftists) that I copied and pasted above (in my own blog response)?
Hostages released...
A short ceasefire...
Other Mideast players staying on the sidelines...
Progress? Too early to tell...
And while everything seems hopeless at times, there is nevertheless a glimmer of hope. Things could be worse.