Why is Joe Biden so unpopular? As the pundits stroke their chins and come up with ever more abstruse theories, allow me to butt in. We should all know by now that normal political polls of "the public" are all but useless in these polarized times. You have to look at Democrats and Republicans separately to make any sense out of anything. Here's what Biden's approval rating really looks like these days:
Roughly speaking, support among Democratic and Republican partisans went down by a modest six points during Biden's first few months and then flattened out. Since about midsummer, their support hasn't fluctuated more than a point or two.
In other words, all the stuff that happened after the middle of summer—Afghanistan, inflation, CRT, the infrastructure bill passing, the social spending bill not passing—has had essentially no impact on partisans.
But then there are independents. Their support went down 13 points through midsummer and then kept on dropping, losing another 11 points through November. What's going on with them? All the usual suspects might explain what happened after midsummer, but independents also soured on Biden very strongly in the months before midsummer, when none of this stuff had yet happened.
So that's the mystery. Why has Biden lost a whopping 24 points of support among independents? For this, we have to abandon our usual way of thinking and pretend to be the kind of people who don't pay much attention to politics. They don't know what Tucker Carlson said last night. They don't know that Republicans are refusing subpoenas to testify before Congress. They don't know what's so great about the infrastructure bill, and are probably totally unaware of what's in the social spending bill. Generally speaking, they aren't especially outraged by anything going on in Washington DC.
So what's been eating at them for the past ten months? You probably think that this is the point at which I unveil my brilliant analysis, but I don't know any more than you do. My only real guess is that it's less connected to politics than we political junkies like to think.
The most obvious candidate is the seemingly endless COVID-19 pandemic. Ditto for the related turmoil over remote school, which is a huge issue for parents with young children.
On the other hand, it's probably not the economy: the unemployment rate is low and nominal blue-collar wages have been rising steadily over the past year. Inflation is an issue, but only over the past couple of months.
Cars have been a problem. The price of new cars and trucks has gone up amid continuing shortages, while the price of used cars and trucks has skyrocketed.
What else is bugging people? Give this a real try without resorting to political effluvia. Just ordinary, everyday problems that have gotten more and more tiresome over the past year with Biden seemingly unable or unwilling to do anything about them. Ideas?
Independents these days are basically a sub-category of republicans who think they possess some degree of moral superiority by saying they don't belong to a political party. Seriously, are there any self-proclaimed "independents" who, when forced to talk about issues, say anything remotely democratic? That said, I too have zero idea what these people, in their low-information brains, think is important.
Independents these days are basically a sub-category of republicans...
Seems wrong. Plenty of registered Independents in states like Massachusetts are Democrats (ie, regular supporters of Democratic candidates) in all but name.
I don't know what methodology Gallup uses. But Kevin's writing seems to indicate they try and find "actual" independent voters: the so-called "persuadables" who likely don't account for more than 10-15% of the electorate. Such voters actually do regularly switch party allegiance from election to election and even on occasion engage in ticket splitting. They're often described as being low-information voters or (by the so-called Popularists) "normies."
Yup. Democratic governed states like Virginia that let schools stay closed for a year, reap what they sow.
Was waiting for your usual incitefull analysis. Guess dead Grandmas was a better alternative. To the troglodytes such as you, yes it would have been. Personally I am glad the Gov chose life…
What.does "chose life mean???? Not in Virginia's case. The administration simply set no guidelines and let's district morons handle. Do you need a nostril detachment???
Lets not let’s. Moron. Please get a new brain, one programmed to speak English.
Usually I disagree with almost everything Spades has to say but in this case he's right. I live in Florida where my wife and several of our fiends are teachers. Over the last year or so there have been multiple families at just their schools that have moved here from more northern states (most from the DMV). All of them have said the fact that our schools were fully open was either the primary reason or one of the main considerations for moving here.
Obviously this is just anecdotal but when we hear the same thing from 8 to 10 separate families you have to give it credence.
I regret having moved to the old dominion, but vastly prefer Northam's handling of the pandemic to that of DeSantis.
A year ago I was a huge DeSantis fan for him keeping the schools opens. In my opinion, that was absolutely the right move and the decision proved to be the right one. There was no spread in the schools. I couldn't imagine living in an area where schools we're fully open for a year or more. But I totally disagree with his more recent antics of fighting vaccine mandates, not allowing businesses to require vaccines and masks, not allowing schools to require masks, etc.
No spread in schools?
What about faculty deaths?
These families don't exist.
Agreed; Northam has done more & better than I had expected, & not simply because he had support from the Democratic majority in the General Assembly.
Gas prices seems to be the conclusion of lefty Twitter.
Gas and food. Both things over which a president has little control. I've noticed that gas prices are starting to drift downward around here, though. They're down about 0.12/gal over the last month.
That's the first place I'd look for a correlation. The covid situation was generally looking upbeat at that point-- late May and June-- and people were starting to travel more and would have noticed it more. End of the school year would have had a similar effect. Another small contributor could have been something to do with continuing talk of mask or vax mandates as the danger seemed to be easing, and/or confusion evident in byplay between the FDA and CDC. General media tone too, as iamr4man says, maybe reflecting that, with big gop encouragement since as Josh Marshall always says the national media is hard-wired for the gop.
When Biden first took office there was a flurry of coordinated activity at the White House and in Congress and he really seemed to have taken charge. He was out there as Declarative Joe all the time, to the point and sure of his ground. That's what people wanted. But looking back, at a certain point that sense seemed to be dissipating. The gop has to get some credit for creating a shitshow (automatically makes the one in charge look bad), and intra-party infighting really slowed momentum seriously. Was that in early summer?
It could be that the sense his momentum was dissipating set the mood for media (over- and mis-) interpretation of Afghanistan as a debacle and gave that impression a set of images and a narrative to cohere around. But right now it's too late out east for me to start looking at the timing of things . . .
As with the ACA the democtatic inability to get on the same makes them look like pussies.
Same page* with infrastructure
Who's no on the same page?
Be specific.
Could be the conclusion of lefty Twitter... could also be partly true?
My guess is the constant drone of bad news in the so called liberal MSM. Even good news is portrayed as bad.
Covid hasn’t gone away.
Afghanistan was a “disaster”.
Unemployment numbers bad and revisions underreported. Wait, then when unemployment is low the bad news is LABOR SHORTAGE!
Supply chain problems.
Infrastructure bill passed but Dem infighting made it weak.
Crime! The crime du jour is smash and grab robbery mobs. Videos are widely circulated causing lots of fear and the impression that crime is out of hand.
So unless you are following this stuff closely and have context all you know is lots of bad stuff is happening and very little good stuff.
Agreed. The media has become a bunch of click bait. They loved Trump because he was always outrageous. Biden is serious which for them is a total bore so they constantly have to gin up some bad news.
True that.
I think you've put you finger on it. Part of Trump's political genius was his ability to make himself the constant center of attention, and thus suck up media resources that might otherwise have been devoted to his manifest failures and disasters. Since Biden is relentlessly "normal", the media has to find other sensations.
Stephen Colbert commented recently, on his show, about the negative slant of Biden coverage. Colbert mentioned a big CNN headline stating that voters weren’t getting any benefits from Biden’s infrastructure bill. Colbert then pointed out the timing of this “story”: it was posted a mere four days after Biden signed the bill into law (a bit quick for voters to start feeling the benefits). It’s hard to imagine news outlets trying any harder than this to somehow present the new infrastructure legislation in a negative light.
Colbert owes his career to notable bothsideser Jon Stewart, of House the Rona is a Chinee Bioweapon Intentionally Released from Wuhan. I don't expect any fair coverage of Biden -- or any liberal Democrat -- from Stephen or his Daily Show emeritus pimp.
You do know that Colbert is a different person from Stewart, right?
Well, you could look at what people actually say is bothering them. Gallup has a poll on the "most important problem"
https://news.gallup.com/poll/357617/economic-concerns-hit-pandemic-high-low-historically.aspx
and the economy is definitely trending up while covid is going down. There are other polls with various biases. Kevin should aggregate them - what else do we pay him for?
True, but then disinflation hits. Those reasons aren't the core reasons.
Disinflation? You mean deflation? Please learn English: it’ll help with your trolling.
It seems that many on this site define "trolling" as expressing ideas they don't agree with. I don't agree with a lot that Spades says, but I have seen plenty of trolls in my lifetime, and he is not one.
And picking on grammar is usually juvenile. I have no trouble knowing what is meant by "disinflation".
Somebody who blames everything on a vast conspiracy by evil international Jewry is not a troll according to your definition? Yes, vicious open anti-semitism is an idea that people here disagree with, but you are fine with. Okay, then.
I have not seen such comments. Of course, I don't live my life by reading every single comment on this site.
So there is doubt in my mind about what you are referring to. If his comment was criticism of the Israeli state , then I would likely agree with much of it. It is well known that many Israeli nationalists try to deflect criticism by claiming that such criticism is anti-semitic.
The more general point is that one can very wrong on some topics, but still have a useful point of view on others. Also Galanx, I resent your attempt to shame me by false association.
If you agree with anything spades says, it only shows poorly upon your judgement and lack of care of the context of which they make comments.
Concern with economic matters has been up, but it is still at the low level of good times, not recession. Unless there is something very special about inflation, economics is not the sole reason for Biden's low ratings. Other national leaders have similar low ratings.
Prices here have noticeably gone up, and that seems to have people on edge. That became noticeable around August/September, I think. Earlier in the summer, we were seeing a fair number of restaurants and fast food places struggle to find waitstaff. I'm just going by what I saw, so I could be way off. But it seems a lot more believable than independents caring about the infrastructure bill or CRT.
It's because to the low information personality, who yet feels the need to form a manly opinion, non-autocratic reactions to existential crises seem feeble and uncaring.
If the climate crisis is that bad, why not declare martial law? If covid is that bad, why not declare martial law? If the border crisis is that bad, why not declare martial law? If Russia is that bad . . . if terrorism is that bad . . . if Trumpists are that bad . . .
If all of that is that bad, and you're doing nothing about it, what are idiots supposed to think?
Because they'll only believe it's real if you're doing something manly and autocratic about it.
Or at least insulting your enemies like the dirt they are.
There's a lot to this, unfortunately. What was it Clinton used to say about people preferring to follow someone who's "strong and wrong"?
Well, except he is bouncing with independents and Republicans. But not Democrats, which are a coastal illusion in total. Strip out the Northeast and California, my guess he is bouncing with fly over Democrats as well.
Something tells me the Progtard version of BBB wasn't going over well. Then they stopped the vote on infrastructure. Whoops.
Progtard? Are you afraid to write progressive retard? Or are your trolling fingers too fat to hit all the keys so you just mashed the words into the shortest possible number of keystrokes? Progtard isn’t very clever. Surely a super genius like you can come up with better insults than that.
It's almost 100 percent covid restrictions. Everytime you have to wear a mask or have to do some health theater nonsense, or need a test to cross borders etc, you're reminded of an alternate universe where a republican admin would've removed all these restrictions.
And all the stores and theatres and schools and roads would be less crowded?
Inflation has been high all year. You don't have to be politically attuned to notice.
I voted for Biden and I’ll vote for him again, but this country is seriously messed up. There is little reason to give him or democrats or republicans credit for anything. The political system can only be described as dysfunctional. They people in congress (if you can call them that) are mostly nuts. I might like some new benefits, but it’s really not that important and it’s certainly not worth having to listen to all this hateful back and forth. They all just need to sit down and shut up.
So no… I do not approve of anyone or anything as it relates to this government. Politicians should Quit asking for my approval. They will never get it.
With an attitude like that, it’s no wonder lots of politicians don’t care about their voters. It’s hard to perform well for somebody who has already decided you (and everyone else) are going to fail them when they hire you.
Politicians have no clue what I think of them. I don't know any personally and I rarely write them to express my views. If I see that some republican wants to kill some democrat and that results in a censure resolution with all the attendant craziness, then I think they failed. They are locked in a blood feud. There is little point in pretending they care about their voters.
Crime. You have only to walk around most downtown neighborhoods to see the deterioration in public order. Of course, most people don't live in urban downtowns, but they visit occasionally, they see it on the news, and they identify those areas with Democrats. And the rot seems to be spreading to places like Walnut Creek, which is the kind of place where most Americans live.
I do think that's part of it. You can't even have a Christmas parade without some whacked out useless pathetic excuse for a human being going nuts. That sums up our experience right there. Even in my little midwestern town the thugs are shooting at each other a couple of times a week. (three times this past sunday!)
It's difficult to care what these barbarians do to each other but I am a bit tired of hearing about how it's all my fault. Fine. It's my fault. Admitting that doesn't seem to matter.
On the other hand, none of this is Biden's fault or the fault of even the progressives / BLM folks. We know they don't want to see this violence either. It might help, though, if they stopped making excuses for these contemptible pigs.
Or not... I really don't care anymore.
Was worse in 2020. What crime??? Nope, bad take.
How exactly are politicians supposed to stop crazy people from driving their cars into pedestrians? Or from shooting the weapons that only one side of our political universe has ensured everyone has ample access to?
^^^
Higher bail for those who committed the offense before?
They cannot. But that doesn't mean the sour mood caused by shootings and violence won't translate into lower approval ratings. Especially if they are perceived as making excuses for criminals. The political class isn't so much guilty of that but the media and some leftist activists with books to sell sure seem to be.
I think it is perfectly reasonable to blame the political culture generally for all the political dysfunction. Of course, I blame republicans more. They are nuts while democrats are just kinda clueless about how to react.
If you ask me if I disapprove of Biden and Democrats I will say yes. If you ask me if I disapprove of Trump and Republicans I will say yes.
If you ask me if I would like to see Trump and Republicans drawn and quartered I will say yes to that as well.
Ask the right question.
+1
Thugs and pigs.
Why are you making excuses for the police who refused to do their jobs?
The trucker shortage, of course.
😉
Thanks, I needed that.
Just another three years til autonomous semitractortrailers will fix everything.
He's not the Other Guy. I think that united the left, and many Indies simply wanted a break from the vitriol and the pandemic. They got both of those when Biden won. Now they're taking a second look without the Other Guy as a foil and Biden is not a particularly inspiring presence. Much as I hate to agree with D Brooks on anything, I think he's doing all the right things to rebuild a country economically that was coming apart at the seams. But when was the last time you saw him on TV telling Americans about this? All the right things except a massive PR effort to see it, and him. I think it's also telling that Harris' numbers have fallen so low, even though she's practically disappeared form view. I think it's the same thing-- the background of vitriol and crazy is gone.
Harris was just in France meeting with Macron.
Biden is out there every day.
The difference is neither joebiden nor Kopala is a Twitter expert like Donald Trump, who was shouting into the void while voiding his bowel at 3am on the White House's unfortunately nongolden toilet.
So, you got an unprecedented climate crisis, an unprecedented democracy crisis, an unprecedented public-health crisis, and the President is hardly visible and the veep not at all. You don't have to be low-information to be disappointed. He may be quietly fighting, I don't know, but he seems very much like a good caretaker for stable times, not a leader in unstable ones.
Minus the notorious rallies, he's speechifying just as much as Trump - or any other president - did. The problem is the media, who tuned into every utterance of Trump knowing he'd likely utter something jarringly outrageous, simply tuned out Biden, knowing he would be giving the typical (boring) political speech. Now they focus on "disarray" among Democrats, conflict at school boards, and the antics of MTG/Gaetz wing of the GOP.
There are only so many hours in a day, and Biden is spending a great deal of time negotiating with members of a narrowly divided Congress to get his programs through. It’s not leaving much time for fireside chats, unfortunately. I blame Manchin and Sinema. You might think the media would be more impressed that he’s getting anything passed in these hyperpartisan times, given that before he took office they were expecting none of this.
Based on a sample of one--a former Republican who's turned against them and Trump very strongly--it's loss of faith in Biden's capacity. The loss of flexibility in movement his doctors noted shows, and that's undermining him, feeds into a overall narrative.
As opposed to the athleticism of trump, who wouldn't walk more than a few feet on a golf course & has difficulty navigating a ramp?
Biden bicycles, for heaven's sake; trump couldn't manage that if his life depended on it.
And Biden's intellect & speech surpass any ranting, raving, lying "speech" ever made by trump in his effort to rabblerouse in the style used by Hitler.
No one should give credence to the unreasoning partisans claiming that Biden is the demented one. He wasn't my first choice, but he should still be supported by everyone appalled by trump & his retinue, especially due to the bad-faith Democrats from Arizona & West Virginia.
I actually think, as Biden has gotten back into the swing of the work of campaigning & governing, he's gotten more lucid. But then again, remember that he was effectively retired for three years going into the 2020 Democrat primary, & hadn't done any campaigning for seven. He was basically JEB! minus the applause lines, starting back out in Summer 2019.
... Naw, clearly Biden just has the White House med team giving him B12 shots, like on that later season Mad Men episode.
Thanks again, Jacobin & intercept, for propituating the Demento Joe Biden myth.
Have you ever thought pollsters are lying. Why accept their data as "real"??? Destroy media. Destroy their towers. Destroy their digital capabilities. Torture them. Pull their eyes out. Degenitalize them. Truth is not kind.
When was last time the FBI checked you're basement?
When is the parody become reality
Voters who can’t be bothered to know that governance is neither instant nor all-encompassing are perhaps more likely to express disappointment over delayed gratification.
In other words, give this time.
Low info American voters are much more susceptible to fuzzy, globalized impressions (of government, "the economy", Afghanistan, etc) than Kevin's crediting them. What I hear over and over from the folks I know who fit into this category are complaints about a generic "Congress," a "they're all the same" perspective that Republicans merrily exploit. And regardless of attention to specific sources, the reich wing narrative of character assassination of Biden bleeds through one way or another. It works, which is why they do it. It's not just for the base. Focusing on bread and butter issues is an understandable approach, but it's a mistake to underestimates the everyday influence of relentless propaganda combined with worldviews that are constructed almost entirely unconsciously. Plus there's the demonstrated critical stance of major media towards Democrats. So yeah, Republicans wreck the economy, foment insurrection, try and destroy democracy, lie, steal, cheat, rape, and pillage, elect and support the worst human being imaginable as president, and predictably responsibility for the chaos (on an unconscious, emotional level) is attributed to the President.
I'm beginning to wonder who isn't a low information voter in this media environment. We had a whole administration full of low-information airheads (see Michael Lewis "Fifth Risk").
I was thinking just the other day how much I missed our forever war in Afghanistan. Regular worry about the pending Cuban invasion, or Guatemala. Constant drone hits and misses. Twitters from the head guy with little thought but lots of invective. Things have really gone downhill. Must be Biden's fault.
If only we had a wall! All our problems would be solved.
Still longing for those good ole days.
Even my pro-Trump hair cutter (how Friedmanesque is that!) noted the relentless negativity of the press. "Why are they so against him now? They elected him!"
I am shocked your barber admitted Biden was elected, even if by the liberal media, rather than installed, by ( ( ( Chavez ) ) ), ( ( ( Raffensperger ) ) ), & ( ( ( Cindy Mc Cain ) ) ).
Unrealistic expectations by the low-info independents? Voted R in 2016, but Trump didn’t give them a pony. So voted D in 2020, but Joe Biden didn’t give them a pony, either. Damn politicians.
Neither gave us a pony but did us the horse shit
Meanwhile, Bernie had control of the whole stable...
Just noticed a headline about falling price of gold. But I’m sure the WSJ will find something else over which to wring its metaphorical hands.
Overall Biden is down from 57 approval to 42 approval now, a total of 15 points. The big drops in approval for Biden were in June when he lost 6 points (from 56 down to 50) and then again in August when he lost another 6 points (from 49 - 43). Since August, Biden's been pretty steady at 42.
The first big drop in June was probably because of the effect of corporate price gouging policies implemented as soon as Biden was elected a year ago that finally began to be directly noticed by Indies in June. The second big drop in August would be related to that same price gouging, but in August general feelings of prices being too high was magnified and amplified by some, perhaps trivial, evidence, and hearsay about inflation that even Indies totally uninterested in the news would see and hear from family, friends, neighbors, and work associates.
I am one of those independent voters. Have been registered as (I) or non affiliated for over 40 years.
I typically split my vote. I don't partake in online or phone polls.
To me Trump did not represent typical Republican policies. Debt rose TOO HIGH under his tenure. His tax cuts were to specific to businesses and weren't necessary to stimulate and economy that was already working well.
His outlook on climate change was based upon ignorance, not science
And the republican party saw this as an opportunity to stuff the court with conservatives and painted it as the Trump court - something that would be MOST pleasing to someone with his level of narcissism.
In spite of his shortcomings I cannot blame him FOR covid, or the related deaths. We have taken someone with an over-sized sense of bravado and basically said whatever he does is OK with us. And for his part he accepts no blame for anything that anyone perceived as having gone wrong during his term.
His "in your face" style was soundly rejected by foreign leaders, friend and foe alike.
What he did do was inject doubt about everything and anything not related to HIM. The CDC? A clown show. The Fed Res? Keystone cops.
To this day that doubt persists - that doubt in science and experts. Now republicans want to question previous vaccine policies? Really? What do we need? Another measles outbreak?
This is his biggest failure and it is one that will haunt us.
But DO NOT trust polls. NEVER. They do NOT represent how we feel about things. They provide opportunities for people to inject lying into the press.
It's all part of the game.
I LIKE Joe Biden. I'm not thrilled with Kamala Harris but I like her. I disdain folks like Joe Manchin, and Kyrsten Sinema but I would vote for either of them, in a heartbeat over Tom Tillis and Richard Burr, m two US Senators.
I am a veteran.
A gun owner who wants more restrictions
A person with no debt
A person who welcomes anyone - gay straight, white black, male female into our house.
I am a Catholic who believes it's a woman's right to choose.
I am not perfect, nor do I expect perfection from my president, or his administration. I am damned glad we're out of Afghanistan, and we're finally addressing our infrastructure. I believe in climate change but I also believe my kids and grand kids will not see the official flipping of the switch (because there is no magic the climate HAS changed switch).
Go ahead, blame me for Joe's bad polling numbers if you wish, but IMHO you would be wrong. I witnessed a republican LIE to a polster during the election at my house. She laughed when the phone call ended - saying she hoped democrats heads would explode. When I pressed her on her obviously false answers she said "It's more important to elect republicans than to be truthful."
THAT direction came to her from the New Hanover County republican party who got direction to do this from the NC Republican party.
That type of blatant misrepresentation has soured me on most politicians.
Yes to all. It seems to me that Trump's worst legacy is the normalization of lying. they see a president who lied whenever it suited him (every day) and they think if he does it it is OK for me to do it.
Anecdotally, I have observed an increase of lying in everyday non-personal interactions, which I attribute to this normalization of lying.
After the Virginia election I watched an interview with a bunch of suburban moms who had voted for Biden but had now voted Repub in the governor's race. Every single one said by far their animating issue was COVID school policies, which obviously have dragged on and are putting a serious crimp in these ladies' social lives. They came across like idiots, but there you go.
Told ya so. It's mostly condemnation of the Northam Admin. Then you understand why his Predecessor needed to campaign his ass off and indeed didn't despite leaving as a popular Gov. When will arch liberals realize everything isn't "racism" or "some ideology" fantasy of why said Democrat lost a political contest.
& yet they think I am rude for calling them Volvo Driving Soccer Moms.
(By the way, that song isn't quite so misogynistic as THE ONION AV Club made it seem at the time of release, but it's actually quite the blast aimed right at the suburban reared fauxhemes that populate popculture & culturecounter places like the AV Club.)
It’s probably hard to point at one thing but let’s looks at several factors. The number of independents who were former Republicans who and who left for obvious reasons, COVID is definitely a factor, Fox News coverage has perverse influence on other media where most of it is bad, inflation at the gas pump, seasonality, bad messaging by Dems including the whole Manchinema thing. Many of these issues will fade away so we shall see, however, Fox News will always be there waiting with CRT, immigrants, crime, and picking on whatever negative economic news is out there (there is always something).
There are a lot of things that are enough to make one person or another turn on Mr Biden. Or even turn back to him. Of course I don't know anything (I'm behind a donkey all day). But I'm thinking, Mr Biden's made the same mistake as Trump, exactly the same. He promised us Rosy Scenario with vaccines, & end of COVID by 04 July.
But he already knew by the time he was inaugurated that COVID 2.0 was coming (the delta variant). Or he should have. Or somebody should have. Or something.
Big misstep. Hundreds of thousands more dead. Huge questions about vaccines and pump up of conspiracy theories. Undermining of credibility.
Not saying the administration is behaving as badly as the last one, but on the other hand, this one doesn't put its competency or lack of it on public display and then light it on fire, so who knows for sure.
Covid isn't that big of issue. Indies started leaving(ignoring the post honeymoon month) well before the August outbreak. Try harder. What happened in June/July that pissed off indies who tend to be single issue voters????
Don't know - you tell me. You can do better than play guessing games.
Looks like curve wiggles up & down then up then down. But all I know is what the donkey lets me see.
Arch liberal's were starting their crap despite being a large minority inside the Democratic party. Biden looked ineffectual against them. It wasn't until October he publicly turned against them and he began to bounce in the polls with Independents. It was telling and damning.
Wait a minute. You said earlier the pollsters are all liars, so what is this? You're basing your argument on data you call lies? Why should I believe you?
So Independents, where this fluctuation is pronounced (unless it's all lies) are carefully watching Biden vs archliberals to measure ... I don't know what, something, you tell me .... meanwhile, 150000 more people died of COVID, there is widespread dissatisfaction with various COVID rules, the CDC has been floundering with vaccine regs - it looks chaotic and disappointing. And it's not the only unexpected problem.
I don't see anything here. What you're saying is neither telling nor damning.
"Indies started leaving"
Wait a minute - didn't you just cast doubt on the polling a few comments up?
In total, yes. But movement is noted.
"In total yes" well ok: Lies are lies. I don't see how you can pick and choose which ones to believe just in order to make your argument go - quite the opposite!
I'm a leading edge boomer, and during my lifetime the blockade of government by the minority party has gone from a concept, to an experiment, to a policy. These days the government accomplishes little to nothing, and those who throw sand in the gears are rarely held accountable electorally. As a result of this endless logjam, the national malaise that Jimmy Carter identified 45 years ago has coagulated into a permanent sludge at the base of society. We have no FDRs or JFKs, full of ideas and energy. We are no longer able to take risks in the name of progress. In this era of the internet, cable news and outrage algorithms, we can't hide our eyes from this "reality," so there is a sense that happy days are not here again, and they never will be.
So Biden gets a brief, half-hearted honeymoon, and when he, too, proves to be just another leader who can't move the needle -- even on the imminent planetary disaster of climate change -- we shrug and turn back to the tedium of life without hope, many thinking Trump was a dangerous mess, but if Biden's the best we can do, I'd rather watch football, or The Voice.
Didn't people actually want this? A lot of people who seemed to be politically informed seemed to want less of it in their lives. There was hope somebody competent was finally in charge & we wouldn't have to think about it day in and day out. We may (or may not) have competent enough in charge, but it doesn't seem like government incapacity is done with us or we with it.
I don't know about Ms Lo-info Voter. I was guessing earlier she wanted COVID to be history by now & is very unhappy it's not. Maybe I'm wrong.
Dunno where you live, but I'm seeing ads, often during the news, blaming my Democratic congressman and Nancy Pelosi for everything but shingles, and the year's not over yet.
American Action Network is the name on them.