President Biden’s policy agenda is incredibly popular, much more popular than his opponent’s. But Biden the man? Not so much.
The question now is whom to blame for the approval gap between the president and his agenda: voters, the media or Biden himself.
Democrats have long argued that their policies are more popular than those of Republicans. In a recent blind test conducted by YouGov, that was unmistakably true. The polling organization asked Americans what they thought about major policies proposed by Biden and Donald Trump without specifying who proposed them. The idea was to see how the public perceived ideas when stripped of tribal associations.
Biden’s agenda was the winner, hands down.
Of the 28 Biden proposals YouGov asked about, 27 were supported by more people than opposed them. Impressively, 24 received support from more than 50 percent of respondents.
To be clear: these were policy proposals, not actual policies put in place by either candidate.
It doesn’t matter. The average voter is functionally illiterate.
They’d vote for the candidate “they’d have a beer with”. They can’t understand anything about policy
To be fair “have a beer with” is about trust.
If I can’t sit down with you, have a beer, and enjoy myself, I can’t trust you. A president is going to encounter unknown challenges and I need to trust them to solve it.
That being said Trump fails that test immediately. There is no version of “having a beer” with Trump where I could trust him.
Biden however? If you asked the average American what they know about Biden one of the top three answers is “having a beer”, it’s called “grabbing an ice cream” but the principal is the same.
To be fair “have a beer with” is about trust.
As evaluated by a college freshman. I can think of a ton of people I have encountered whom I have trusted with money, repairs, my health and I would not enjoy a beer with them
I understand the question is to reduce a complex issue to a binary answer; but I’m afraid too many people take it literally and cannot evaluate a candidate any further
I completely agree, it’s a simple metric and one that charisma plays a role in. If that’s all you use to judge someone it’s going to be a small part of the story.
I think you meant to say ass cream. It is the stuff you rub on once Mossad shows up with their material and makes you a puppet of Israel.
If the average voter is so stupid, why can’t the democrats figure out how to appeal to them? Are democrats just too smart? Well I guess we’re going to smart our way into fascism then!
First, Democrats like to think the other side is stupid. Trump is not stupid. Trump is malicious. Democrats are stupid when they underestimate their enemies.
Trump is a product of religious nationalism whose leaders have joined together and confirmed what many Democrats have known for decades, that a majority of churches in America are nothing more than a cult.
Trump represents that group who wants authority to brainwash and traumatize a large percentage of American people into their cult. They want to integrate religion and law so that you don’t have a choice anymore about what you believe and neither will your kids.
The leaders of the Trump cult don’t actually believe in the Bible. Trump is just a tool to maintain their wealth and power. You can’t maintain a cult when you’re followers are able to think rationally.
Biden is being selfish. He knows the polls are showing he’s going to lose. He knows people never voted for him, but instead they voted no to Trump (who represents religious nationalism). Biden should have never ran a second term. He was never popular. The only thing that was popular was Trump not winning.
If the polls are showing the cult has suckered more people in and he’s going to lose, maybe we should find a candidate that tbose considering joining the cult can relate to… That gives them hope, inspiration, and that appears strong and admirable on the outside.
Trump is not stupid. Trump is malicious
Trump is both… If Trump were as smart as a hamster, we would all be fucked by now.
Trump is hailed up by smarter people who know anonymity is power and realize they can achieve their goals while putting Trump in the spotlight. Trump is so dumb and so narcissistic, he is happy to tag along for the ride
Imo, later (sooner already passed) Trump will wind up assassinated or in some form of house arrest while his family will be ultra fucked. Unfortunately, we will all pay the price of not stoping his backers earlier on
trump is legitimately a stupid person. He is good at threatening and has some weird charisma that works on scum, but he is high-functioning moron.
No, your average politician probably a little stupid but massively put of touch.
I’m pretty sure I’d have a better time having a beer with Biden, even if he’s asleep, than Trump.
America wants socialism, but our two parties and their donors rather have fascism.
lol No.
Calmly explaining to my stupid tankie friends why public schools and postal services and public wifi at public libraries and Amtrak and Medicare and the Hoover Dam are wildly unpopular. What people really want are more cops, more wars, and more credit card debts.
If America wanted socialism, Bernie Sanders would have been president.
The moment a politician talks about raising taxes, that’s it, they lose votes. Far too many people in the U.S. have been hurting from inflation (which is just another form of taxation, btw) combined with all other forms of taxation.
You are ignoring the fact that political parties and donors pick our leaders, primaries are just a formality. There is documented evidence that the DNC actively worked against Bernie in both 2016 and 2020. So what is popular actually doesn’t matter.
So we can both agree that the DNC doesn’t have your interest at heart, yes?
No party or politician has your best interest at heart. Not a single one. Voting is choosing the lesser evil.
The moment a politician talks about raising taxes, that’s it, they lose votes.
That’s never actually been true. School bonds tied to tax increases pass all the time
I support the policies he took from the Sanders campaign to appear more progressive than he is, but he dropped most of those as soon as he got elected.
Almost like we should’ve elected someone who actually had an established history of fighting for those policies, and not someone who adapted them in a stunted form to win an election.
Corporations love his pork barrel spending though, yeah.
The reporters sensed it instantly. Even though the 90-minute debate was only seconds old, they felt it was already over… He had not been warm. He had not been likable. He had not shown emotion. He had merely shown principle.
In 1988 Michael Dukakis had his campaign torpedoed by poor debate performance when
askedambushed with a hard gotcha question.Another candidate might have survived that first question and answer. But not Dukakis. It devastated him because his coldness was already an issue.
And it is the same with Biden. The biggest anxiety of both his supporters and haters was demonstrated on national television. How do I defend that when arguing with people about who to vote for in the election?
This quote from the article really hits home:
Afterward, his aides would try to explain that he had been sick. He had seen two doctors before the debate. He had a fever, a virus. He wasn’t himself.
But while he may have been sick, he was himself. That was the problem.
I’d rather have old and moral vs barely less old without any morals
Agreed. But it gets real hard really fast to convince people that Biden is the only real choice, when your argument becomes “Not Trump”.
If this was the first time this had happened, it could potentially be played off “He’s campaigning hard and worn down” “There was an unexpected interaction with his prescriptions that caused it”
He’s accomplished more than Obama in half the time, not that that’s saying much.
President is two jobs. One is policy driven. One is being a leader. All president’s have to do both, but arguably the latter is more important as president’s can leave policy to aides and congress (and formerly the federal agencies, but that’s gone now). The president is a communicator. Yes most voters like Biden policies, but they don’t know they are Biden policies because Biden does not communicate that. In fact, in many congressional districts the Dem candidates are outperforming Biden while running on the same policies. You can’t blame voters already burdened with living in this capitalist hell hole for not devoting hours into researching candidate policies.
In presidential politics, at the end of the day the buck stops with the candidate. Campaign aids and paid advertising and surrogates on TV can only do so much. You need the candidate to deliver, to speak directly to the voters, to make the case for why voters should choose them and their policies over the alternative. Biden is incapable of that.
It’s Bidens fault.
Biden is a solid administrator, but a terrible campaigner / salesman. And the older he gets, the worse he gets at the latter. He’s always been bad at it, but these days he’s extra bad at it.
Is this a joke? Doesn’t he need to be popular to win “most important election of our life time”?
I knew there was going to be damage control from DNC. I just didn’t guess their damage control would be insane.
I don’t think this is damage control. I mean maybe the timing of the article is but we’ve known for a long time that progressive policies are favored by a majority of Americans but progressive politicians aren’t.
Not that Biden is progressive. But next to conservative regression anything will look progressive.
Doesn’t matter if you have zero charisma and really bad PR. Obama and FDR were popular because they have both.
Mmm yes his policy on Israel has been a real acceptable one.
No complaints from the public whatsoever.
None at all.
It might not but since you effectively have a binary choice, which Israeli policy do you prefer, Bidens or Trump.
if it’s really a tie, then start looking at the other policies to see which is the lesser of the two evils.
So I just want to be clear about something. Press Secretary, Jean-Pierre said yesterday (as she often repeats per their messaging): “Biden’s record speaks for itself.”
I want to go like, “Hi, Press Secretary. Quick follow-up: If it speaks for itself, then why is Biden losing in every battleground state with an aggregate national approval rating of 37%?”
It doesn’t seem that letting it speak for itself is working.
Good, because an adult knows that a presidency is not a single man - it’s a philosophy, vision and general momentum towards a set of policies.
The problem is the proposals are either dropped, or poisoned. Like he campaigned hard on unions, then he butchered rail workers bargaining power. He campaigned on renewable energy, then signed into law mandated sales of federal land for oil and gas extraction. The affordable care act has an unintended flaw making millions of Americans too poor to qualify for any kind of assistance getting health insurance, he campaigned on fixing that gap. Instead he raised how wealthy you can be and still qualify for assistance. He’s raised defense spending, dumped a half trillion more on the US highway system, and deported way more immigrants and shutdown asylum.
Like he campaigned hard on unions, then he butchered rail workers bargaining power
It should be mentioned that the people he appointed to the NLRB have been hugely positive for union activity and power. Even with the railroad thing (which they did end up getting concessions on) Biden is still the most pro union president in our lifetimes.
He campaigned on renewable energy, then signed into law mandated sales of federal land for oil and gas extraction.
They also passed the largest climate bill ever.
affordable care act has an unintended flaw making millions of Americans too poor to qualify for any kind of assistance getting health insurance, he campaigned on fixing that gap
The GOP has blocked every single attempt at improving the ACA and has tried to repeal it dozens of times.
He’s raised defense spending
Can you point to a someone who hasn’t? Congress routinely increases military spending without the military even requesting more funding.
I get that half measures don’t feel like wins, but when half the government is controlled by people who want to destroy it, they are. If we want sweeping legislation that fixes more issues, we have to strip enough power from the GOP to make it possible. Until we do that, half measures are really all we can hope for. We elect people because of their platform, and then we don’t give them enough votes to pass legislation. I’m not saying the Democrats/Biden are flawless here, but we have to live in reality.
which they did end up getting concessions on
They ran a hell of marketing on this, a non-rail union, that voted against the strike, made a statement that some rail workers got some sick days. Not all of them, not as much as they could have gotten, and most importantly of all, like i said, their bargaining power for the future is ruined.
They also passed the largest climate bill ever.
Ironically thats the same bill Im referring to. Again, they did great marketing.
The GOP has blocked every single attempt at improving the ACA and has tried to repeal it dozens of times.
Like i said, they did make changes to it. No attempt was made to fix the poor americans not getting any help.
Can you point to a someone who hasn’t?
Doesnt change anything
Okay I get that you don’t find those particular changes to be good enough, and I would agree with you. That doesnt make them lazy, and they’re still the best chance we have. And you’re completely ignoring the structural obstacles that they literally don’t have the votes to overcome, even if every single Democrat in Congress agreed.
If we had given the Democrats a fillibuster proof majority and the White House for more than 2 months in the past couple decades I’d agree with you. But we haven’t done our job well enough here, just as much as they haven’t done theirs well enough. Framing the entire party as a lost cause and ineffective without looking at all the reasons why only hurts us.
ETA: I do believe the ACA and the IRA were absolutely worthwhile and have positive benefits. Just because you don’t like parts of the bill doesn’t mean they aren’t.
I dont think my opinions are what you think they are. I havent called anyone lazy, im not criticizing democrats for not doing enough, theyve done a lot, a lot of harm. The story isnt republicans wanted to break the rail strike and democrats didnt stop them, the democrats outlawed the strike! They passed the IRA with zero republican votes, and still included millions of acres in federal land leasing explicitly for oil and gas extraction.
Oh apologies I misunderstood your position. I’m not really interested in listening to how any objectively good thing the Democrats do is actually bad regardless of context, which appears to be your position on most things, so have a nice day!
Regardless of context? I dont think youve looked into any of these topics beyond headlines.
You would be incorrect, that’s okay though.
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If Biden was 15 years younger he would be ahead of Trump.
If Biden was 15 years younger he would be ahead of Trump.
So IOW people are just ageist.
damn. sounds like they should run someone more popular with the same agenda, then. pretty easy thing to fix, really, unless you’re more dedicated to the man than the platform.
I get the logic of your statement, but it is devoid of any understanding of how people actually work in the real world. That tends to be where these armchair politician “genius fixes” go wrong.
In this real world people don’t vote for popular candidates, I am a political genius.
Trolls just love to try to knock his down but - facts.
If only this was technocracy and the election was a formal interview based on resumes and proposals.
But it’s not. And part of the job is showing up, even on a bad day. If that’s what his bad days look like then we’re one crisis on a bad day away from nuclear annihilation.
