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.
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
America unironically thinks socialism is when the government does stuff.
I mean, technically it is. But so is fascism. Both have the government tightly controlling everything, including industry. But socialism/communism (in theory) works for the good of the many, while fascism always only works for the good of the few.
We never really had true communism didn’t we? God I wish we would try it out…
yes, but communism with dictatorship.
communism that stayed in its democratic roots might be okay-ish, I’m not sure.
Americans
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.
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.
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.
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.
This whole goddamned news cycle is about how we don’t have a binary choice. Or more accurately we could have a different binary choice. Biden isn’t locked in. If the primary argument to vote is “Trump is worse”, then it’s not important that Biden be the candidate on the other side.
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
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 legitimately a stupid person. He is good at threatening and has some weird charisma that works on scum, but he is high-functioning moron.
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
No, your average politician probably a little stupid but massively put of touch.
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.
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.
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’m pretty sure I’d have a better time having a beer with Biden, even if he’s asleep, than Trump.
Doesn’t matter if you have zero charisma and really bad PR. Obama and FDR were popular because they have both.
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.
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.
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.
Hell yeah Genocide!
All I hear when I read these comments is “I want my genocide with a big helping of fascism!”
Donald Trump will claim he’s protecting Americans from White Genocide and Baby Genocide. The conservatives will glibbly assert they are the “Anti-Genocide” party. And Joe Biden will mumble about illegal immigrants killing American children, while he sinks another five points in the polls.
Then we’re going to get told that Tankies cost Democrats the White House (but, strangely, not the legislature). This will give Hakeem and Chuck the excuse to cave to every Republican demand, because it’s what the People Want.
I hope your comment was sarcastic. If not:
Hell yeah “non-Fascist” Genocide!
Hell yeah my candidate isn’t fascist, YOUR candidate is fascist!
skibidi biden
He’s only unpopular because of bots, trolls, and the likes of fox “news”. He’s what AMERICA needed after having a child with 34 felonies ruling by incompetence and revenge for four sad years.
No. Dismissing criticism like this is exactly how you got here. People have been raising legitimate concerns for years. And then he decides to 100 percent support genocide of Palestinians during the campaign. Not even conditioning military aid on compliance with international law. Which has the same effect as starting an unpopular war.
That debate was his last chance to convince undecided voters he still has 4 years of mental competency in him and he failed.
This is what happens when you run a sham primary with a weak candidate.
The budget is allocated by Congress and must be dispensed as allocated by the executive branch. Biden could not legally stop the weapons going to Israel. How many times must this be repeated? I see you and others in every single political thread trying to lay dead Palestinian children at Biden’s feet. Biden doesn’t want any more Palestinians to be destroyed- he seems to be a fundamentally decent person. Even though I strongly dislike Biden as president and hate the government of Israel, we all know Trump would ramp up the genocide for his buddy Netanyahu. Are you going to keep playing dumb? It’s that fucking simple.
Unless Biden steps away these are the choices. More, or less, genocide? Because it’s not going to stop until Israel decides it is done.
A. That’s not true, check out Trump’s last term for examples of not spending the money as Congress directed.
B. There are laws expressly forbidding the disbursement of aid to regimes committing war crimes. The Leahy Law and Foreign Assistance Act. The bar is internally low as well, “credible evidence”. Anyone who has picked up a newspaper in the last six months has seen credible evidence.
C. This is how you pressure politicians. Don’t tell us to vote for him because we can pressure him and then cry when we pressure him.
No.
this isn’t your normal no, its a midwestern no.
He’s only unpopular because of bots, trolls, and the likes of fox “news”.
And a years-long campaign by Republicans to tap into people’s prejudices against old people. Never mind they’d struggle to name one actual policy position they’d disagree and haven’t bothered to learn of all the things they’d wholeheartedly support if they were just aware of them.
“We defeated medicare”
Who said that? Not doubting just curious.
Biden did. It was a slip. Old guy, fighting a returning stutter, trying to get everything of substance he has to say out in a 2min window…he messed up a whole bunch. The other guy ignored the questions and vomited the practiced lies and BS he has been spewing for years, so he looked better, if you didn’t actually listen to the words from each person.
Yeah Trump says stupid shit like that on a daily basis whether it’s a slip or intentional. Personally I had to turn the debate off after about five minutes, being so embarrassed of my country. Biden was pathetic and Trump a lying sack of shit.
There is some irony in that every time I talk to conservative friends/family about the things I loath Biden for, they’re reasons they should love him, if only the media reported on it.
He’s weak on the border? The one he tried to close, but was blocked by republicans, so he went around congress to illegally kick out refugees?
There’s too many brown people? He’s deported more people than Trump did.
He’s left Israel out to dry? He sent everything that was allocated to them, and more, and even bombed Yemen to support the genocide of Gaza.
Abortion? Who exactly is letting Roe lie dead?
Welfare? He ended covid protections, child poverty skyrocketed.
Can’t understand why he’s not more popular with a track record like that.
Maybe he’s just running in the wrong party.
hes mostly unpopular because the media dosnt cover 90% of the shit he does, and what they do cover they cover vaguely and don’t credit him, because the media is heavily invested in another trump win because trump winning brings in ratings as people tune in every day to see what new horror he has released upon society, like they did in his first term.
Broadcast media has too much vested in a trump win to ever give biden appropriate coverage.
Its why all teh coverage of the debate was “BIDEN OLD, MUST QUIT” and almost nothing about trumps lies or the CNN moderator just letting trump go.
the media dosnt cover 90% of the shit he does
He is in the media spotlight constantly. If the President shits, we get news on it. And we have a plethora of friendly venues happy to report all the nice things Biden says he’s doing (until he gives up halfway through, because the Fifth Circuit court or a senior aid or a Senate Parliamentarian tells him to stop).
But it’s not selling, because peoples’ material conditions aren’t improving. The Inflation Reduction Act didn’t improve the cost of living. The college loan forgiveness benefited less than 1% of student borrowers. The exhorbitant sums sent to Ukraine haven’t ended the war or even clawed back any territory. The climate isn’t getting any cooler.
all teh coverage of the debate was “BIDEN OLD, MUST QUIT” and almost nothing about trumps lies
The coverage could have been “Biden Slams Trump on His Many Lies”. But Biden didn’t do that because he’s a senile old coot.
Oh gee! Why isn’t Rachel Maddow singing Joe Biden’s praises right now? Must be because she’s a Russian Bot who hates Democrats and America.
I’ve never liked him. Better than trump, still bad tho
Just curious, what percentage of Americans do you think are under the influence of Russian bots? Because roughly a third voted for Trump and roughly a third didn’t vote, add in third party voters and I’m pretty sure that would mean a supermajority of Americans are Russian assets, which is a fascinating perspective.
“Victim of Russian propaganda” isn’t the same as “Russian asset.”
Ok then, what percentage is believing, repeating, and being actively swayed by Russian propaganda?
To some degree or another? A significant portion.
What constitutes “a significant portion?” 5%? 20%? 60%?
At least a majority of trump supporters, and probably a small fraction of non-voters.
Trump received 74 million votes.
The NRA, which has proven to be infiltrated by russian assets has about 5.5M members so that’s almost 7% right there. https://www.finance.senate.gov/ranking-members-news/wyden-unveils-report-on-nra-ties-to-russia-findings-show-nra-misled-public-about-2015-moscow-trip#:~:text=New evidence that NRA insiders may have violated U.S. sanctions,pursuit of personal business opportunities.
In 2021 there were about 20M users of Parler which amplified russian propaganda: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/10/01/report-fbi-catches-another-russian-made-fake-news-site-targeting-us-voters/
There’s probably some overlap, but with just two instances we’ve seen how over 20-25M right wingers (1 out of 3 trump voters) are subject to russian propaganda.
Amazing. So because the NRA met with Russian weapon manufacturers to try to get rich, it means every one of the 5.5 million NRA members has been swayed by Russian propaganda. Absolutely zero of them were legitimately just gun nuts who were always going to vote Republican because they oppose gun control, 100% of the members were swayed by Russia the moment someone on the board met with a Russian arms dealer.
I guess it becomes very easy to show that a large number of Americans have been influenced by Russia if you’re allowed to play like 6 degrees of separation like that. Why don’t we count anyone who ever used Facebook too, while we’re at it? What percentage of Americans bought a coke in 2020, while Coca-Cola was doing business in Russia? This goes way deeper than I ever imagined.
That’s wild. Like, to think all it takes is a handful of Twitter bots to instantly sway like half the population of a country.
Say, why doesn’t anyone else try this? Just set up some bot accounts to spread misinformation in favor of Biden, and it should be just as effective right? I mean, it can’t be that people have different beliefs and different material interests or anything like that. Everyone who disagrees with you is simply so stupid that they just instantly believe anything they see. Shouldn’t you be able to use that to your advantage?
It is not just bots but an infrastructure of heavy investment in mass media that mislead americans. Fox News, NAEBC, Tucker Carlson, the NRA, Breitbart and then you can add in the bots on social media.
I didn’t say or even imply people support trump because of Russian bots, I’m saying that trump supporters are largely stupid or uninformed, and trump is putin’s puppet and repeats Russian propaganda.
Everyone who disagrees with you is simply so stupid that they just instantly believe anything they see.
It’s actually kind of funny that you’re being incredibly reductive while accusing me of the same. Like I said, not everyone and not everything. Trump supporters, however, are largely dumb enough to swallow Russian propaganda specifically because they’ve been primed for it.
My question specifically included the words “actively swayed.”
It’s harder to get people in favor of something than it is to point to something/someone and convince them they are an enemy.
This is a truth known for a long time. I think it is linked to our tendency to lose aversion.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion
Both parties are speaking to us about what we are going to loose it the other side wins. For Biden he is claiming (probably rightly based on the recent Trump supreme court decisions) we are going to loose democracy if Trump wins. Trump is claiming we are going to loose America, the real America, if Biden wins. What real America is depends on who he is talking to.
I’m just one person and my sample size is small. But judging by the number of right-leaning people I know that send me stuff from RT and other similar places, and the number of left leaning people who repeat dispiriting talking points I see in those pieces (They may never vote republican, but their enthusiasm is certainly being sapped.), I would say the percentage is quite high. That’s just people being swayed like you asked, not necessarily convinced to vote or act a certain way.
Again, I’m just one person, but from what I see around me Russia and its allies are winning the propaganda war.
but what makes him qualified
as a career politician what has he done to affect your life so much that y’all immediately want to suck him off so hard?
was it the crime bills, the conservative far right immigration policies, his failed response to $7.25 minimum wage, was it women losing rights they have had for over half a century?
or is it strictly because he is a democrat and likes the color blue?
no the US does not need either of the two senile elders with mental decline
yes that happens after a certain age and anyone who thinks these two are mentally capable or immune to laws of time have never had to take care an elder before
Biden is 82 years old way past retirement and Trump is not far behind
The effective and qualified people he surrounds himself with. Sorry for the death of your argument. RIP
Hot take: that crime bill attack was always an interesting one to me.
In Hillary’s election she got heavily criticized for supporting it while non-conservatives supported it, Biden wrote it, Bill Clinton signed it, Bernie Sanders voted for it. I was somewhat surprised this election when people actually remembered that Biden wrote it at all. I didn’t hear much about it in 2020.
What you’re not seeming to take into account is that every democrat I know has issues with Biden but since he is a career politician we know he’s capable of putting knowledgeable people in places he doesn’t have expertise in, which is what a competent leader does (which means I can’t even mention trump, doesn’t come close). The right doesn’t seem to understand you can get your ideas and policies across without full complete love and support for the candidate. He’s not the Dems supreme leader like the right has where everyone has to bow down, it’s a system and he’s just a head to rally behind while others get stuff done.
You a bot or troll? Either way, you’re not good at it.
Imagine picking a Democratic candidate that can’t even handle the bullshit from fox news and then acting all surprised when his polls start to tank.
makes sence why your instance has the word awful
Fox News is an utter pile of garbage and by no means a trustworthy media outlet
Sure is, so maybe we should have someone who won’t take the bait and talk about their golf game during a presidential debate!
You get paid to troll? If you don’t you’re really a sucker.
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.
You can not like trump, but bidens policies are objectively terrible and unpopular. You can claim what he claims to want to do is good, but his actual deeds are really bad.
Biden regarding Palatine is bad. Trump is worse.
What other policy are you referring to?
Off the top of my head; Ukraine, end of the petro dollar, Israel, Afghanistan withdrawl exexution, border security, supply chain failure, mandated vaccines that were struck down, increased spending that increased inflation, etc. That is without even refreshing my memory.
What exactly do you think the petrodollar is?
Its not an actual thing its the system where oil is bought and sold in dollars.
Ukraine is getting support and still fighting orks. It is a politically delicate situation, but it is working.
Dunno the pertro dollar, I assume you are wrong, but I’ll enjoy looking into it later.
Afghanistan withdrawal was entirely on trump.
There is plenty of ramped up, unnecessary border security, I think we are still breaking records for people and drugs stopped there…hell, fox news, in their stupidity, reported that Biden’s border stopping record highs of fentanyl from getting across the border was a bad thing. trump’s Whitehouse was prescribing the stuff!
Supply chain failure…of? You talking about the problems during COVID that the trump administration cocked up so bad that it caused supply chain failures?
Vaccines was struck down by the ignorant and the stupid, not Biden.
Economy is finally recovering from the shambles that trump left it in with his record debt. Biden did an impressive job fixing that so fast when Congress fought him the whole way.
But, hey! Maybe the one thing you are right about is the Petro dollar! Even a maga-media consumer has to be right every once in a while!
Thank you for writing that so I don’t have to.
The end of the petrodollar is complicated. On the one hand it reenforced American hegemony and propped up US financial institutions and instruments. On the otherhand it was quite unfair and sometimes unpopular even among US allies.
The end of it means US finance will have to work harder to stay competitive and the US has to trade currency on (slightly) more equal footing but it might lower international resentment.
We are giving billions so that Ukraine can fight and tens of thousands of Ukainians can die and still lose. And i am going to stop here because you dont have a clue about anything and are just saying things.
You don’t have to clarify, we all already know the opinions you are told to have.
imagine a ml user not spewing out the propaganda fed to them
Bizzaro-land energy.
Or just an observation of how bad biden admin sucks.
It is the opposite of true. So it is, at best, an observation of and regurgitation of whatever information silo you frequent.
