Today’s USA Today/Suffolk University poll showed that 79-year-old President Joe Biden has approval rating of 42% with 54% disapproval of his handling of domestic and foreign policy. Adding to Biden’s wows are the ongoing Omicron variant creating unprecedented numbers of Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations. Biden’s recent admission that the nationwide shortage of Covid-19 instant antigen tests has added to the problem, creating more havoc around the nation. When you add to the recent spike in inflation, especially at the gas pumps, it all adds to bad news to Democrats eleven months out from the 2022 Midterm election. When you consider that Biden has the entire media behind him, it’s surprising that his approval ratings continue to drop. When it comes to foreign policy, things don’t look like their getting any better for the aging president.
Not since the end of WW II, have U.S.-Russia and U.S.-Chinese Relations been so challenged with Biden and his 59-year-old Secretary of State Tony Blinken ripping Russia and China for a variety of human rights abuses. Unlike former President Donald Trump who stuck largely to business, Biden and Blinken chose to alienate Russia and China over extraneous issues related 45-year-old Russian dissident Alexi Navalny or Ukraine. When it came to Navalny, a known dissident whose covert network seeks to topple Putin’s government, Biden and Blinken insisted Putin release him from prison. On the Ukraine front, Biden has said publicly he stands by Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, despite Putin massing 100,000 troops near the border, prompting worries in the West that he plans a new invasion. Biden has threatened Putin with crippling new economic sanctions.
When it comes to China, Biden and Blinken haven’t done any better, accusing Beijing of committing genocide against Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang Province in Western China. Biden has initiated a boycott of any goods coming from Xinjiang Province suspected of using Muslim slave labor. Instead of working out differences patiently with important allies, Biden has put U.S.-national security in peril, with Putin threatening to cut diplomatic ties to the U.S. Biden and Blinken can talk about Ukraine or Muslim Uyghurs, but both groups have no national security significance to the United States. U.S. officials need solid relations with Russia and China to maintain effective foreign policy around the globe. Muslim Uyghurs or Ukraine do nothing to enhance U.S. national security. How Biden and Blinken thought their policies helped U.S. national security is anyone’s guess.
So when you talk about Biden’s abysmal approval ratings, it’s much more than inflation or the misery of the Covid-19 pandemic. Most polls remain focused on the cost-of-living, especially on the price of daily living, something that’s been rising to 40-year highs. Most American won’t pay attention to U.S. foreign policy until there’s a new crisis, now involving Russia and China. Biden’s approval ratings reflect a general loss of confidence by the public in the president’s leadership, spending last year demonizing Trump, winning him popularity when the Democrat Party and media were fully engaged in a war to oust Trump from office. So Biden and the Democrat Party’s only way back from the abysmal approval ratings is to put Trump back in the news. It’s no accident the Jan, 6 Committee continues to keep the media entirely focused on Trump’s alleged role in Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Keeping Jan. 6 in the news is a great diversionary tactic for the Democrat Party, taking the focus away from Covid-19 and inflation, keeping the media dialogue on what Trump knew about the Jan. 6 riot. At one time, nine House impeachment managers insisted in his impeachment trial that Trump sparked a riot speaking at the Washington, D.C. Ellipse Jan. 6. Then it turned out, the FBI confirmed the riots were planned for months. As long as Democrats keep the House Select Committee in the news, Biden hopes to keep his approval ratings from sliding further. But Biden’s sinking approval ratings have to do with the public losing confidence with the president’s decisions. If Putin wind up breaking off diplomatic relations, it will send Biden’s already low approval rating crashing.
When it comes to Biden’s sinking approval ratings, there’s panic in the Democrats Party heading into the 2022 Midterm elections. Biden’s $1.75 trillion Build Back Better Plan finds itself in limbo with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) putting his foot down because the child tax credit going to families making over $300,000. Whether Biden eventually compromises with Manchin is anyone’s guess. But Manchin was the only Democrat senator who dared link another whopping Democrat spending bill with inflation. Democrats hope with they can keep the Jan. 6 riot in the news because it rallies the Party and the media against Republicans. But like other Democrat fictions about Trump, including his ties to Moscow, they must, through innuendo and gossip, try-and-convict Trump in the court of public opinion Biden has the media behind him but the public’s losing confidence.
