Trump could win US polls as Biden’s image sags
Michael Jansen
The author, a well-respected observer of Middle East affairs, has three books on the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Joe Biden
US President Joe Biden’s approval rating is the lowest ever. Only 25 per cent of US voters want him to run again next November and his likely rival Donald Trump is ahead of Biden in battleground states which determine the Electoral College vote.
On the domestic front, Biden and his team are not listening to the “It’s the economy” slogan of Democratic challenger Bill Clinton who defeated incumbent George H.W. Bush in the 1982 election.
Although Biden has brought down inflation from a high of 7 per cent in 2021 to 6.5 per cent in 2022 and 3.2 per cent this year his administration has not been given credit for this feat. Instead, voters believe inflation is still running away with their precious dollars. Biden has no one else to blame for this false impression. He is a reluctant public performer who shuns press conferences and regular television addresses. To make matters worse, Biden’s handlers are hesitant to let him speak as he tends to go off script and create problems.
For example, after pitching reconciliation with alienated Chinese President Xi Jinping, Biden called him a “dictator” for a second time, ignoring Beijing’s angry reaction. When Biden did this in June, it elicited a rebuke from China.
During a press conference after his encounter with Xi at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in San Francisco, Biden tried to wiggle out of the characterisation Chinese consider to be an insult by saying, “He’s a dictator in the sense that he’s a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that’s based on a form of government totally different than ours.”
China’s Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Mao Ning retorted that there are “always some careless individuals attempting to sow discord and damage China-US relations, but their attempts will not succeed.”
On the economy, Biden’s handlers should have urged him to follow the example of post-Depression and World War II President Franklin Roosevelt who, between 1933 and 1944, provided the US public with a briefing every evening by means of radio broadcasts dubbed “fireside chats.”
They were intended to counter fears of further economic meltdown, promote the promise of recovery, and reassure the US public throughout the war. These chats and Roosevelt’s policies earned him an unprecedented third term in office.
While Biden need not have made television broadcasts every evening from a White House fireside, he could have bowed to informal monthly briefings. This could have headed off misconceptions, lies and false news circulating on social media.
The Washington Post reported last week that a client at a McDonald’s in a small town in the backwater state of Idaho was charged $16.10 for a special meal with fries and a soft drink. Outraged that a meal in a fast food joint should cost nearly $20, he circulated a video of the item and bill. When this went viral cconservative commentators blamed inflation rather than hyping by McDonalds and argued that Biden’s economic policies were responsible for the outrage. This tale has taken in millions who believe it reflects the entire economic situation and hold Biden responsible even though inflation has been brought down to just over three per cent. For voters, pocketbooks are their main concern.
On foreign policy, Biden has also stumbled on three issues which could lose him the election if he stands next year. He went ahead with Trump’s idiotic deal with the Taliban for US withdrawal from Afghanistan. US forces were to leave by May in exchange for a Taliban promise to rein in Daesh and al-Qaeda. Biden postponed the deadline to the end of August so the “boys” would be home by September 11th, 2021, 20 years after al-Qaeda’s attacks on New York and Washington. However, Commander-in-Chief Biden did not order the US forces in Afghanistan to formulate a plan for an orderly evacuation. Consequently, they departed in a hurry and left Afghanistan in chaos. This was documented on global television channels, humiliating the administration and military.
Early in 2022, eager to overcome this disgrace and demonstrate prowess as a war leader, Biden gathered a coalition to fight against Russia in Ukraine. Billions of dollars worth of weaponry and financial aid have poured into the most corrupt country in Europe. The aim is to defeat Russia which remains, in the minds of 20th century Cold War warriors like Biden, the Soviet Union. The war has stalemated, and Russia simply waits for winter to defeat an exhausted, damaged Ukraine. Kyiv could have avoided conflict by pledging not to join NATO. Alarmed by NATO’s eastward expansion, Russia has warned for the past 20 years that this is a “red line” which Ukraine must not cross. Biden, his Western partners and NATO did not believe Russia. Republicans who control the US House of Representatives want to defund the war. Many in Europe are fed up and seek an early end which would force Ukraine to cede Crimea and the Donbas in the east.
Since October 7th, Biden has given full backing to Israel’s deadly and devastating war on Gaza. He has divided his Democrat party by alienating young, Arab, and Muslim voters who back the Palestinians rather than Israel. If these voters boycott the election, Biden could lose and his Democrat party could shed its slender majority in the Senate and many seats in the House of Representatives.
Instead of calling a halt to the carnage, Biden has bleated, “Israel has the right to defend itself,” dispatched weapons, pledged $14 billion in aid to Israel, and called for brief “humanitarian pauses.” Administration and State Department officials and some Democrat members of Congress have expressed alarm over his policy and demanded he change course. Whether or not he recovers credibility could depend on how he handles the first pause in the war. If he uses Washington’s considerable leverage to persuade Israel to extend the pause and ultimately agree to a ceasefire, Biden might, just might, be forgiven for the greenlight he had previously provided.
If Biden and Trump run in next Year’s presidential election, voters could shun a public-shy Democrat who fails to court credit for successful domestic policies and makes disastrous choices on the foreign front. This could clear the way for Republican challenger Trump whose erratic behaviour, excesses, and terrible choices do not worry his voters. In 2020, Biden won because he isn’t Trump, next year Trump could win because he isn’t Biden.
