The “winter of severe illness and death” Presidentish Joe Biden warned that Unvaccinated Americans would suffer looks instead to become the springtime — and summer — of Biden’s discontent.
Biden’s first year in office was the most unsuccessful in living memory. Can you name his three major accomplishments?
I can.
The first was in March when Biden signed a “stimulus” bill that managed to both ignite inflation and keep the economy hobbled until extended (and enhanced) unemployment payments finally ran out in September.
The second came in November with the so-called infrastructure bill. That trillion-dollar package had to be watered down to suit West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin — so much so that progressives seethed. Since the bill only spends about 11 cents on the dollar on actual infrastructure, it likely won’t do much for Biden in the polls.
Speaking of polls, that’s Biden’s third and final third-year accomplishment: Managing to alienate huge swathes of the American people. He’s currently sitting at about 40% approval, much of it soft, and with negatives that are both high and firm.
Other than that, he had a terrible year: Afghanistan, missing COVID tests, vaccines that failed to deliver as promised, and calling it quits on “shutting down the virus.” Hell, Biden couldn’t even deliver on his threats of “severe illness and death” when omicron turned out to be nothing worse than a highly infectious nuisance.
Biden has a serious problem trying to improve on 2021. He has two problems, actually, inextricably intertwined.
The first is that America ain’t buying what he’s selling, despite his LOL81Million Votes™ in the 2020 presidential election. His two remaining legislative goals — Build Back Bolshevik and the Permanent Democrat Majority election theft bill — remain mired in the Senate.
The second is that Biden lacks the personal popularity to twist the arms of Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) into compliance.
Even FiveThirtyEight was forced to admit that while Americans seem to like the contents of Build Back Whatever, their support for the bill itself is “lukewarm.”
Democrats complain that it’s just a messaging problem, but I don’t think so.
If the MSN-DNC-Entertainment Complex can’t sell something, then you know it was day-old scrambled eggs to begin with.
Also for our VIPs: What the Hell Do I Have to Do to Catch Omicron?
What’s really happening is probably something like this:
Pollster: Hey, would you like all the free stuff in this Build Back Better bill?
Voter: Sure!
Pollster: Cool. Here’s what it really costs.
Voter: On second thought, I’ll pass.
People love free stuff but love it less when they find out it isn’t free.
It almost feels unfair to add that Biden didn’t have the energy or stamina to run a normal presidential campaign, much less to turn around a failing presidency.
The only thing I can think of that Biden might do, once omicron has run its course, is to declare victory over COVID and bask in the media glory.
But no.
I mean, he’ll try, but there’s no chance it works with the broader public.
Biden’s problem is that he and his people were so wedded to the vaccines that they tried again and again into scaring people into taking them. But then the vaccines failed to protect against omicron, and omicron failed to be a killer.
Everybody except the most demented mask devotees will understand that nature did its thing, not Joe Biden.
Biden lacks the energy, popularity, and executive skills necessary for the legislative wins he needs to bounce back from his first year.
The beauty in all this mess is that it didn’t have to be this way.
Had Biden settled for a smaller agenda, he might have gotten it. But instead, the so-called moderate tried to push major changes through on slender majorities.
That would be a challenge for a much more talented and energetic executive, and impossible for someone of Biden’s diminished capacities — that were never that great.
The Biden administration will go down as a great disaster but, thankfully, a disaster diminished by its own ambitions.
