Why Is Biden Losing?

As liberal Democrats and their columnist satraps gaze into the abyss of defeat, they are beginning to rationalize their failure. Consider the thought of Rana Foroohar, liberal columnist in the Financial Times.

How does it happen, she asked in yesterday’s column, that on the one hand things in America are going swimmingly while on the other hand people are about to vote for Donald Trump? Why is no one giving Joe Biden credit for the wonderful conditions of the American economy?

She writes:

One of the biggest mys­ter­ies of this cam­paign sea­son has been why Joe Biden has not been given more credit for Amer­ica’s boom­ing eco­nomy. Gross domestic product is up, infla­tion is down and the jobs mar­ket could hardly be bet­ter. And yet, con­sumer sen­ti­ment remains low and that will prob­ably be reflec­ted in tomor­row’s exit polls, which sur­vey not only which can­did­ates voters chose, but why.

Unfortunately, Foroohar sounds like an aspiring flack. In the New York Post, we read another take on the current state of the American economy.

With former President Donald Trump and President Biden set to square off in eight months, a plurality of voters say the Republican challenger’s policies while in office were more helpful to them than the current president’s, according to a recent poll.

Only 18% of voters told the New York Times/Siena College survey that Biden’s policies benefited them personally, while 40% felt that Trump’s actions helped them out, the poll found.

When asked if they were negatively affected by one of the two chief executives, 43% said Biden’s actions hurt them, while only 25% felt the same way about Trump.

Having skewed the figures, Foroohar concludes that Americans are ignoring the facts and following their feelings. We saw the same reasoning pertain in a new book by Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman, about the rage of rural whites.

As it happens, and I hope I did not need to explain this, but insulting people, demeaning their intelligence is not a good way to entice them to vote for you. 

As for why this is such a gigantic mystery, the reason might lie in the columnist’s simple-minded approach. Aside from the fact that presidents do not manage the economy, the American people find it difficult to grant credit to a senile doddering old fool.

Lest we forget, Joe Biden embarrasses the nation every time he steps to the podium or tries to walk up a staircase. This does not make him seem like the man in charge.

The economy seems to be doing well, but most of the jobs created are either government jobs or hospitality work. Were it not for the fact that we spend money we do not have, the economy might not look quite so vigorous.

Besides, any American who looks around the world sees war and destruction in places where, under the Trump administration, there was neither war nor destruction. 

For reasons that escape me, the Democratic Party has become intellectually incoherent. It insists that Trump wants to undercut democracy while it is spending its time undercutting democracy. Just yesterday a number of state judges and secretaries of state, nearly all of whom seem to have been diversity hires, were slapped down by the Supreme Court. 

Call it political cognitive dissonance, but the American left has very little to offer beyond shrill and ignorant attacks on Donald Trump. Using the judicial system to undermine democracy, in the name of democracy, does not command respect. By now everyone knows about lawfare, about the effort to ensure that Trump cannot run or cannot win the election. So much for democracy.

The American people might thrill to reduced inflation, but they do not like to see a political candidate persecuted by the opposition. Bad behavior does not command respect. It makes you look unhinged, unworthy of confidence.

One might say that Donald Trump undermines his own candidacy by showing a lack of decorum. Especially, he has been wont to violate Ronald Reagan’s eleventh commandment, with impunity. People do not like it. Many of them will not vote for Trump for that reason. Yesterday, for example, Trump declared, at a rally in Virginia, that he did not need or want certain votes. If you are going to win an election you need all the votes you can garner.

And yet, the Democrats’ have tried to mobilize the judicial system to harass, persecute and punish Donald Trump. The result has been to make the former president look good. 

Worse yet, if Joe Biden and other Democratic operatives had been behaving with exemplary decorum, people would credit him with his administration's successes. They have not, so the people do not connect him with economic progress. 

And then there is the border, the invasion of illegal migrants, under the aegis and with the encouragement of Joe Biden. Such migrants have spread out across the country and they have seriously diminished the Biden reputation. 

As of now the Biden administration and its Democratic camp followers are merely attempting to attempt to shift the blame to Republicans. They are insisting that they are not really in charge of the border. If they cannot take responsibility for normal government functions why should we grant them credit when things go well?

The more Joe Biden insists that he is powerless to stop the flow of migrants, the less people are inclined to believe that he is responsible for things that are going well.

If Biden had any humility he would retire.

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