Facing truly catastrophic poll numbers, President Joe Biden and his White House team have come up with a strategy to course correct.
No, it’s not a moderation of his policies. It’s also not a decision to stop claiming that people who don’t behave exactly the way he wants them to are on the same side as enemies of the republic. And it’s not, apparently, an intense effort to get the president some sorely needed message discipline.
The White House’s grand plan to save Biden’s approval ratings is to send him out on the road to be even more visible.
According to FiveThirtyEight, as of Monday morning, the president’s approval rating is underwater by double digits.
Roughly 54% of Americans disapprove of his job performance, while 40.8% approve.
At the same point in his presidency, former President Donald Trump received a 41.6% approval rating.
While Biden claimed in January that he doesn’t believe polls showing Americans disapprove of his job performance, he is reportedly very, very upset that his poll numbers are lower than Trump’s.
Politico’s Jonathan Lemire reports, “President Joe Biden and his aides have grown increasingly frustrated by their inability to turn the tide against a cascade of challenges threatening to overwhelm the administration.”
“Soaring global inflation. Rising fuel prices. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A Supreme Court poised to take away a constitutional right. A potentially resurgent pandemic. A Congress too deadlocked to tackle sweeping gun safety legislation even amid an onslaught of mass shootings,” he continued.
According to Lemire, “Morale inside 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. is plummeting amid growing fears that the parallels to Jimmy Carter, another first-term Democrat plagued by soaring prices and a foreign policy morass, will stick.”
“The plan is to put Biden on the road to highlight progress being made, even incrementally, in meeting the series of tests, with visits this week to California, where he will preside over a summit of Western Hemisphere allies, as well as New Mexico to push for his climate agenda,” he added.
At the same time, the administration will “set aside its reluctance to work with ‘a pariah’ nation with hopes to spur oil production” and “sharpen its attacks on Republicans.” Apparently, the “Ultra MAGA” line isn’t working.
First Lady Jill Biden and the president’s sister have reportedly “complained that West Wing staff has managed Biden with kid gloves, not putting him on the road more or allowing him to flash more of his genuine, relatable, albeit gaffe-prone self.”
But before Biden, or “Cicero in the 21st Century” as he might see himself, hits the road to whisper and yell to the nation, the White House has to “quell the finger-pointing that’s been erupting internally and the increasing concern over staff shakeups.”
If that’s a prerequisite to getting the president on the road, this plan may never happen.
Surely the reason Biden’s approval rating is tanking is that Americans love to hear this great orator so much that the absence of his incoherent, rambling sentences and bizarre stories that seem conjured from his imagination are leading them to turn on him.
It’s not because they disagree with his policies, his divisive, partisan rhetoric, or because they think his administration fumbled several crises. And it certainly isn’t that they’re stressed out that their paychecks aren’t going as far, or that they just think he’s too old for the job.
No, Americans just need to see and hear this leader who never, ever shifts blame, always admits when he got something wrong, and is truly on par with the likes of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt even more.
Good luck with that strategy.
