It is no music to US President Joe Biden’s ears that the euphoria over his presidency has considerably dissipated only within a year of his assuming office. As he has just completed the first year in office, he is not only greeted with a series of setbacks – legislative and judicial -, his popular rating has also alarmingly gone down. Fear is even looming large that the Democrats may lose out to their rivals, the Republicans, in the fight to retain control of Congress in the midterm elections later this year. What began as ominous when he ineptly handled the US army pullout of Afghanistan is now looking like a recipe for disaster. He has lost the support of two of his own Democrats in the Senate sealing the fate of a legislation that the President desperately wanted to be passed to protect his constituency. The warning bell has sounded so loudly that Biden himself has conceded that henceforth he would behave more like a President than a Senator. For the past few decades he has been known as a Senator operating from within the four walls of the Senate. He has decided that phase of his long career is over and he would now hit the road to convey his plans to the Americans directly.
Virtually admitting that his approach needed to change, Biden said he planned to spend less time locked in private negotiations and more time on the road to convince Americans about his policies as Democrats fight to retain control of Congress in the November midterm elections. “The public doesn’t want me to be the President-senator,” said Biden, who spent decades in the chamber as a senator from Delaware. “They want me to be the President, and let senators be senators,” he said at a Press conference.
Though he sought to downplay the latest ratings by pretending not to trust such figures, his words do betray his anxiety deep down. A new poll from the Associated Press – NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that for the first time a majority of Americans now disapprove of his handling of the Presidency. According to the poll, 56% of Americans disapprove of the way Biden is handling his job as President, compared to 43% who approve. A dismal 28% of Americans say they want Biden to run for re-election in 2024, including only 48% of Democrats. The figures indicate a sharp decline for Biden, who began his Presidency with relatively strong support from a public which hoped he would bring a sense of normality after four tumultuous years of Donald Trump. Apparently, his political fortunes have been declining since the chaotic and rushed military withdrawal from Afghanistan and the arrival of the Delta variant triggering a spike in coronavirus infections.
When he assumed office a year back Biden inherited some dire crises such as a once in a century pandemic, economic uncertainty and a democracy threatened by partisan division and lies. Things have worsened since then on each of these fronts and he is confronted with setbacks no one could imagine he would face. Of course, he spared no pains to defend his first year in office and insisted that the administration had handled the coronavirus “remarkably well.” He even reeled off statistics to show tens of millions of Americans had been fully vaccinated. On the economy, he claimed record low unemployment and unveiled his plans for taming inflation and alleviating supply chain bottlenecks. But, he is no longer as assured as he was a year back and admitted it as much when he said: “It is going to be difficult. I make no bones about that.” This was only hours before Republicans blocked Democrats’ latest attempt to pass crucial Bills, which the President described as critical to the fate of American democracy. The Bills could not be passed as two Democrats opposed a crucial Bill tilting the balance in favour of the Republicans though the numbers before voting were 50-50. The legislation was vital for the Biden Presidency as it would have helped the Democrats bypass a rule – known as the filibuster – that for any legislation getting some Opposition support is needed. The vote brought to the fore the difficulty Biden faces delivering on his campaign promises, despite Democratic control of Congress. The voting rights Bills are vital to preserving US democracy against Republican attempts to exclude Black and other predominantly Democratic voters through a spate of recently enacted laws by Republicans at the local level.
The US Supreme Court recently ruled against Biden’s Covid-19 test-or-vaccine mandate on large businesses. This administrative fiat was a key component in the Biden Presidency’s bid to control the spread of the Omicron variant when only 62 percent of Americans are fully vaccinated. Biden had issued the mandate for companies with 100 employees or more to insist on vaccinations or regular testing as a way to put a lid on the stunning spread of the latest Covid variant. However, conservatives questioned the mandates as undue governmental interference in the people’s working arena. The SC’s disapproval is a slap on the administration’s face.
All these do not augur well for Biden and it would be foolish for him and his fellow-Democrats to believe that former President Donald Trump would sit quietly in his Florida resort. In fact, instead of fading into exile, Trump has during the past whole year waited and watched for the right opportunity to stage a comeback. The result of his tactic can already been seen. Though banned from mainstream social media platforms and twice impeached, the former president has only tightened his grip on the Republican Party. His base remains deeply loyal as he succeeds in convincing his supporters that the 2020 election was stolen from him and they seem to be eager to see him return to power in 2024.