New York Times (11/4/21): “Significant parts of the electorate are feeling leery of a sharp leftward push in the party.”
Recent polls show that President Joe Biden’s approval rating has declined significantly since he took office.
A decline is not unexpected, of course, given the historical phenomenon known as a honeymoon period. But many in the media have interpreted this decline as a negative assessment specifically of Biden’s too-progressive agenda (FAIR.org, 11/5/21).
Numerous articles and editorials have thus argued that Biden should return to the “center” (see here, here and here), a rather vague political location these days, but one that would require him to significantly downsize many proposals in his Build Back Better legislation.
A prime example is a recent New York Times editorial (11/4/21) with the headline, “Democrats Deny Political Reality at Their Own Peril.”
The alleged reality: That “significant parts of the electorate are feeling leery of a sharp leftward push in the party,” and that “the concerns of more centrist Americans about a rush to spend taxpayer money, a rush to grow the government, should not be dismissed.”
The solution?
What is badly needed is an honest conversation in the Democratic Party about how to return to the moderate policies and values that fueled the blue-wave victories in 2018 and won Joe Biden the presidency in 2020.
Bait and switch
In all of these articles and editorials, the authors focus on Biden’s declining approval rating as “bait”—what we should be concerned about—and then switch to talking about the president’s legislative agenda. But there is no necessary connection between the two. People could disapprove of the president’s performance in office for many reasons not related at all to the proposed legislation.
If Biden’s approval rating has declined because of the size of his proposed legislation, then we should expect either that public approval of his proposals has been low, or that approval has declined. But neither is the case.
FAIR.org (10/15/21): “The margins in favor of the reconciliation package vary from a low of 12 points in the WP/ABC poll, to 24 points in the Pew poll.”
In an earlier post (FAIR.org, 10/16/21), I cited several polls showing double-digit margins of support for Biden’s initial plan costing $3.5 trillion. Polls since then confirm majority public support for that package, as well as the compromised package of just under $2 trillion recently passed by the House.
If the size of the legislation was a problem for the public, then we would expect to find higher support for the new compromised version than for the original bill. But the polls do not reflect such a difference.
The ABC/Washington Post poll (11/7–10/21) and the Quinnipiac poll (11/11–15/21) found almost identical results for the $2 trillion bill—58% to 37% and 58% to 38%, respectively.
And these figures were quite close to what Quinnipiac (10/1–4/21) and ABC/Washington Post (8/29/21–9/1/21) reported earlier about the $3.5 trillion package: 57% to 40% and 53% to 41%, respectively.
‘Too big for voters to comprehend’
Biden’s “gotta lead from the middle out,” says pollster Joel Benenson (Washington Post, 10/23/21), whose clients include Google, Comcast, Viacom, Microsoft and Bank of America.
It would appear that many of the cited articles reflect the long-held opinions of the authors, who hold on to those views regardless of what the polls might show.
Perhaps they are persuaded by the prevailing view, as reflected in a recent Gallup poll, that most people want less, rather than more, government spending. These pundits don’t seem to accept the notion, as noted in an earlier post (FAIR.org, 10/24/21), that while most Americans may express conservative beliefs, in fact large majorities generally support activist government.
That disjuncture is reflected in an article by the Washington Post’s Paul Kane (10/23/21), who apparently could not believe that Americans might support such a costly bill. He refers to an argument by two pollsters—one a Republican, the other a Democrat—who acknowledge that “individual pieces of this massive agenda are popular,” but then assert that “the package is either too big for voters to comprehend, or the price is so high that it sounds scary.”
That sounds like a classic case of denial. There is no polling evidence for such an assertion. In fact, polling suggests the opposite.
There are many possible explanations for Biden’s low approval ratings. Pushing for his Build Back Better legislation is not one of them.
Why doesn’t anyone suggest that his approval is going down because he is moving away from the progressive policies he ran on? Week after week, Biden has said to the conservative Democrats, tell us what you don’t like about the BBB and we’ll take it out. Why isn’t the reason for Biden’s tanking numbers because he is so willing to abandon the thinks he promised the American public to get elected?
From that WaPo article: “These voters also are keenly afraid of inflation and are concerned about whether massive federal spending — Congress approved more than $5 trillion of pandemic emergency spending from March 2020 to March 2021, with trillions more proposed by Biden for infrastructure and social programs — has fueled rising costs.”
Yet again ignoring that the $1.75 trillion will be spread over a decade. So it’s really $175 billion a year. Around 3.5% of that $5 trillion during that time span. It’s not “massive federal spending” AT ALL. Is 20% of the war budget per year “massive”? “Transformative”? Give me a break.
You the author and everyone else needs to note that the piddling $1.75 trillion isn’t for ONE YEAR. Please. Jesus. Not doing so, and comparing a ten-year spend to a one-year spend without noting this is propaganda.
I agree with the previous comments.
“Biden’s “gotta lead from the middle out,” says pollster Joel Benenson (Washington Post, 10/23/21), whose clients include Google, Comcast, Viacom, Microsoft and Bank of America.” Seriously?
Using Joel’s comments as a meaningful argument is silly, IMHO. You have listed companies that are his clients which are hardly friends of the Democratic Party agenda. I have avoided doing business with these companies or using there products as much as I reasonably can because of their methods of doing business and their politics. The only reason I use Xfinity (Comcast) is because of the cable monopolies the government seems to think is okay to allow. It is not my goal to make them happy. Mostly the opposite.
The BBBB could be fully paid for by reducing the military budget by an equivalent amount. We do not need to be spending more than $600 billion a year on the military….probably even less. However, the plan is to use taxation methods to pay for it instead.
One-third of the U.S. budget, and therefore, one-third of the military budget is deficit spending. I don’t hear many complaining about the inflation generating aspect of excessive military spending. The intent of the BBBB legislation is to have it fully paid for….which would not be significantly inflationary…unless enhancing the economy, generates more & higher paying jobs which causes more spending & puts pressure on the supply side of the equation. However unlikely it is that such an limited, inflationary pressure might develop, how many people are likely to complain about a strong & growing economy? (unless it harms their political agenda).
The Democrats should hire this man! I
Thanks to David W. Moore for his deconstruction of the efforts of the billionaire-owned corporate media to generate opposition to the use of our tax money for any purpose except bombing brown people all over the planet and overthrowing democratically elected governments.