Today we’ll talk again about the U.S. election or more precisely,
one of the potential candidates, Joe Biden.
Biden is the incumbent president who runs for a 2nd term,
which traditionally means an easy victory in the primaries.
But not this time!
Today we’ll discuss why Biden’s rating is dropping both
among Democrats and Americans in general.
We’ll also look at alternative candidates from Democrats
and their chances to beat Biden in the primaries.
But first, I’d like to announce the second part of our tour. It’ll start on Jan 7 in Tel Aviv.
We’ll visit Frankfurt, Zurich, Paris, Riga, Tallinn, and Milan in January.
Later in Jan-Feb, we scheduled shows in Barcelona, Warsaw, Lisbon, Vilnius, and Helsinki.
Follow the link in the description and come to our shows to see how
we make our videos and talk about Russia in the 2000s and now. Ok, let’s roll.
WHY SO UNPOPULAR?
For the record, there’s nothing wrong with the current president’s
rating falling towards the end of the term.
Obama was in the same boat: polls were favorable in the beginning of his tenure,
but by his third year he had more opponents than allies.
Which didn’t stop him from being elected for the 2nd term.
Biden’s in a worse situation, however.
His approval rating is lower than any other president’s
at the same point in the last 30 years.
Biden’s rating is in a nosedive indeed.
Politico studied 13 election polls over the past
month from various organizations to find out
that 11 of them showed Biden’s approval decrease
compared to previous polls by the same organizations.
Americans are asked whom they are planning to support, Joe Biden
or his most probable Republican adversary, Donald Trump.
Trump’s result 4 years ago was similarly low, but Biden is slightly worse off.
To assess Biden’s odds to be re-elected, let’s take a look at reasons for his unpopularity.
There’s one solid reason why people lose trust in Joe Biden.
It’s his age.
Biden is the oldest president in U.S. history, he’s turned 81 recently.
On his day 1 in office, he was already older than Ronald Reagan after two terms.
And age isn’t just a number:
the internet is full of videos of Biden mumbling, tripping, and failing otherwise.
Biden’s supporters naturally call such criticism ageism.
However, the U.S. President is arguably the most important job title in the world,
and the candidate has to be in a good shape.
We won’t make or deny any diagnoses here.
But let’s admit, there’s nothing shocking about an 81 y.o. man
being not as sharp as younger self.
And voters find this fact worrying, rightfully so.
A possible counterargument is that Trump isn’t a young buck either at his 77.
In such circumstances, it’d make sense for the Democratic Party to nominate
Also, Biden took blows from global conflicts.
First, there was Afghanistan.
The decision to end the war was taken by Trump,
but the troops withdrawal began under Biden.
This decision itself was popular among the Americans,
but the execution was messy and resembled a leg bail.
Under Taliban’s pressure,
Americans evacuated 10s of thousands of civilians and military personnel.
The collapse of the Afghan army wasn’t Biden’s fault,
but the chaotic withdrawal operation happened under his command,
and voters naturally held him responsible.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine followed.
At first, the U.S. stated that the aggression will not stand,
sent aid to Ukraine, and subjected Russia to severe sanctions.
The American public supported it.
The war dragged on, however.
The front has stalled, and the opposition Republicans began asking,
“Where does the money go?”
Support of Ukraine isn’t a significant blow to the U.S. budget.
But what does it look like?
Imagine, “We’ve got our domestic issues, meanwhile the president funds an overseas war!”
This doesn’t add to Biden’s popularity.
With the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, Biden had no safe political options.
The Democratic Party coalition consists of both zealous Israel supporters
and advocates of Palestine.
Biden’s decision to side with Israel angered the leftists within the party.
On the other hand, if he supported Hamas
(an impossible scenario, but we discuss the issue from the party’s inner politics angle),
he’d rightfully displease the party’s centrists.
Could he remain neutral? Then he’d vex everyone by inaction.
Whichever decision he made, he’d lose some support within his party.
And that’s what happened:
left-wing democrats go as far as calling him a genocide enabler. Which affects ratings.
What about the economy?
Under Biden, gas prices in the U.S. skyrocketed and boosted inflation.
By now, both issues have been solved, and the economy is doing well.
Unemployment rates dropped, wages are on the rise,
and inflation amounted to mere 3% instead of 8-9% last year.
But it’s not the reality but the voters opinion that matters.
Over the past years Americans got used to thinking life’s turned for the worse.
True, the president doesn’t personally control the economy,
and there’s no omnipotent “Make it alright” button.
But the president is the country’s main public figure,
and he’s held accountable for economic crises.
If the growth continues, people will likely
notice positive changes and begin associating them with Biden.
As of now, voters consider Biden the reason for spending more.
And people’s financial wellbeing is the voters’
most important criteria for government evaluation in a democratic country.
NO ALTERNATIVE
Overcoming Biden’s challenges as a candidate may seem a tough and tedious work.
It may seem that there’s a much more simple and elegant solution:
to nominate another candidate.
Like, “Why do we need an unpopular president, can’t we find someone else?
Someone young, promising, unsullied, someone better than Biden.”
True, there’re other candidates.
Rumor has it, they’re about to enter the primaries
and defeat old Biden for Democrats’ delight.
Let’s have a look at these “potential winners.”
The current CA governor Gavin Newsome is often considered a presidential candidate.
Never has there been a more American politician:
he even looks like a character of House of Cards or Designated Survivor.
Newsome’s chances look decent: he isn’t politically radical,
he governs the most populous state, the bastion of the Democratic Party.
He’s aware of his capabilities as a presidential candidate,
and even does something reminiscent of an election campaign.
For instance, on Nov 30, he partook in TV debates with a Republican candidate Ron DeSantis.
But does it make sense for Newsome to run now? That’s another question.
Politically, Newsome is rather young, much younger than Biden or Trump.
He’s got time to run for president, and he may indeed do so in 2028.
But nominating himself now would be an odd move.
Newsome is a core part of the Democratic Party that supports Biden
as an incumbent president who runs his own election campaign.
To nominate himself against Biden now would mean
getting at sword’s point with the party elites.
At the same time, his chances to win the primaries aren’t that high.
No one has succeeded in defeating the current president
from their own party over the past decades.
Those who tried only sparked conflicts within the party
and negatively affected its overall public image.
Newsome is aware of that, and refuses to nominate himself.
If he wishes so, he’ll be a decent and promising candidate next time.
2nd possible candidate did run against Biden in the primaries.
It’s Robert F. Kennedy Jr., or RFK Jr., a nephew of president John Kennedy
and senator Ted Kennedy, and a son of the Attorney General Robert Kennedy.
He ran against Biden in April.
RFK Jr.’s issue is that he’s known more as an anti-vaxxer than as a politician.
His main occupation over the past decades has been fighting against vaccines.
Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, RFK Jr. blamed vaccines for causing autism.
The outbreak of COVID-19 gave him a confidence boost:
he accused the U.S. government of conspiring against
the common folk by controlling them via vaccines.
This summer he blurted out, “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people.
The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”
RFK Jr. is also notable for his AIDS conspiracy theories:
he speculates that HIV may not be the cause of it.
That attracts conspiracy theorists to his camp,
who traditionally prefer voting for Republicans.
Democrats, however, dislike RFK Jr. even despite his big last name.
At some point RFK Jr. leafed through survey results and figured out
he stood no chance at defeating Biden in the primaries.
He revoked his nomination as a Democrat.
He didn’t give up on the election whatsoever, and ran as an independent candidate.
Which doesn’t bode well for him either:
the U.S. two-party system leaves practically no chances for independents.
This system has its history that we won’t discuss here.
Independents are somewhat cursed:
let’s say a Democrat supporter doesn’t like Biden,
but voting for a third party would mean losing a vote.
Same goes for congressional, gubernatorial, and other elections.
Independent RFK Jr. is still included in the opinion polls.
In an October survey by Reuters he got 14%.
The question is, who will Kennedy take more votes from, Biden or Trump.
Perhaps Trump, given RFK Jr.’s conservative views.
Nevertheless, independent candidates tend to lose support closer to the election day.
Another candidate from the Democratic Party’s left wing is Cenk Uygur.
He’s a famous journalist and the presenter of The Young Turks, a progressive political talk show.
Uygur isn’t a potential or former candidate, he’s officially running a campaign against Biden.
But he faces two problems.
Firstly, despite being a prominent left-wing activist, he lacks political experience.
In the last two elections, Bernie Sanders was the Democrat's leftist candidate.
Despite his advantages, he failed to overcome the centrists, Hillary Clinton and Biden.
Inexperienced Uygur will have a tougher time.
This pales in comparison with his second issue.
Cenk Uygur doesn’t qualify to run for president legally.
The U.S. Constitution requires the president to be a natural-born citizen:
born in the U.S. or to American parents.
Uygur, however, is a naturalized citizen.
Uygur is at work suing, calling his exclusion unconstitutional.
Trials will take years, and it’s improbable Uygur will be allowed to run this year.
There’re a few other potential candidates,
like popular Democratic governors:
Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.
None of them seem to rush for the presidency though.
Their reasoning is the same as Newsome’s:
there’s no use in ruining the relationships with the party
over slim chances to become the president.
There’s also Jill Stein, the Green Party’s leader.
But as we mentioned earlier, a third party candidate has roughly zero chances of success.
Which means there’re no real alternatives to Biden in the primaries.
WILL BIDEN LOSE?
Despite the rumors about Biden’s replacement,
if he doesn’t resign himself, he won’t face
any significant obstacles at the Democratic primaries.
Obviously, it’s possible that 81 y.o. Biden will have to resign for medical reasons.
However, he has access to the world’s best healthcare,
it won’t be that easy to put him out of action.
Biden’s prospects for defeating Trump aren’t rosy now,
but the election is almost a year ahead.
Politically, it’s a long time, both Biden and Trump will get into scandals.
A new war or crisis may break out.
And it’ll affect the incumbent president Biden’s approval rating.
Trump is still quite unpopular among Americans.
Him not being the current president responsible for the state of affairs works in his favor.
There’s not much of him on TV, unlike during his term.
But after the primaries he’ll be in the spotlight again as a Republican candidate.
Americans will be reminded how chaotic this character is,
which shouldn’t give him extra points.
It seems like the 2024 presidential election will be
two unpopular candidates competition again.
This happened in 2016, when Trump won simply because Hillary enjoyed even less support.
Let’s see who’ll emerge victorious in the unpopularity contest this time.
See you tomorrow.