Americans Really Don’t Like This President

By Charles C. W. Cooke

Wednesday, September 06, 2021

 

One wonders if Joe Biden has noticed yet that Americans just don’t seem to like him very much?

 

Yes, yes, yes, they liked him enough to elect him over Donald Trump. But they did so narrowly, and without delivering the sizable majorities he clearly believes he deserved. And, now that he’s president, they seem deeply, deeply unimpressed.

 

Per a Quinnipiac poll released today, Biden’s national approval rating is 38 percent. Among independents, it’s 32 percent, with 60 percent disapproving of the job he’s doing. Biden is nine points underwater among Hispanics, he’s six points underwater among women, and he’s polling at only 66 percent among African Americans.

 

Earlier this year, Biden argued that Americans should ignore Washington, D.C., and look to the country in general when determining whether he was the “uniter” he promised to be:

 

The White House wants to change how people perceive bipartisanship, arguing that if they put forward proposals that are backed by Republicans and independents, they should be seen as bipartisan even if GOP lawmakers in Washington don’t vote for them.

 

I think we can dispense with that idea. Biden’s approve-disapprove rating is 4–94 among Republicans, it’s 32–60 among independents, and it’s 80–10 among Democrats. If Americans in 2021 are “united” around anything, it’s that they disfavor Joe Biden.

 

And how. By a margin of 56–41, Americans say that Biden lacks leadership skills. By a margin of 54–42, Americans say that Biden is incompetent. By a margin of 50–44, Americans say that Biden is dishonest. Worse yet, there’s no issue on which Biden is doing well. His approve–disapprove on COVID-19 is 48–50; on the economy, it’s 39–55; on his leadership of the military, it’s 37–58 . On taxes, 37 percent of Americans approve, while 54 percent disapprove; on foreign policy, it’s 34–58 percent; and on immigration, it’s a startling 25–67 percent. That last number is particularly interesting because, if you look at the cross-tabs, you see that Biden is underwater on immigration amongst Hispanics by 46 points, 23–69.

 

And no, it’s not “just one poll.” In the RealClearPolitics average, Biden is at 44.6 percent approval — the lowest of his presidency thus far. Since the debacle in Afghanistan, Americans have been gradually losing faith in the president in every way that it is possible to lose faith in the president. As Biden gears up to pivot to his absurd, destructive, and thoroughly uncalled-for spending bill, he might do well to stop for a moment and realize that it’s not “them,” after all.

 

It’s him.