Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill
Some problems are mounting, but a majority see America on the right track
A new poll casts doubt on the hell-in-a-handbasket theory
A new poll casts doubt on the hell-in-a-handbasket theory.
The Associated Press survey yesterday gave President Biden a 63 percent approval rating. And 54 percent say the country is going in the right direction, the highest level since Trump’s first year in office.
Sure, the breakdown on that top number is 96 percent approval from Democrats, 23 percent from Republicans. And on handling the pandemic, 71 percent give Biden a thumbs-up, including 47 percent of Republicans.
Now maybe the poll is an outlier. A spate of recent polls, including one by Fox News, gave Biden approval numbers in the low- to mid-50s. But taken together, these snapshots certainly don’t suggest a president who is off to a terrible start.
Biden, somewhat on the defensive, spoke at the White House yesterday about the pipeline attack and insisted America is climbing out of "a deep, deep hole." He played up the 1.5 million gain in jobs since he took office rather than the just 266,000 created in April, and stressed such efforts as the checks going to 16,000 restaurants under the Covid bill.
The White House is also making what looks like a last-ditch effort to compromise with Republicans before another go-it-alone venture on the Hill. Biden aides are signaling through the media that they’re ready to do a "traditional" infrastructure deal with the GOP—on such projects as roads and bridges--for a price tag far below $2 trillion.
If that happened, Politico reports, Biden would take everything else—health care, community college, family tax credits, tax hikes on corporations and the wealthy—and roll it into a party-line reconciliation bill. But even if Biden can get a bricks-and-mortar measure through the Senate, the more liberal House may balk at settling for a much smaller bill.
The Republicans, for their part, are trying to "caricature" the Democratic Party "as extreme and out of touch with mainstream America," the New York Times says. Among their targets: Packing the Supreme Court, the Green New Deal, and defunding the police.
Well, Biden isn’t going to pack the court, having punted by announcing a judicial study commission. His environmental proposals aren’t on the level of the AOC dream. And most Democrats don’t want to cut police budgets; in fact, Jim Clyburn is talking about compromising on such measures as "qualified immunity" for officers.
In pushing a combined $6 trillion in new spending, the president is pursuing a far more left-wing agenda than he pushed in the campaign. But the GOP’s problem is that giving out goodies is pretty popular. That’s why they’re chasing such fringe movements as defunding the police.
It will take just a few setbacks in a few months to convince a majority of the public that the country is actually on the wrong track. A lot of people are still hurting. But for now, that argument is as lame as the horse that may not have deserved the top spot at Churchill Downs.
Some problems are mounting, but a majority see America on the right track
A new poll casts doubt on the hell-in-a-handbasket theory
A new poll casts doubt on the hell-in-a-handbasket theory.
The Associated Press survey yesterday gave President Biden a 63 percent approval rating. And 54 percent say the country is going in the right direction, the highest level since Trump’s first year in office.
Sure, the breakdown on that top number is 96 percent approval from Democrats, 23 percent from Republicans. And on handling the pandemic, 71 percent give Biden a thumbs-up, including 47 percent of Republicans.
Now maybe the poll is an outlier. A spate of recent polls, including one by Fox News, gave Biden approval numbers in the low- to mid-50s. But taken together, these snapshots certainly don’t suggest a president who is off to a terrible start.
Biden, somewhat on the defensive, spoke at the White House yesterday about the pipeline attack and insisted America is climbing out of "a deep, deep hole." He played up the 1.5 million gain in jobs since he took office rather than the just 266,000 created in April, and stressed such efforts as the checks going to 16,000 restaurants under the Covid bill.
The White House is also making what looks like a last-ditch effort to compromise with Republicans before another go-it-alone venture on the Hill. Biden aides are signaling through the media that they’re ready to do a "traditional" infrastructure deal with the GOP—on such projects as roads and bridges--for a price tag far below $2 trillion.
If that happened, Politico reports, Biden would take everything else—health care, community college, family tax credits, tax hikes on corporations and the wealthy—and roll it into a party-line reconciliation bill. But even if Biden can get a bricks-and-mortar measure through the Senate, the more liberal House may balk at settling for a much smaller bill.
The Republicans, for their part, are trying to "caricature" the Democratic Party "as extreme and out of touch with mainstream America," the New York Times says. Among their targets: Packing the Supreme Court, the Green New Deal, and defunding the police.
Well, Biden isn’t going to pack the court, having punted by announcing a judicial study commission. His environmental proposals aren’t on the level of the AOC dream. And most Democrats don’t want to cut police budgets; in fact, Jim Clyburn is talking about compromising on such measures as "qualified immunity" for officers.
In pushing a combined $6 trillion in new spending, the president is pursuing a far more left-wing agenda than he pushed in the campaign. But the GOP’s problem is that giving out goodies is pretty popular. That’s why they’re chasing such fringe movements as defunding the police.
It will take just a few setbacks in a few months to convince a majority of the public that the country is actually on the wrong track. A lot of people are still hurting. But for now, that argument is as lame as the horse that may not have deserved the top spot at Churchill Downs.
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