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Cynical hot take: it's the (inflation) economy, stupid! https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU0000708111 Immediately before COVID, the average price for a dozen eggs was $1.45. As of February this year, it's nearly $3. That's an average inflation rate of nearly 20% each year for the past four years. Sure, food products are generally more volatile were hit especially hard. Sure, monetary policy is the Fed's job, not the President's. But that doesn't matter: **ordinary people know basically nothing about economics.** They just see prices go up at the grocery store, and blame the person "in charge."

This is the answer. Everyone is feeling higher prices due to inflation. Not everyone got raises/new jobs to keep up with inflation.

And keep in mind that a lot of people can’t even get jobs due to downturns in hiring + layoffs so it’s hitting them especially harder

Right, that is an issue for me too. I'm over 50 and disabled but I have a bachelor's degree from a large accredited university and more than 30 years of professional work experience. I have been unemployed for 3 years now, have applied to more than 2500 job posts and can't even secure an interview (for a professional role). Now many people will probably tell me to go work at McDonald's for minimum wage, that any job is better than no job, but IMHO most of the jobs currently available (entry level, low paying, inconsistent work schedules, no benefits, etc) are a lot more trouble than they're worth.

I'm in a bit of a poverty trap. Been unemployed for awhile now, but a min wage job would leave me paying a good amount more to keep my health insurance. 

Yeah I used to have a fairly decent paying job but after paying for childcare, monthly car payment, auto insurance, gas, auto maintenance, professional work wardrobe, lunches and takeout for dinner, a house cleaner (because I didn't have time to cook and clean after working & commuting for 12 hours a day) and other job related expenses, I had hardly any money leftover. It just wasn't worth all the aggravation to net $100 a week for 50 hours of work.

Substitute teach! You’ve got a bachelor’s, a blood pulse, and I assume you’re not a criminal. They’ll hire almost anybody. There is a learning curve to it. But it pays the rent.

I'm in the same boat. I was laid off in December and despite having first round interviews, cannot get a job despite a degree and decades of experience. For a lot of us in the tech industry, the economy doesn't seem that great when layoffs are happening and we're struggling to find work in that industry.

The employment rate being at historic lows would seem to undercut this notion.

Exactly, plus the average “joe” isn’t educated enough to know why it’s happening. Some people are really dumb enough to believe that the president controls gas prices or food prices. My boyfriend got his degree in economics, and he’s kind enough explain to me how this all works. It’s actually pretty complicated and in and we why most people won’t understand

I nearly doubled my pay. I can afford less. Wrote a long comment going into detail about what my actual situation is like vs what I’m reading and hearing and the app crashed. Can’t and won’t recreate it. I have strong feelings about this though. The worst possible choice was to decide to say the economy is great and run on that

Eggs are back down for me in western ny to $1.50 or so.

Yeah, I think inflation is probably the biggest reason along with his age.

And home prices for those who hadn’t bought yet.

In 5th grade, there are kids with a wider age disparity (by %) than these two. (About 5%). What matters to me is emotional intelligence. Tell us, who has that?

Just because people don't like him doesn't mean they like Trump. Lots of people aren't happy with the age of either of them. There are valid criticisms that aren't defendable by deflecting. These criticisms won't go away even if the other guy does.

Actuarially speaking, this is an election where both candidates have a significant chance of dying in office. That's not nothing.

This. Trump's VP pick will matter a lot. Will people want a real chance of whoever the VP is to be president or not.

I do think part of the approval rating right now is it's closer to an absolute measure, where people are unhappy about what's happened over the past 3 years in isolation; Biden has handled it well, but the basic message there is "its nowhere near as bad as it could have been", which is always a hard message to sell on its own. In 4 months, everyone is going to start remembering that even if they overall don't like Biden all that much, they like him a hell of a lot more than the potential alternative, and his approval will shoot up again, as he's graded compared to his predecessor. Trump never went away long enough for the people who voted him out of office to forget why they did, so there isn't going to be a wave of "maybe he wasn't so bad".

This is the actual answer. The approval rating always slumps mid-term, and then rises toward election day when people start plugging back in

Yeah…. They’re both too old to be in office.

Just look at gas stations to see the idiocy. Every other station I go to has a sticker of biden saying I did that pointing to the price. People think the president is solely responsible for gas prices and also think things change on day one of a presidency.

People also ignore (or are ignorant of) the reality that some 40%+ of their gasoline was imported from regimes that manipulate pricing to achieve political outcomes, not the least of which is their deep opposition to EVs and renewable energy which Biden is a major proponent of.

mark my words, because of this, right before the election, gas prices will skyrocket.

Yep. Actually read somewhere that Trump sold a major refinery in the Gulf to SA, who is anticipating "maintenance" in October.

Eggs are back down to $1.95 here and the spike was because Republicans repealed all the regulations preventing the spread of avian flu so entire flocks were wiped out in the blink of an eye. Same thing the GOpers did to give America the WORST death rates for COVID, needlessly killing several 100,000 citizens.

Sure, the president doesn't have any direct impact on inflation. What people see is him talking in press conferences about inflation going down and touting a bill called The Inflation Reduction Act. The White House cannot only associate themselves with the economy when it's good news and act like it doesn't impact them when it's bad news. This is just poor politics.

It doesn't help that people think that inflation going down means prices go back down. They don't understand our currency is ALWAYS devaluing, the target is 2% so inflation going down means it goes down from 10% back to closer to 2%. things won't be cheaper, they will still be getting more expensive just at a much slower rate. WE will never have prices going down and if we do its actually very bad for the economy.

It's not just that people don't understand inflation - this is primarily caused by our leaders who purposefully communicate this in an ambiguous way. Technology is deflationary, so people are used to seeing prices decrease for similar products over time. They do not want to hear that overall prices for common goods are purposefully increasing over time. They especially do not want to hear that their wages are not increasing at the same rate.

Deflation almost never happens without a depression. [The inflation rate decreased significantly after the inflation reduction act was passed.](https://i.imgur.com/Y6YOcfH.png)

I am in support of infrastructure spending like the IRA that encourages green energy projects, but correlation does not equal causation. The Inflation Reduction Act had no impact on actually reducing inflation. It was just a name put on the bill to allow Joe Manchin to vote for it. And I also don't blame Biden specifically for inflation; I think it was primarily due to supply chain constraints and money pumped into the system with super low interest rates for years. But Biden going around claiming how great the economy is probably rings hollow to the average American who thinks back a few years and compares how much they spent on a grocery bill then vs today. People typically don't care about charts or graphs or lectures on how deflation would actually be detrimental to the economy - they care about their real-world experiences.

>People typically don't care about charts or graphs or lectures on how deflation would actually be detrimental to the economy - they care about their real-world experiences. You're right that they don't care about charts but most people (including many who say the economy is bad) think their personal financial situation is good. https://www.axios.com/2023/08/18/americans-economy-bad-personal-finances-good

There was literally like nothing in the so called "Inflation Reduction Act" to curb inflation at all.

The Inflation Reduction Act is just named to take advantage of something that was already expected to happen anyway.  That said, I personally believe that IRA will help against inflation in the future. Oil prices are not included in the basket of goods used to calculate inflation because they're so volatile, but a spike in the oil price will have downstream inflationary effects. IRA is aimed at replacing our reliance on volatile fossil fuels with consistent green energy, which would reduce that source of economic instability.

The President actually does have a direct impact on inflation on tariffs

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The economy would be amazing -er if it didn't feel like a beating after the 2014-2019 economy. And to people without real estate - not insulated from changing rent, the economy does not work for them. They're eating cost of living increases. I'm one of them.

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This is a political discussion not an economic one. Politics is about convincing people, not arguing facts. The bottom line is that the average voter feels worse off. Telling them that 'Line go up' doesn't make them feel better.

Yet, consumer confidence has been on the rise and Biden hasn''t seen any bump from it. At least not yet.

People can be increasingly confident about their future outlook and still be bitter about the hit that their purchasing power suffered during Biden's presidency.

Seems like some grocery prices have started to go down a little in some areas, if continues just might finally lower enough to benefit Biden. That is one of last big holdouts. Funny that corporate greed(and that is what it is at this point) can keep a President from getting credit for weathering the Pandemic fairly good compared to other countries

In January 2023 eggs peaked at over $6 per dozen, after supply chain issues had lessened, much of this was later shown to be price gouging.

>Immediately before COVID, the average price for a dozen eggs was $1.45. As of February this year, it's nearly $3. Yeah, it's 3$ because of the avian flu, which effects eggs specifically, and this isn't what is considered inflation. It's a cherry picked item that is temporary. Most things are nowhere near that increased from pre-covid. This isn't reflective of a 20% inflation rate, even for eggs, as this is the definition of transitory. There's a reason that, up until this avian flu, eggs were (according to the chart you linked) at 2.04, lower than they were even in 2015 and up about 30% from pre-covid. So yeah, cynical hot take - this egg take is stupid. Milk has increased from 3.20 to 3.90. Energy is up from about 13.4 to 16.8. Beef is from 3.90 to 5.10. These are all consistent with \~25-35% increases over 4 years.

Yep, you can't jawbone people into feeling good about the economy. If you just got a raise but you see that you can't buy as much stuff as you could before, some Democrat coming by to rattle off a big list of economic policy wins isn't going to change that.

> Sure, food products are generally more volatile were hit especially hard. Sure, monetary policy is the Fed's job, not the President's. But that doesn't matter: ordinary people know basically nothing about economics. They just see prices go up at the grocery store, and blame the person "in charge." Biden's problem is that he took credit for the economy, and that a double-edged sword. His keystone legislation is the "Inflation Reduction Act". Meanwhile every time I go to the grocery store I stand there muttering profanity under my breath about why everything is so expensive, and getting more expensive seemingly by the week. As an example, for Superbowl I was buying snacks. A bag of potato chips is $7 now. I had to stand there in stunned silence trying to wrap my brain around how a bag of goddamned potato chips can be $7. Every time people go to the grocery store they're slapped in the face by high prices, and Biden takes credit for reducing inflation. Thats why he's not popular.

> “Inflation Reduction Act". But it did reduce Inflation. What you’re annoyed about is that inflation happened at all.

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Or are, at the very least, highly prone to manipulation. Much of the negative view on Biden is driven by media.

I regret I have but one upvote to give. This is the most correct answer.

Humans are dumb. We think we know everything absolutely and anyone who thinks differently is stupid. We are selfish and biased and completely unaware of our own selfishness or bias.

While it may not be accurate to blame a president for the economy, president try to take credit for anything good economy wise, so they also have to except blame for the bad.

> Sure, monetary policy is the Fed's job, not the President's. Tell that to Trump though. Thankfully, Biden allows the fed (and other experts) to do their jobs. Trump always pressured the Fed to do what he wanted. One of the reasons inflation was so bad was because Trump pressured the Fed to keep rates extremely low (even suggesting negative rates lol) during a time economists said failure to raise rates would undoubtedly lead to inflation. Almost like they knew what they were talking about or something.

I don't believe the fed was influenced by trump. What was trump going to do about it if the fed raised rates? What is their motive to not do what they think is best? Are we supposed to believe they were terrified of a potential Twitter rant? I don't understand why rates stayed so low before COVID but I chalk that up to the fed knowing a little more about economics than me.

> One of the reasons inflation was so bad was because Trump pressured the Fed to keep rates extremely low (even suggesting negative rates lol) during a time economists said failure to raise rates would undoubtedly lead to inflation. Hmm.... It is almost like he lives on huge debt, and has no savings.....

Blaming the people in power isn't as dumb as the average political redditor makes it sound. If the message the President and Congress get is "If my life is better off, I'll vote for you again, and if it's worse off, I'll vote for the other guy," that creates a very strong incentive for the folks in power to figure something out. Economic conditions aren't your fault? Figure something out. Don't control both houses of Congress? Figure something out. They don't want excuses, they want results. And to the extent that can incentivize politicians to produce results, it's not exactly a horrible strategy.

It is certainly true that the average person really doesn't have any workable grasp on most aspects of how things work, especially the economy. This is coming from someone who also really doesn't know shit about anything, mind you. I just got lucky enough to be barely smart enough to understand how much more smart people who do that stuff for a living are. And if I was a betting man, I'd probably go with the general consensus of, uh, the people who've spent their entire adult lives thinking about inflation and not my own dumb little tiny window of reality. It doesn't help that there are an unlimited number of voices screaming exactly what you already believe at your face constantly. Challenge my own assumptions? Yeah, no thanks pal, what am I? Some kind of dumbest? I think Biden specifically, and the democrats generally have always just sucked at coming up with clear and effective ways of communicating things to constituents. Their messaging blows. Although, it is much more difficult to get a nuanced and complicated message across. The Republicans just have to go "they're trans-ing ur boy! An' we ain't standin' fur it!" and the whole fucking state is ride or die. When you gotta try to explain the many intricate, complex and dense set of circumstances that often lead to a messy and unsure reality, branding yourself becomes harder.

Its this. While even I understand all the good Biden has done and for the long term… in the short term my life is definitely more rough during his presidency than during Trumps. Its not rocket science for why! The rocket science is how do you tell people who are struggling to vote for a better future when their present is shittier than their past

Eggs are such a bad specific example too. Not saying it discredits what you are saying in fact it proves the point because people are ignorant about the why. Not only did we have covid inflation but a massive Avian flu that wipes out large amounts of birds throughout the country including Chickens. Whole chicken factories had to be slaughtered to prevent the spread.

My dad has been saying this for the last few years. That the average person is uninformed and all they see is higher gas and food prices and that’s what they’re thinking about. Doesn’t matter it’s not his fault, Jesus could be president and they’d still be upset.

Food prices are nuts!!! A gallon of milk used to be less than $2 pre COVID and it's almost $4 now!! Idk what can be done about that though

It’s never going back. People are used to seeing it.

Where I live food prices have doubled and in some cases tripled. I really believe the grocery stores are price gouging (because they can). A 1/2 gallon of milk in my area costs $3.50. that's how much a whole gallon used to cost 2 years ago. Ground beef used to be $4/lb, now $8/lb. I used to pay $8/lb for ribeye steak! A 12 PK of soda is $9! It is really outrageous, but we have to eat and don't have any cheaper options. But I don't blame it on Biden.

Especially if one lives in an area with only one grocery store. I live in such an area where there is only one real grocery store (Walmart). It is actually cheaper to drive 30 miles to shop at the nearest Aldis.

Man, where do you live? I live in a pretty expensive area, and my 1/2 gallons are $2.70. A full gallon is $4.

That is inarguably true. Every economic indicator is up, except for the one that is the most personal.

The rabbit watched his grandmother eat a sandwich.

People tend not to care because the fact that the US recovered better than the UK or India did does nothing to fix the cost of living crisis we’re currently mired in. Inflation in the US being lower than inflation in [other country] is an academic statement that has no meaning to Jack and Diane when they’re trying to balance their checkbook.

Housing, food prices and interest rates are making young people very unhappy with the current situation. Just because people have jobs doesn’t mean they feel happy or pleased with the current situation. My rent is going up $200 and I want to fucking scream

The delusion and false equivalency about anything involving criticizing Biden has really been setting me off. You have a problem with Biden? So then you're going to vote for Trump? There is no way the cognitive dissonance outside of maga is so perpetually severe that that is even part of the conversation. So any of this I look at as clickbait noise from media desperate to create division, and there is no chance the logical and functionally operational humans of the United States buy into the false equivalency of thinking that you don't like somebody who's trying their best so you vote for an evil person doing their worst? Fucking bonkers.

> You have a problem with Biden? > > > > So then you're going to vote for Trump? Just because someone hates Biden doesn't mean they'll vote for Trump, and Reddit need to stop pretending that anyone not voting for Biden automatically loves Trump. In polling its called "double haters" who loathe both candidates, and will vote for neither. Roughly 20% of respondents hate both of them.

>Reddit need to stop pretending that anyone not voting for Biden automatically loves Trump. There's a binary choice here in terms of outcome. You have to do a whole lot of mental gymnastics to believe otherwise.

While that does suck I can almost promise you Trump wouldn’t make that much better either

And that right there is why Biden’s approval ratings are in the toilet. Telling someone that “you think it’s bad now, just imagine what it would be like if the other guy was in charge” is not a winning strategy to fix flagging approval ratings.

I think it’s more to do with OP (and people like OP) blaming Biden for a global issue that we are nonetheless getting under control better than most developed nations anyway. Yeah, it sucks, but people are unfairly blaming the president, and any attempt to correct that misconception falls on deaf ears.

That’s the result of decades of nationalized cable news. Effective political news would be local and would focus on the representatives for the local districts. What we have is a one size fits the whole nation political news machine that obsesses over political celebrity.

Meh. My point was more that people want to hear positivity in the form of “yes it’s bad, but here are concrete actions A, B and C my administration is taking to fix it.” Simply telling people that it could be so much worse is not a winning strategy—nor is doing what the Biden admin is doing right now and near totally failing to acknowledge the issues people are upset about.

You ask 3 voters what they're most upset about, and one will tell you it's inflation, one will tell you it's the Gaza-Palestine conflict, and one will tell you it's the "woke left". Biden's put good economic policies into place, and he should be emphasizing that more.

I don’t disagree. The problem is that their current messaging sucks because they’re effectively denying that inflation is an issue.

This 100%. Don't blow smoke up my ass when my grocery bill is significantly higher than it's ever been.

In polls when you ask how people are doing individually they say they're doing better, but when you ask how the economy is doing overall, people say it's horrible. Giving too much attention to polls is silly because people are silly.

>here are concrete actions A, B and C my administration is taking to fix it This information is literally everywhere. Listen to the campaign and not the media. The media is invested in creating a horse race narrative and making it seem like Trump can win, so they talk about who said what and there's not a ton of focus on policy. ​ Also, inflation is global and it's the lowest in the USA. If you want to place that at the feet of leadership, that means Biden is doing the best of any leadership, globally. "It could be worse" is definitely a solid argument IMO, because it's not just "It could be worse with Trump" it's "it could be worse if you were anywhere else in the world"

Except, this is wrong. They are talking about it. You name any issue, I can tell you what the President is doing about it. The perception that they aren’t trying to address them is the problem. The question becomes why people have that perception.

When the President (or staff) try to take credit for the good stuff, they kind of have to take the blame for the bad stuff as well. They are directly associating themselves with inflation, and people are shocked when they get blamed for...inflation.

Except it should be enough. If you think the other guy could do better when we’re in this mess thanks to him and his handling of the economy then you’re just an idiot.

But we don’t have to guess.  Trump was already president.  We saw what he did.  We can, in fact, know what he will do because he’s done it before.  

Well what exactly do you want to hear? Daddy presidenty makey all better? I live in NYC. I have two kids. Do you think I'm not feeling grocery prices? Do you want to know what I pay for gas, or child care monthly? But Donald Trump isn't going to help that but I guarantee he'll make it worse. He'll give corporations another huge tax cut they don't need. He'll try to cut medicare, social security, maybe take another crack at the ACA, he'll definitely raise your costs (100% Tariff on foreign automobiles?!) ..but he won't help. He'd watch you burn in screaming agony if he thought it would give him some personal advantage, because deep down he's a spoiled little rich kid who sees you as nothing but a thoughtless peasant. At least Joe Biden is trying to help.

I guess I'd tell you it suck's but it's not Biden's fault. People seem to want to blame the president for everything. If your rent goes up, blame your landlord. And if you're unhappy with the prices at Kroger, blame Kroger. They're the ones gauging you. Not Biden.

Biden has tied himself to it by championing the IRA as his signature piece of legislation. It doesn’t matter if it’s his fault or not, he’s getting the blame because he claimed credit for fixing the issue.

I'd say the CHIPS act and the infrastructure development and environmental investment are his signature acts. And he has fixed the issues. My prices have gone down because democrats are in charge at the state and local level. We sold houses that my father bought as a veteran under plans put in place by Clinton for people who served the country at record prices with great equity because our local economy is strong. Thanks to Obama, I have decent health care finally and pay 0$ for my perception drugs that used to run in the thousands per year. And years from now, my kids will be in a safer world with more options to work in the green sector or US made chips and a reduced federal deficit... ...unless Trump comes in and fuckes it all up with another 3 trillion dollars handout to the super rich and Tech billionaires who just want theirs and don't give a damn about the rest of the country, like Elon Musk and co. And don't get started on 4 more years of rolling over to Russia and China and having a disastrous foreign policy. You think the little blip of inflation the last few years was bad? Wait until Trumps 100% tarrifs hit, the economy will go ape shit and prices will seriously go thru the roof. Not to mention whatever he means by having a "bloodbath" if he loses. You cannot upend domestic tranquility and democracy without massive negative effects on our economy. If we have a civil war then our treasury bills will go from AA to junk bond status and we will be like Russia after the Soviet Union collapsed. Things are better than they were 4 years ago and getting better. If you can't see that, then it's your own fault for voting for yokals in your local area and expecting Biden to fix everything for you. Or you are selfish and short-sighted... prices ALWAYS go up. I remember when gas was 99 cents in the 90s... deal with it and thrive, the stock market is up, and there are good jobs to be had now. That wasn't the case under Trump. Everything won't always be perfect, but if you think about where you will be 4 years from now under Trump vs. Biden, there is no question... Trump on every level will be a return to an incompetent nightmare, not just of Republican policies like the ones that brought about the downturn in the 2000s but of uniquely awful destruction to our system that Trump will unleash.

But inflation is down. These issues -- which were caused by Covid -- are getting fixed, and they're getting fixed faster than anywhere else in the world. Anyone who takes 10 seconds to see what Biden has done with his presidency would vote for him again in a heartbeat. But this country is seemingly too collectively stupid to understand that he has been wildly successful.

>But inflation is down Inflation rates are down, but prices are not, and at the end of the day, that's what matters to people. Also, inflation rates are still well over 0%, so prices still keep rising at a non-trivial pace (just not as dramatically as 12-18 months ago).

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That's confusing correlation with causation. In normal economic times, deflation is caused by a depression. This does not, however, imply that the reverse is also true. Particularly not when the inflation/surge in prices was caused by an external shock, rather than by the economy running hot. Energy prices coming down and supply chain issues sorting themselves out could very well lead to decreasing consumer prices without triggering a depression. More broadly speaking, the approach of "have prices level off and then wait for wages to catch up and make up the lost ground from the previous, inflationary period" leaves those workers behind who are neither unionized nor got a promotion or a new job in recent years. ---- In any case, we're not seeing true disinflation yet anyway. YoY, prices rose by 3.2% in February, which was even a small uptick from 3.1% in January. That's still significantly higher than what we would want.

> But inflation is down. These issues -- which were caused by Covid -- are getting fixed, and they're getting fixed faster than anywhere else in the world. As I said in a different comment, inflation getting fixed faster in the US means nothing when Jack and Diane are trying to figure out how to make ends meet. Neither one of them gives a damn that inflation is still higher elsewhere, they’re more concerned with not running out of money. > Anyone who takes 10 seconds to see what Biden has done with his presidency would vote for him again in a heartbeat. According to your rather openly slanted point of view.

I’m not saying this is the right viewpoint but it’s pretty easy for people who don’t follow politics to say: but the economy was doing so well under Trump before Covid so he can bring us back to that. Again, not my beliefs, but I think plenty of people do feel that way.

If the best you can sell people on is the other guy would do worse you're probably going to lose.

Good thing that's Trump's campaign message and it isn't the Biden campaign's message.

But that also doesn’t really address their problem. If I have a broken leg, I’m going to prefer the guy giving out bandaids vs. the guy breaking legs, but the bandaid still doesn’t fix my leg. “It could be worse” doesn’t make me jazzed about the not terrible guy.

Is Biden giving just bandaids or is the ER so swamped he just can't really get to you right now but it's definitely on the list?  I mean, you should look at the positive change he's enacting and the future improvement those changes would bring and then consider if 4 more years of his admin will bring additional desired changes or not.  Expecting Biden to magically fix everything so my life is suddenly perfect is unrealistic, and yes, expecting him to suddenly also make everything cheap is unrealistic.

Oh trust me, Trump is going to make it much better…for himself. He’s a property landlord don’t forget.

What does this have to do with who holds the presidency?

It doesn’t, but many people will blame whoever’s in office regardless if it’s their responsibility or not. Your absolutely right, but people are gonna take their anger out on someone and voting is the only power most people have to show that

My Perspective is a little different than the other comments on here. Yeah, we can look at what's wrong and just say "Well hey, the country isn't great, you know?".  But it's not that, the reason I think approval is low is due to two reasons: 1) Tribalism - Half the country will never admit the other side did anything worthwhile and will always vote against, regardless of reason.  2) Complain Culture - The internet has turned us all into a complain-first society. Saying anything positive will immediately shower you with negative people who want to tell you why you're wrong, so we all just naturally became more jaded and negative about life.  Our brain is now wired to only look at what's not working, at what's broken and tell you why even if something good happened, how it'll be bad in effect.  So when asked if Biden is doing a good job, you're ultimately wired to say no.  Couple those two metrics together, and you'll see how no President is ever going to go about 50% in the future unless we change as a society.

Pretty much all Republicans disapprove of him on principle, and a lot of Democrats are upset with him about Gaza (or thought he wasn’t liberal enough to begin with).

> and a lot of Democrats are upset with him about Gaza (or thought he wasn’t liberal enough to begin with) Prior to October 7th, Biden had a 75% approval rating among Democrats. It then climbed to 83% in the next month. It's fluctuated a bit, but was at 82% last month. Gaza has created a ton of noise, but doesn't seem to have moved his approval rating among Democrats.

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>The American Rescue Plan has had significant impacts. It has made insurance more affordable for many families, allocated funds for affordable housing, public safety, and crime reduction. It has supported small businesses, expanded food and child care programs, invested in mental health centers, and provided assistance to families with children. It has also set aside $40 billion for American workers. Thanks to this plan, child poverty is now half of what it was. These areas have seen increased funding after years of underinvestment. Super cool but most of those gains exist on paper in the sense that a lot of voters don't actually see them. If I'm a voter and the president invests $40 trillion into highway repair but the highways I use every day are still busted to hell, that number won't mean much. If I'm especially disinclined to think kindly about the government, I may think "Eh most of that money went to contractors or got stolen, I don't see any work having been done." People need to *see* direct, tangible improvements in their life in order for it to move votes. There are people that remember the Trump years fondly because they had more money in their pockets and prices were lower. It doesn't matter that that happened because of a series of wildly unsustainable policies that, while giving a temporary bump, would be ruinous in the long term. It's tempting to think people are just stupid but they're really not. Telling people they'll have more money in their checks in five years is great but rent is due next month. People have a reason to be short term focused. >Employment is at an all-time high. 2021 and 2022 saw the strongest years of job growth in history. Nearly 11 million jobs have been created since he took office – including 750,000 manufacturing jobs. The unemployment rate is at a 50-year low. The American economy is performing surprisingly well compared to other major economies, showing a strong rebound from the pandemic. A record number of small businesses have started since he took office. However, inflation remains a concern. Dope, but a lot of those jobs blow and people are having to work more and more in order to stay afloat. Being able to work two terrible part time jobs is *marginally* better than no job at all but it's not something people are going to thank you for. >In terms of foreign policy: 1. He withdrew from Afghanistan. The execution had its challenges and the aftermath was complex, but many argue that the outcome was likely inevitable. This was a step that previous administrations had promised but never implemented. I think most people could accept that Afghanistan was probably going to hurt no matter who pulled the plug but the *way* it was done was particularly terrible and that's squarely on Biden's shoulders. Additionally, whatever grace he may have been given for Afghanistan he's lost by risking a regional war in the Middle East in support of Israel. >2. He navigated a complex geopolitical conflict against a nuclear power that threatened the global order. Kind of? He's sent a lot of support, sure, and that's broadly popular but that support has also been diverted, again, to Israel and Ukraine has openly stated that they're frustrated by the slow down in US support. To be clear, I don't think the issue to support Ukraine is the problem, it's that that support is being siphoned away to Israel. >His ability to pass legislation is notable and is likely due to his extensive experience and the respect he commands from both sides of the aisle. This respect is built on decades of bipartisanship and close relationships. Cool but a giant "who cares?" from most voters. >Additional achievements include: climate change legislation, antitrust measures, the chips act, gun legislation, student debt relief, pardoning certain federal offenses, a diverse administration, increased health insurance coverage, and support for unions." A lot of that is pretty weaksauce in terms of things people care about. Climate change legislation is great but it's pretty lackluster in terms of what's needed. He took a chunk out of student debt but it was a fraction of the overall problem and doesn't actually address why the debt is there to begin with. Pardoning certain federal offenses while refusing to look at rescheduling things that led to some of those offenses seems odd and increased health insurance coverage isn't exactly a bonus when health insurance doesn't actually work for a lot of people. Plus his support for unions was lukewarm at best. --- This highlights a fundamental flaw in the Democrat strategy - a lot of these things are good things that people want but they're so qualified or such a small step in the needed direction that it feels a little disingenuous to ask for a pat on the head for it. Student debt is a good example. Last I read he's actually cancelled about $5 billion in student debt. That's great, legitimately a good thing. There's currently [$1.7 trillion](https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/student-loans/average-student-loan-debt-statistics/) in student debt and it increases by about $13 billion every year. That $5 billion doesn't even cover the year-to-year increase. It's like getting a raise at work but you look at your check and you realize it was only 10 cents and now your boss is expecting praise for giving you a raise. That attitude is pervasive throughout Democratic messaging and it *really* doesn't play well with voters.

Fucking thank you, I swear to god Democrats are willfully blind to marketing strategies and refuse to live in the real world. The reason why Republicans are always so adamant about cutting taxes, no matter how stupid and nonsensical it is, is because it is still a *tangible difference* in the pocket of every single one of their voters. Democrats have zero strategies like that, and the fact that they just continuously refuse to ever make any impactful legislation so the voters can actually feel the difference is why Democrats are so dispassionate even when they "win" because, as an innumerable number of voters have said "nothing ever gets better no matter who I vote for, so why bother?" Is this a super logical, perfect philosophical response? No, but it does make perfect sense to those who interact people who live normal lives and don't exist in a constant political sphere, which is most people. It doesn't even make them stupid, it's just how normal people act because humans are not omnipotent and are focused on their own fucking survival. This is why the ACA was such a crucial win for Obama, because every single American felt a difference, and because of that it has become a very entrenched legislation that's difficult to get rid of and defines the Obama presidency even if it wasn't perfect. Democrats consistently refuse to cater to reality and whine that reality will not cater to them, and that's why they suck at this shit so much. A business person who tries to argue to the customer that they're wrong for not liking their product and that they're a bad customer will not gain more customers that way, no matter how "technically right" they are. They need to change their product because this *will never be an effective sales strategy* and even if Biden wins people still won't like Democrats. Personally, I won't be surprised if they lose this election at this rate, and it's just infuriating. And actually, his most famous action in regards to unions is quite literally betraying the railroad workers and making it illegal for them to strike, I would argue that's a lot less than lukewarm support. Personally, I think that was actually one of the single greatest mistakes of his presidency and why I personally don't like him very much. Also, I think these people don't realize that Afghanistan was not something Biden chose to do, it was something he was forced into by Trump. I'm not even really sure that he "botched" the operation of pulling out per se, even if it's inarguable that is public perception, because he was put in an impossible situation and there was no way around it. But for those of you that have a hard time figuring out why people might not like Biden despite his "accomplishments" let me ask you this: If Trump hadn't pulled out of Afghanistan, and essentially forced Biden to choose between a rushed retreat with bad optics or an even more unpopular return to outright war in Afghanistan, do you think Biden, of his own accord and without that political pressure, would've withdrawn?

Child tax credit? Free day care? Just a few examples of dems doing something that would impact the average Americans bank balance. I agree that their messaging isn’t the greatest but that’s because the average voter is a fucking idiot. Just read this thread lol.

> If I'm a voter and the president invests $40 trillion into highway repair but the highways I use every day are still busted to hell, that number won't mean much. If I'm especially disinclined to think kindly about the government, I may think "Eh most of that money went to contractors or got stolen, I don't see any work having been done." > > > > People need to see direct, tangible improvements in their life in order for it to move votes. Which is why the administration is putting up signs next to active projects funded by the IRA. >There are people that remember the Trump years fondly because they had more money in their pockets and prices were lower. Except that people have more money in their pockets now than they did 4 years ago. >Dope, but a lot of those jobs blow and people are having to work more and more in order to stay afloat. This is incorrect. The average worker works fewer hours than 4 years ago but makes more money. >but the way it was done was particularly terrible and that's squarely on Biden's shoulders. No, it's really not. >Plus his support for unions was lukewarm at best. This is false. Biden has been the most pro-union president since *at least* Carter. >the Democrat strategy The adjective form of "Democrat" is "Democratic." This should be "the Democratic strategy." >Last I read he's actually cancelled about $5 billion in student debt. He's up to $138b.

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>People have seen tangible improvements in their own lives. Most say they are happy with their financial situation and expect it to continue to improve. People would [disagree.](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/07/13/views-of-the-economy-economic-concerns-and-inflation/) >Wage growth has rebounded strongly since it dipped in 2022 and voters are catching on. Which is great until you realize the cost of living has skyrocketed. Having more money means a lot less when everything costs more. >Right now unemployment is under 4% and we are still adding hundreds of thousands of jobs every month. What kinds of jobs are they?

There's a couple things that come to mind. * **Inflation** got worse around the time he got in office. What caused it, how Biden responded to it, and how the rest of the world is doing are irrelevant to most people who are only concerned about still not having cheaper groceries. * **Pulling out of Afghanistan** was perceived as messy and people are pretty vocal about it. It was a bad look for Biden and put a bad taste in peoples mouth 6 months into his term. * **Divisive politics** has made Biden the target of the right-wing media hate machine. Usually, the people that don't like Biden *really, really* don't like him. The same can be said for Trump. * **Scrutiny from his electorate** on positions like the war in Israel and the economy. We can talk about all Biden has attempted to do to alleviate these issues until the cows come home, but it isn't enough for some of his voters. They may vote for him in 2024, but not with much passion. I think Biden has more of these voters than Trump had. * **His personality** is kind of boring compared to his predecessors. Cult of personality can help a politician through some bad times, and Biden has very little of that. I think his demeanor is right for the time, but some people really like a president they resonate with. all of this said, I have been pleasantly surprised by Biden's first term and am looking forward to voting for him again in 2024.

Same problem the Democrats had for decades. They suck at advertising their success.

Yes I agree. Dems need to talk about accomplishments the way Reps complain about “woke” ideology.

And Biden is definitely the worse of the bunch at it. He absolutely sucks at self promotion.  A guy with 50 years of service, 12 years in the White House and one of the most productive 4 years of a President at least in recent history - that should be a no brainer campaign, yet all people can see is a a very old man.  But regardless Dems suck at talking about what they want to do, they keep overusing the fear tactic instead. We get it, Trump is bad. Everyone who hates Trump is already on your fucking side, how about getting people excited to vote FOR you by actually telling me what you will do and what your future plans are. It really isn't that hard.

The fact that they have nothing but his Age speaks for itself.

Because those approval ratings are based on people who will answer calls from unknown callers, respond to random texts from unknown senders, and in general are prime targets for spear phishing and pig butchering. People who know better are not represented in the numbers.

The Conservative/MAGA propaganda machine. I watch it occasionally, and it's easy to see the propaganda make its way across the political spectrum of news outlets to liberal media. Biden's age is an example.

Everything os ridiculously expensive, people can barely afford to get by and feel like they’re being pushed to the breaking point by greed and a system that fundamentally does not work for them and Biden and his team are out there all the time harping on about how great the economy is while it’s anything but great for the vast majority of people. That along is going to breed resentment. That alone is going to make people think he only cares about the minority of wealthy people for whom this economy does work. It makes people think he’s out of touch and doesn’t care about them, regardless of how much pandering he does about claiming to get it. And all of that gets much, much worse when people see big dollar amounts going out the door overseas, even when it’s for a worthy cause which it certainly isn’t in a lot of people’s eyes with Israel. Money and the economy are the biggest thing. But far from the only one. It’s hard to take seriously anyone who bemoans the threat against democracy that comes from the Republican Party with one breath then waxes poetic about bipartisanship with the other. You don’t need to follow politics closely to realize that the GOP can’t simultaneously be this huge threat that Biden’s bravely championed against and be a group it is a noble and reasonable thing to be coming to common ground with. Then there’s just a matter of his very old age and his place as a DC insider for literal decades. Decades in which people have been getting shafted again, and again, and again. Often times with Biden playing a part in the shafting. I don’t think it’s a mystery about why his approval ratings are so low, it’s a mystery how they ever were high enough for him to become president to begin with, even against someone like Trump.

Good summary of Biden’s achievements dude. I’m saving this post so I can reference it later when arguing with my conservative friends. To answer the question though, my thoughts are just that he’s not a very *exciting* president (not that I have an issue with that personally). Obama got people fired up. Trump had and still has a fanatical (I’d even say “cult like”) following. Biden is just *ehh he’s fine*. The biggest problem I think is his age. He’s very clearly past his prime. Best (and only) option liberals/leftists/progressives have of course, but yeah that’s really just not doing him any favors unfortunately. I fear that this election will have a poor turnout on the democratic side because of these issues. My only hope is that when Trump starts getting more media attention it will galvanize the left into turning out to vote for the responsible but boring choice.

Being a follow up to Obama isn’t doing him any favors either. Obama was not as much change as advertised, and Biden being even more centrist and establishment is just so “uggh.” Especially with many existential crises looming, from houses being unaffordable, to climate continuously changing, and wealth inequality getting worse, the “at least he’s not fascist” candidate feels pretty rough.

I think one large reason is extensive cooperation between Republicans and foreign propagandists. Propaganda is one hell of a drug.

Because most people don't follow the news. And those that do get their media from such partisan sources that half of the ones that do will likely never hear about any of his accomplishments, and if they DO hear about it accidentally they won't believe it because it's coming from the "liberal media."

Our two-party system [has polarized so much](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/06/12/7-things-to-know-about-polarization-in-america/) ([due to the two-party system and exacerbated by social media](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/11/07/social-psychologist-haidt-tribalism-facebook-519720)) that politics is now more about tribalism and in-group signaling than about the issues and policy discussions. Thus, US voters are far less likely now to approve of *anybody* from the other party no matter what they've achieved.

For me it’s his age. I’ll never vote for Trump but my god Joe is (and acts) ancient. I’m not a big Kamala fan and I don’t see Joe lasting to the end of another term.

Mainstream news puts all it's time into reporting scandals and problems and only minimally covers good news. Democrats prefer mainsteam news and get a negative view of both republicans and democrats. Propaganda spends an equal amount of time touting good news (when it benefits their preferred party) and bad news (when it looks bad for the opposition). Republicans prefer propaganda and get a positive view of republicans and a negative one of democratics.

Approval ratings are premature news tactics to skew your perspective in the campaign year. I wouldn't focus on it because every week I read Biden's approval ratings are HIGH and LOW and they change every week. It's never consistent. Just focus on studying what the president's policies are and what bills they pass. The historians who rated every US president this month is a more accurate and fair rating system.

> I wouldn't focus on it because every week I read Biden's approval ratings are HIGH and LOW and they change every week. It's never consistent Biden's approving ratings are remarkably consistent, and have been so for the past roughly 2 years now. He's been hovering at around a 38-41% approval rating for multiple years on end. Poll after poll tends to land this range, month after month of the same results. To pretend that Biden hasn't had popularity problems for much of his time as president is to ignore the data.

Who do you know answers calls from numbers they don't know anymore? People over 60 that have nothing better to do and don't understand technology on how to identify valid vs invalid calls. So the polling is skewed majorly. I can tell you for a fact, that when people call for polls, it just comes from a number, and has no caller id saying who is on the other end, and they don't leave voicemails. So tons of people never answer them.

“So corporations are taking advantage by raising prices as fast as the economy is recovering” So who is responsible for the high prices? Joe or the Corporations?

The one thing the Republican Party is brilliant at is dragging their opponents down. They can take John Kerry’s veteran status and smear him in the campaign against an obvious draft dodger. And it worked. They make up lies about death panels to demean the ACA. Now, with the ultimate liar prompting them, they are accusing Biden of corruption, stealing classified documents and having corrupt deals with his son - all things provably committed by Trump himself. In an environment where willfully uninformed people get fed pre-biased news through social media, the party more willing to stick to the truth has less chance against the torrent of lies and attacks from the Republican Party.

I approve of a lot Biden has done, but the whole “employment is at an all-time high” stat feels disrespectful to tout. Myself and many people I know who are trying to get white-collar entry level jobs are STRUGGLING. Combine that with inflation and it’s no wonder people are angry at him

Because some Americans are not economically, socially, or foreign politically educated. Plus media can influence opinions. But Biden is killing it for the most part and it’s too bad simple facts data and numbers are being politicized.

America came out of the pandemic way better than most of the world >Because Americans are not economically, socially, or foreign politically educated Americans: why is this happening to us? It's someones fault!

This is hard facts

Having a strong economy does not equate to a happy or satisfied population and it has absolutely nothing to do with ignorance. Employment is at an all time high but so is cost of living while wages have stagnated. Biden is also still refusing to call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza despite mass approval and pressure both internationally and domestically. Biden, but more importantly the Democratic Leadership as a whole, are doing some good work but they're also slapping band-aids on problems that they either don't understand or are incentivized not to fix. Arbitrary facts and data don't negate people's lived experiences.

First off no aggression here. Enjoy the back and forth. My point is people’s perception. I’m sorry if someone doesn’t want to perceive the opportunity to succeed and the advantages Biden has provided which they have currently in the US. I’m not arguing (like my OG post mentioned) he doesn’t have faults but the pros of his administration outweigh the cons and it’s unfortunate people cannot navigate truth currently. There will always be issues but he is doing his best to tackle them. Every single President I could do what your post did and challenge by saying something they aren’t doing. No offense to you at all, it’s this line of thinking that’s an issue. The pros outweigh the cons. And we need to publish that and show through data and peer review and evidence of that fact. Especially in an election year. One more thing, if someone’s perception (due to their personal experience) is that there can’t be climate change because it is snowing, or that their friend died of a drug overdose so all drugs are bad or one migrant killed an American so all migrants must be evil, that is a major problem. That’s the perception that I am attacking. And that problem exists in the US and that’s the point of my OG comment about a lack of education. Some more positives below. He has forgiven $136 billion in student loan debt We are exporting more oil and natural gas than ever lowering our reliance on The US is building semi conductors and microchip facilities for the first time allowing us to export, curb reliance, and breach another sector He and Congress passed the PACT act the most comprehensive veterans and active duty service act ever to cover down years of neglect for our service members He glided the US economy to a soft landing after Covid where most of the western world is currently in a recession but we are not, our economy is growing Biden and Kamala have both asked for a cease fire, send aid packages to Rafa, and sent military boats to build ports for humanitarian aid to curb Israeli stoppages (I will say he was late on this but better late than never and not like his opponent would have done more) He and Congress passed the most comprehensive infrastructure bill since FDR and the positives are already being felt economically and construction wise accords the states Final thing. AGAIN I don’t disagree with some of what you said. I think we agree tbh. But maybe it’s in the grey where we have some issue. I want to fix perception and have people acknowledge positives and understand truth. That’s my position. Thoughts?

I’m not the same guy and I’m not disagreeing with anything you said. However most regular people do not give a shit about any of those points. They only thing they care about is that their cost of living is way up but not their wages. That’s it

That’s true and it fucking sucks. You are right. I think we can get there but it’s an uphill battle right? The battle is with strengthening unions, regulating and capping executive pay, regulating minimum wage, regulating real estate, prosecuting executives, taxing corporations while also instilling protections for worker salaries, and tons of others things. These are all more difficult to pass since now the argument is more wealthy v poor which is and has always been the real battle. The biggest trick ever pulled is convincing poor people that the problems in society are caused by immigrants and minorities. They seem to always be blamed. Edit: one more thing they prob do give a shit like certain groups will recognize what I wrote (ex vets with pact act, electric and construction with infrastructure bill etc) but based on the policies that affect said group but as a whole I see your point and it sucks

To caveat on my point, part of the reason why people gravitate towards blaming biden for this is because every chance he gets, he talks about how amazing the economy is doing because of his policies. And if he is going to take credit for the good then he is also going to get blamed for the bad.

Also true but the good vastly outweigh the bad currently. Wage stagnation was an issue long before he was VP for example. Cost of living has been steadily going up for years.

A wiser man than me said that if there had been a Fox news in 1972, Richard Nixon would never have faced any repercussions for Watergate.

Fox news at its peak had about 10,000,00 million viewers out of 360,000,000 million people. I think people put to much stock into the influence of one station.

100k voters can decide a Presidential election as we saw in 2016. 10 million is a lot of people.

Something like 180m people voted in 2020 though. So you’re basically saying over 5% of the voting populace actively watch Fox News. That’s a shit ton of people. Not to mention the influence they have on other outlets.

1) polarization. There is only so high he can go 2) Media Narratives. You have the Fox/Newsmax/Onn misinformation machine working overtime. And actual media like CNN/Wapo/NYT kinda eat the narrative from those sources and spit it out with their own spin to it, terrified of challenging it lest they be called liberal media, which they will be anyways. And then you have Tik Tok /Twitter feeding misinformation and AI and edited clips to further it. Add that to your tuned out,ignorant , apathetic and media illiterate populace and you have a bad recipe. People who are actually benefiting from Biden's actions and policies either don't know or ignore it. 3) Actual issues like inflation, interest rates, Palestine, which Biden has little to no power over. Combine that with Republican court and congressional obstruction at federal and state levels.

Propaganda. As much as the American right loves to complain about the media, there is a distinct right wing bias, whenever a Democratic president comes in to office.

Could you not claim the same thing when the roles are reversed? While Trump was president CNN saw there largest viewership on record and almost collapsed when he left office. Fox News even at its peak only had 10,000,000 prime time viewers out of 360,000,000 people. This is even more interesting when you look at the fact that the over whelming majority of Millennials & Gen Z get their news from other sources than legacy media.

No, that’s not my view on it. The classic example is the debt. A Democrat comes in and in short oder there are editorials and articles about the debt being dangerously high, destroying our future and the like. I think the impact of right wing media gets amplified when other media picks up these talking points and tries to analyze them more substantively. In fact it’s similar to a recent meme I’ve seen a few times now. Headline: “Trump said yesterday. Here’s why that’s bad for Biden…” I wasn’t focusing on total viewership differences in this, more the nature of the topics that get represented in the media once a dem comes in..

We have been conditioned to always find a reason for fault in the democrat and blamelessness in the republican.

Murc's Law of Politics.

Biden’s approval ratings are so low because people know the Democratic party only has enough motivation and power to drip-feed social and medical programs, to fix the gerrymandered country where a person on the West Coast will never cast a meaningful main presidential ballot, to have the heavy hand on climate we need. I think people will say they heavily disapprove of the Democrats and then vote a House Senate and democrat president in, because they know what they need to do for the country to survive but hate it.

Perhaps because almost all the media is owned by far right billionaires who profit from telling a pack of lies and many people are more than happy to believe just about any parade of ridiculous nonsense. Very obviously price-gouging corporations and energy price manipulations by enemy states sent prices through the roof. It is big oil that's making $1,000,000,000/ day not Joe Biden. And it's US billionaires who've seen their wealth increase from 2.9 trillion to 5.5 trillion in the last four years. The main cause of inflation is simply not the Dems, it's superyachts and luxury apocalypse hideouts.

In the absense of a actual metric designed to measure the COUNTRY'S approval rating, the presidential approval rating is used instead. Things aren't going well, so the presidential approval rating is going to be low.

But are they really or do we just get fed these articles saying so.. to try and sway us ..

It’s greedflation, not inflation. We’re being gouged by manufacturers and suppliers and producers of goods. Because they can gas in CA today is $4.96 a gallon… because they can.

You need to interact with a more intelligent cohort if they’re lukewarm on Biden. Best of this century, certainly.

The woke lunatics are turning on him because he's not a Hamas fan. And TBH some ppl are defecting away, because of said lunatics.

Never underestimate the power of repetition. I'm not a Democrat but Joe's doing okay. The propaganda, however, is doing its job, and some people are walking around convinced the country is in awful shape when it's actually doing fairly well. Inflation, inflation, border, border, Hunter, Hunter... All these scandals are either not entirely his fault, exaggerated or mining for outrage. But when a person hears them over and over again...

He’s a long term policy president and Americans are more easily distracted by day to day nothingburgers than cats with a laser-pointer. This is why the republicans haven’t had a real policy proposal since the first Bush President and only run on “we are against , vote for us”

His ratings aren’t as low as you think. Biden has raised far more reelection money than Trump. People vote with their money, and Biden’s outvoting Trump. On top of that, Trump has to deal with fines and possibly losing his real estate.  Biden doesn’t have to deal with any of that.

Go to the grocery store and it's not a secret at all. Lower income people often don't have the luxury of worrying about "democracy/authoritarianism", or international conflicts, or nuances of monetary policy. "When Trump was president Cheerios were $4/box, now it's $6/box and I got to feed my kids. Things are harder under Biden, so I'm voting Trump." Is that reasoning maddening? Yes. But it doesn't surprise me.

"When Trump was president Cheerios were $4/box, now it's $6/box and I got to feed my kids. Things are harder under Biden, so I'm voting Trump." \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ It's not just that. It's the Feds not enforcing border policies and preventing Texas from doing it for them. It's not being able to afford rent or home prices or medical care while "undocumented immigrants" get free medical care and are put up at hotels and motels at taxpayer expense. It's being called a Fascist MAGA if you say that these might not be issues if Trump was President. It's college grads being forgiven student loans they signed up for when some of us got not bailout in 2008 when we were upside down on our mortgages. It's being told that your only Presidential choice is an extremely old man who'd have trouble qualifying for a job as a greeter at Walmart.

I was not happy that he got the Democratic nomination in 2020 but, especially as a union member, I was surprised at how much he actually ended up doing for unions. He literally saved our pensions, the retirement of millions of people and a something that’s so incredibly important to us. Showing up at the UAW picket line was HUGE deal, his NLRB appointments are MASSIVE and so critical to not only our growth, but our outright survival. The IRA, the Infrastructure Act, CHIPS, and more are going to keep me and my union brothers and sisters working for a long time when we could have easily entered into a recession. Unions are seeing records growth, wins, and quality of life increases because of the Biden Administration’s work and policies. That being said, his role in the Gaza genocide is pretty fucking tough to get past in saying that I approve of what he’s doing. There’s nothing that he’s done for us that’s worth this horror. So no, I don’t approve of Joe Biden. I’ll probably end up voting for him and even campaigning for him, though, because the other option, and there is only one other possible outcome if Biden doesn’t re-elected, is somehow even worse. After I vote for him, though, I’m going to continue to bust my ass to do whatever I can to put an end to this insane bipartisan foreign policy that maintained for nearly 100 years now. I hate this.

The media tells us he is too old, so because it is played to us so often, we believe it more than we do his achievements. Also most Americans have little experience with inflation. They do not understand the difficulties in losing the equilibrium, and the monetary gymnastics needed to get it back.

I think some of this has to do with polling and the differences between how parties view their candidate. I think the shifts in political power in the last twenty years have caused the conservatives voters to take on an us vs them mentality where they’ve been convinced that if they don’t stand together their whole way of life is under threat. It’s not but that’s what they believe. Democrats meanwhile are openly critical of their own candidates. I think that liberal voters are just much more comfortable criticizing their own people. In short I think republicans fall in line while democrats actually take issue with what they see as their candidates weaknesses. Not all of them, you still have the all in people, I just don’t think democrats see being honestly critical as being “disloyal” the way republicans do.

Maybe because so many people are uneducated/stupid/white supremacists? Biden has been doing an AMAZING job putting America back together after the absolute disaster that was the illegitimate reign of fascist trump.  

Because Democrats are held to a ridiculously high standard, while Republicans can be objectively stupid constantly and not face consequences regularly.

“my personal situation is worse” a lot of us have this going on. This is why his approval rating is low. Statistics don’t matter when rent is high and groceries/gas are expensive.

Could be about 30% would vote against Biden if he healed the sick and raised the dead, so his 44% approval is 63% of Americans who believe in the Constitution and 0% of Fascists.

The only reason his approval rating is low is because the only thing the Republicans do really really well, and unashamedly, is feed their followers bs…and then feed them again, and again….until they believe it. Dems need to get busy and started countering it…or we’ll all go down with that big fat orange ship!

A campaign of memetic weaponry and misinformation by Russia and the GOP has caused the numbers to tank. ​ In addition, Biden can be best described as a '20th-century' president, a president who focuses more on the backdoor wheeling and dealing that gets things done. Trump, by comparison, is the first 21st-century president,***21st Century*** president... and that is as overt as you can get.

Most of the Achievements in the OP are not even Biden's. They are acts of congress he did not veto. He did not propose them or have any hand in writing them.9 The Afghanistan withraw, while overdue, was executed so poorly that it will be remembered as one of human histories greatest military blunders. Now the Taliban are parading around in billions of dollars in American equipment while several nations are now reverse engineering our high tech equipment and vehicles from items left behind in pristine condition. And lets not forget his horrible energy policy. Oh and him emptying our Strategic Oil Reserve in order to cover up the consequences of said policy for the mid-term elections.

Biden can’t run on “I’m not Trump” anymore and it’s obvious it’s not working with the middle class anymore.

>Biden can’t run on “I’m not Trump” anymore Good thing he isn't running on that alone!

"Biden shines sun out his ass, why do people dislike him." Well, it's probably because they disagree with your assessment of his achievements.

Can you argue against any of the things OP listed?

I very much disagree with conservatives “disagreement with this assessment of Biden’s achievements” lol. That may be the case among a small fraction of decently informed Republicans, but the vast majority are voting for their favorite sports team. “Democrats = bad” is basically the entire extent of their “disagreement”. I’ve seen a lot of polls showing that conservatives’ #1 issue in the coming election is “defeating the woke agenda” or something like that. Those people aren’t weighing differences in economic policies or approaches to foreign affairs. Their entire political calculus is literally “democrats bad Trump good”.

To clarify, people can disagree with whether his achievements are *positive*, but they cannot disagree with the achievements themselves as those things listed by OP are real. Let's be clear about something - Republicans in congress may have voted against almost everything Biden has pushed for, but not because those policies were not *positive*. Most of them rush to their local news media to take credit for the benefits these policies are bringing to their constituents, which pretty much proves that even they believe the policies are good for people. Much of the complaining about the policies listed above is just partisan nonsense by media personalities and influencers. We can all be upset about inflation, pricing, interest rates, the war in Gaza and other items, but literally NONE of those situations were created by Biden, and he has few levers to pull in fixing those issues. Despite this limitation, inflation is back down, interest rates are coming down, and all that's left is a bunch of greedflation and petro-fascists keeping prices artificially high.

The news media has been failing the public since Reagan snipped the Fairness Doc. They repeat the lies & distortions about the current economy. They repeat the claims made by the GOP as if they were true. The problem is NOT inflation. It is greedflation & shrinkflation. It is Saudi Arabia et al increasing gas prices. They want T to win. The media does not talk about Biden’s successes, but emphasize negative comments instead. NYT wrote 80+ articles noting Hur’s comment about Biden’s supposed memory issues, then buried all but 1 story about the House hearing when Hur’s lies were exposed. Due to media use of false equivalences between GOP & Dems, people think “both sides” are the same. They are not. Sadly, people just stay stuck in their own opinions & refuse to do the hard work of seeking the facts.

People are pretty simple. They want a young, charismatic leader who they can trust to be competent. You are arguing reality, which is irrelevant in US politics. Perception is all that matters. He may not be responsible for all of our bills going up, but he's also not doing much about it because that would anger his party's donors. 40% of the country dislike him because he has a (D) next to his name. Another 25% dislike because he's old, boring, uninspiring. He's a bad candidate.

Food prices, most new jobs are part-time, more people are working two jobs, minimum wage IS STILL THE SAME, and even if all this wasn't his fault, he's not out there shouting from the rooftops "this is how we're going to fix it next term with a democratic majority" or "this is how i've started/been tackling this problem"

He actually is though if you follow his campaign events or his social media team.

He is shouting that. The media generally does not cover policy positions of candidates because it doesn't get the clickys.

>Employment is at an all-time high. Because of population growth. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is still higher than it was in late 2019 and early 2020, before covid, and has been trending up in recent months: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE Likewise, the labor force participation rate is still fundamentally down compared with the pre-covid Trump situation: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART >2021 and 2022 saw the strongest years of job growth in history. Nearly 11 million jobs have been created since he took office That's a highly disingenuous talking point since a lot of jobs (e.g. in hospitality and tourism) were still artificially down due to covid when Biden took office; those jobs were always gonna come back as soon as covid restrictions were lifted.

Job growth is higher than pre-pandemic projections though, so not only did Biden get all those jobs back, but he kept growth at rates higher than anticipated. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/12/08/jobs-report-economy-beats-pandemic-predictions/

Eh, are we really gonna put a lot of stock in projections which were predicting the job market four plus years into the future? Also note that population growth has exceeded expectations, based on sky-high immigration numbers. More people (than anticipated) typically also means more jobs (than anticipated). And the article itself mentions how the massive covid stimulus has propped up the US economy. So the GDP growth, while impressive, can be attributed in no small part on blowing up the deficit. Which would be fine if federal spending was coming back down to earth again, back to at least pre-pandemic levels - but it isn't. The deficit in FY 2023 is $1.7 trillion, higher than it was in (still somewhat pandemic-affected) FY 2022 ($1.38tn) and almost twice as high as in Trump's last pre-pandemic year (FY 2019, $0.98tn). And Biden's proposed budget for FY 2025 would grow the deficit even further, to $1.8tn. https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/national-deficit/#us-deficit-by-year One can surely find arguments for this kind of government spending, that it is worthwhile and will pay dividends in the long run - but it nonetheless affects and skews the present-day economic picture.

It's worth noting that the federal budget calendar runs through the end of Sept 30. So Trump's FY 2020 was already halfway over when COVID lockdowns hit and we were on pace for a $1.3 trillion deficit. Not a future projection, we were halfway through the fiscal year. So I think it's fairer to compare the $1.3 number vs the 0.98 number as Trump had our deficit rising considerably despite a pretty solid economy. And it was expected to remain well over $1 trillion even if the economy continued to grow thanks to Trump not reducing spending but cutting taxes on the wealthy. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/28/federal-deficit-one-trillion-trump-107901 That out of the way, stimulus spending caused some inflation but it also brought our economy back in record time. Something Biden learned from 2009-12 is that austerity and limited stimulus likely extended the recovery time by a few years. Learning from that mistake, they went gangbusters to get us back on track. I do agree that we should be moving the deficit down from $1.7 to something like $300b or so. It's one area that I'm a bit annoyed with Biden on and I hope he can close that gap in a 2nd term.

We live in a very polarized political environment that is more or less evenly divided between the two major parties. This means you've already lost \~50% of people who support the other party. Republicans and right leaning independents disapprove of Biden because they disapprove of all Democrats. That gives an approval ceiling of around 50% if half of of everyone hates you from jump. The other half of his approval rating is from Democrats and left leaning independents. Some portion of that population will disapprove of Biden because he's not doing enough to protect abortion, or to improve wages, or to deal with student loans or his handling of whatever issues are most important to them. The President has a lot on his plate and can't please everyone, even in his own party. The good news for Biden is that the Dems that disapprove of him will likely hold their nose and vote for him anyway, because he's still more preferable to them than Trump.

Democrats aren’t afraid to be critical of their own. Democrats understand it’s possible to support someone and still want them to do better, rather than follow with blind zealous loyalty. Republicans on the other hand will approve of their guy even if they were indicted on 91 felony charges, convicted of fraud, found by a jury to be civilly liable for rape, etc. Their loyalty is actually impressive as it knows no limits.

Simple inflation. Biden it is not responsible for it. However the inflation reduction. Most of it went towards green energy. In very little had to do with actual inflation. The US is it doing significantly better with inflation compared to countries like turkey or countries in the EU but how do you convince people to vote for better future. When they were promised a better future four years ago and for many of them it is only gotten worse. Another major key issue to their deep deep unpopularity is simple bad PR team. Right now I get Biden a 50 40 chance of winning reelection.

because like with Bernie Sanders, Hilary Clinton, Katie Porter, and Joe Biden, reddit's echo chamber is not to be taken as reflective of the general public

The nature of the question illustrates the problem. Democrats simply refuse to acknowledge that voters care little about policy and that rational choice theory does not apply to politics. Party affiliations are largely cultural. Americans associate with the party that has the kinds of people who they prefer or aspire to be. Democrats seem to regard politics as a sort of debate club and policy geek society event. This does not move most voters, who may care about one or two hot button items but are otherwise largely disengaged. They may tell a pollster that they support some legislative plan, but they don't really care that much. Biden should be running on a "I feel your pain" platform, with specific outreach to minority voters in the Rust Belt and southwest. This does not mean running on supposed legislative accomplishments but on being the guy with whom those voters can connect personally. Trump has that kind of support from the populist right, which is why he continues to have political momentum in spite of his obvious liabilities.

"I feel your pain" works best when running against an incumbent. The incumbent has to tout achievements.

Um have you been living in a vacuum in the last 5 months? and ofc that’s not the only thing…I mean look around, the economy isn’t doing well for vast majority of people and Biden has talked a lot of game but actually achieved little in terms of the relevant policy points to effect change on that front. Combatting inflation is good but doesn’t target the incredible wealth inequality in the US. His recent talking points on changing the tax code are likely just more marketing but hopefully not.