Democrats and Public Perception
Why I take election predictions with a grain of salt
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Yesterday I answered a call I normally wouldn’t, from an Iowa number I didn’t know. It was an election poll. I answered questions about what candidates I’m voting for in my home state. Then came the inevitable “How well do you think President Biden is doing?” It got me thinking, again, that he’s the best president of my lifetime.
I’m sure we’ve all seen the articles about people who don’t want Biden to run. According to the polls, a lot of people would probably say I’m using strong language in my favorable opinion of the president.
I believe my reasons are justified, though. First, there’s the absence of negatives. So far, the Biden-Harris administration hasn’t really done much that I disagree with, executively or legislatively. Nor has the Democratic congress, as far as they’ve been able to without a 60-vote threshold.
I don’t personally benefit from the partial student loan relief or lower Medicare drug costs, but I’m okay with it. It’s nice to see campaign promises fulfilled. Nor do I have a problem with executive action on climate change, ghost guns, or marijuana conviction expungements.
Here are some things that come to mind when comparing the Biden presidency against other Democratic presidents. President Clinton’s signing of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which enabled the rise of fake news by allowing people to buy as much of the media sector as they could afford, overshadowed a lot of his accomplishments, for me. While Biden-Harris has not banned fracking for natural gas, at least they’re not increasing it like the Obama administration did. And President Biden is the first president to pledge a 50% reduction in 2005 economy-wide net greenhouse gas pollution by 2030.
Times change. Some people learn from past mistakes, some don’t, and some make more mistakes than others. I think Biden has made it clear that he’s learned from his. I don’t see him getting us into another Iraq or Afghanistan situation, and his policies are popular.
As we make our way through the final weeks before the midterms, polls are showing Democratic voters approve of Biden’s policies enough to say they want them to go farther than what the Democrats…
