Friday, 17 May, 2024
The approval rating of Joe Biden in July 2022 is the lowest among all presidents since Bill Clinton.
There is hyperbole in the headline, no doubt. After all, the United States has had presidents since 1776 singling out Joe Biden as the worst of the entire lot could be unfair. But about one and half years after he took oath, Biden is deeply unpopular in his own country. When he defeated a deeply controversial and polarising Donald Trump in the November 2020 elections, many Americans had expressed hope that a veteran and seasoned political leader like Joe Biden will provide the badly needed healing touch. But that has turned out to be a false promise. American society and politics has become even more divisive and Biden has simply not been able to command enough respect to steer his country towards a more bi-partisan path. On top of that, the visible decline in his cognitive abilities during press conferences and meetings with world leaders has convinced a majority of Americans that the 79 year old Biden is too old to handle the enormous pressures and responsibilities that need an agile body as well as mind.
This is not just a perception but a reality backed up by data. It is normal for pollsters to measure the popularity and approval ratings of the American President and other major leaders; a practice which is becoming common even in India. One of the better known and credible pollster in the US is Five Thirty Eight. According to this agency, the approval rating of Joe Biden in July, 2022 is the lowest among all presidents since Bill Clinton. As the accompanying chart shows, the approval rating of Biden among American voters is 38.6%, lower than what even the maverick Donald Trump garnered in a similar time frame (42.1%. This is a steep decline from the approval rating of 57% that Biden enjoyed during his first few months in office.
The key reason for his growing unpopularity is economic distress. Though the Covid pandemic was still rampant when he took office, it was hoped that Biden will use his vast political and economic policy experience to ensure that the American economy recovers swiftly. The exact opposite has happened. Lower middle class and poor Americans have been battered by inflation that has gone past the 9% mark. Most economists reckon that the United States economy is headed either for a recession when growth completely stagnates or a stagflation where a stagnating economy is accompanied by high inflation. No immediate relief is in sight because of the massive disruptions in global supply chains first caused by Covid and then by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. While other factors and issues like abortion, immigration, race relations and gun control have added their bit, it is the sorry state of the American economy that is primarily responsible for the miserable approval ratings of Joe Biden.
