Anyone who supports President Joe Biden has to admit that his delivery of off-hand comments can be cringe-worthy at times. He tries to be some kind of politician who understands “real people”, but he comes across as fake and is often hard to take seriously. That is why he is routinely vilified and accused of being incompetent or senile by some politicians and media personalities.
As bad news about the economy continued to dominate the headlines over the past two months, Biden’s approval rating, even among Democrats, has been extremely low. But even with a string of political victories and improving economic numbers, his approval rating remains low. At least part of that has to do with the way Biden talks about these issues. Sometimes he can’t articulate complex issues in a way that resonates with viewers or readers.
Members of their economic team will often take the stage, doing TV interviews and trying to explain that things are, in fact, getting better. These interviews, depending on who is speaking, can be quite effective. But it’s always better to listen to the president himself.
It is well known that Biden stuttered as a child. This might explain why he often speaks slowly and deliberately. But many see that as a weakness, especially compared to the bombastic former President Donald Trump or former President Barack Obama.
Others equate Biden’s problem with his age. At 79, he is already the oldest person to ever hold the office of president. In a second term, it would be even bigger. Let’s face it, our society is fixated on looking good and being young, fit and fresh. While Biden, in his aviators, tries to exude freshness, he often sounds a little slow, a little lost and perhaps a little out of touch with the world around him.
However, behind the scenes, and because he commands the respect of many world and national leaders, he has been quite effective in advancing his agenda. Unfortunately, the media is fixated on Trump’s transgressions, whether it’s the Jan. 6 committee hearings or the recent FBI raid on his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago. These issues get hours and hours of coverage and hundreds of inches of news coverage, while many of Biden’s political victories fade into the background.
Last week was a perfect example of this phenomenon. On Tuesday, Biden held a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House to sign a bill that invests $53 billion in the semiconductor industry to compete with China and other Asian nations in chipmaking from memory The investment is expected to result in the creation of tens of thousands of jobs, while making the United States less dependent on foreign countries for valuable technology.
According to an account in the Los Angeles Times, “When the signing ceremony began, none of the major cable news networks carried it live, sticking to panels discussing Trump’s attack. But CNN and MSNBC cut live to the White House once Biden entered the lectern.
That, in a nutshell, is what’s happening with Biden’s message: It’s being overtaken by news about the former president. And it’s a shame. Voters, who will decide whether Congress is taken over by Republicans in November, don’t have a full picture of what’s going on. Many of Biden’s victories are being missed, including passage of a climate and health care bill, support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia, lower gas prices, the rising stock market figures, the record employment figure, the resilience of consumer spending and the recent assassination of Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
If the Republicans win in November and Trump goes on to be re-elected in 2024, it would say a lot about this country and how people seem more interested in flashy “breaking news” coverage of the former president’s cheating than find out what the current president—as laborious and uncomfortable as he is—is actually achieving.
—The Salem News
