Election of the Living Dead
Biden's struggles have everyone speculating about 2024, but three years is a long time, and a ton of crazy shit will happen between now and then.
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Joe Biden’s approval numbers have joined him in his basement. According to the Real Clear Politics polling average at the time of writing, Biden went from plus 19.5 (55.5% approval, 36% disapproval) when he took office, to minus 6.5 (44% approval, 50.5% disapproval). Biden’s numbers were even worse in November, at one point hitting minus 12. They’ve recovered a little bit since then, but this is still a steep swing in less than a year. There are many reasons for this.
Every Honeymoon Ends. Every new president has a “honeymoon period”, where public opinion is inclined toward the benefit of the doubt. Even Donald Trump briefly had a net positive approval rating in his earliest days. With high incoming net approval numbers, Biden was bound to lose a few points virtually no matter what.
The Pandemic Dominoes. The COVID-19 pandemic lingering long past when people hoped it would have been over, with economic downstream effects like work shortages and price increases, are major grievances which always get pinned on the person (and party) in power.
Afghanistan. The Afghanistan War should have ended years ago, and it took guts for Biden to stand up to the military industrial complex. But the incompetence with which the war was waged culminated in a spectacular extravaganza of incompetence in its ending. And while a perfectly clean break was probably impossible, Biden did little to avoid the shit show that ensued. That Biden and his team did not foresee the prospect of pandemonium and take steps to preempt it speaks to many heads up many asses — not least Biden’s wrinkled own. In response, the media took a break from acting as the communications arm of the Biden administration and became Fox News for a month. This hurt Biden politically, though its effect will likely wane over time.
Optics and Style. Part of the president’s job is to be the spokesperson and cheerleader of the country. Biden has a fairly impressive résumé of first-year accomplishments, such as another round of stimulus checks, the expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC), and a bipartisan infrastructure bill. The CTC, paid out to 39 million households as monthly checks, has essentially functioned like a children’s basic income, keeping 3.8 million children from poverty, reducing food insecurity in households with children by 24 percent, driving entrepreneurship, promoting work, and serving as a lifeline to struggling families.
That’s a “big fucking deal”, but Biden rarely mentions it. His administration lacks the optics of a forceful, single narrative. In politics, it doesn’t matter what you actually do, but rather what the public thinks you do. The perception of Biden as a feeble old boob, overwhelmed by the job and unable to get his arms around the nation’s challenges is in large part self-inflicted. Biden can’t do much about the increasing frequency of his senior moments, or the fact that he looks every day of his 10,000 years on this earth. But he, and those he’s surrounded himself with, have chosen not to be braggarts, which is to say, they’ve chosen to be idiots who don’t want due credit for their accomplishments. That’s on them.
How Much Does It Matter Right Now?
Biden and Trump have both expressed their intent to run again. But just because grandpa Joe isn’t exactly blowing people’s socks off doesn’t necessarily mean they would run back into the arms of Donald “Democracy only counts when I win” Trump. Remember, for the past year, Trump has been out of the public eye. For all but his fan-brigade of patriot-LARPers, he’s been languishing in exile, banished from every social media platform and given next to no airtime on non-conservative media. It’s entirely possible that months into the Trump-detox, some portion of the electorate has begun to forget the countless little details that make Trump who he is. Get Donald back into campaign-mode, where the TV networks have to cover him, and the internet platforms have to let him back on, and he’ll pick up right where he left off — sticking his foot in his mouth with the alacrity of a freak show contortionist and appalling everyone with a sense of decency.
Double Standard?
You may be wondering why Biden’s flagging approval is causing such a fuss when Trump was always considered a real contender despite having numbers that lived in the toilet? The US electoral college ends up lending additional weight to rural votes, which lean heavily Republican, thus advantaging the GOP. A Republican presidential nominee can win the electoral college in dozens of scenarios where they lose the popular vote. It’s happened twice in recent cycles (2000, 2016). The path to victory for any Democrat who loses the popular vote is not invisible, but it’s vanishingly narrow. No Democrat has pulled it off in over 130 years, and it would be truly shocking to see it ever happen again in our current system.
Jumping the Gun
Biden’s approval numbers have everyone diving headlong into 2024 election analysis. What are the Democrats going to do? Should Biden run again? Should he resign and let Kamala Harris take over and then run? Should the Democrats insist on a competitive primary? Cue endless conjecture, political war gaming, predictions, proclamations, and breakdowns.
Except, this is December 2021, not 2023. This far out, speculation about what the Dems should do to win the next presidential election is a lot like teenage sex — fun, but premature. Two years out is the very earliest any commentator can hope to make more sense than piss-soaked fools raving about the apocalypse into a street corner megaphone. And that’s still nearly a year from now. So much can and likely will happen in the next 1-3 years that would render most prior analysis irrelevant and moot. Off the top of my head, here are 25 things that might happen between now and 2024, and any one of which could fundamentally change the dynamics of the election:
Joe Biden (79 years old) experiences serious health problems, or passes away.
Donald Trump (75 years old) experiences serious health problems, or passes away.
The COVID-19 pandemic ends.
The COVID-19 pandemic gets dramatically worse.
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to ebb and flow, but persists and doesn’t improve much.
Big economic changes from where we are now — positive or negative.
Massive natural disasters.
Terrorism.
New foreign policy or national security issues.
The US enters into another war.
Scandals.
A new political star (or stars) meteorically rising in either party.
The results of the 2022 midterm elections.
A new wave of mass civil unrest, rioting, or political violence.
Landmark Supreme Court rulings that change something important in society, or settle a previously contested issue.
The mainstreaming of deepfakes.
Marked increase in support for one or multiple third parties.
Changes to electoral laws, either federally, or at state levels.
A state takes steps toward secession not seen since pre-Civil War.
Significant shifts in public opinion around certain issues.
Technology: New disruptive technologies become more widely adopted/ a big increase in automation/ artificial general intelligence is created.
Changes in the culture wars — new issues, tipping points, backlashes, etc.
Widespread cyber attacks.
The media landscape shifting as a number of major organizations or outlets go out of business, or are forced to change or scale down.
Electoral demographic changes due to generational changeover, immigration, emigration, interstate migration, death rates, and political engagement or disengagement.
We could all be talking about space aliens a year from now, or dealing with a widespread outbreak of antibiotic-resistant superbugs in the food supply. Hunter Biden and Donald Trump Jr. could have a public duel, Hamilton/Burr style, guns and all. We just don’t know. So many things can happen that would throw a wrench into any predictions or projections we might now make, that the only accurate analysis at present is “Expect the unexpected.” Buckle up.
See also: “Five Ways the Democrats Can Replace Biden”
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