A Gallup poll shows a 40% approval rating (for Joe Biden) from Jan. 3-16, 2022. Looking at his first year, he hasn’t done much regarding Racial Equality and Immigration, which were issues labeled on the White Houses’ website.
Let’s talk about Biden’s first year as President and first talk about the American Rescue Plan (or Stimulus Bill). Biden got decent support and Morning Consult’s poll pointed out that 45% of all voters think the package offers the right amount of support.
On the Congress.gov website, they point out, “This bill provides additional relief to address the continued impact of COVID-19 on the economy, public health, state and local governments, individuals and businesses”.
Next, the Infrastructure Bill that was passed and NPR pointed out, “A majority — 56% —- said they support the infrastructure bill that went into law recently.” On the Congress.gov website, they talk about the allocation of this bill, “federal-aid highway, transit, highway safety, motor carrier, research, hazardous materials and rail programs of the Department of Transportation.”
To my surprise, one of the more controversial things Biden did was the Afghanistan withdrawal. In a Pew Research Study, 42% think pulling back Afghan troops was the wrong decision whereas the other half think it’s the right decision.
The same study shows a super-majority of Republicans/Conservatives/Modern Lib think Biden handled the situation poorly.
During a State of the Union Address in 2019, CNBC posted Trumps’ State of the Union Address where he stated, “Great nations do not fight endless wars” and more importantly, “I have also accelerated our negotiations to reach if possible a political settlement in Afghanistan.”
Ironically enough, President Trump’s statement on the Afghanistan war (in 2021), “ALL EQUIPMENT should be demanded to be immediately returned to the United States” and laughably states, “we either go in with unequivocal Military force and get it or at least bomb the hell out of it”, which was shown on a Breaking Points video at 13:35.
BBC News has a clip of Biden’s speech, where he defends the Afghanistan exit, “The fundamental obligation of a President is to defend and protect America. Not of threats of 2001. But against the threats of 2021 and tomorrow.”
Breaking Points talked about this speech where one of the analysts (Saagar) pointed out some hypocrisy, “From the Republicans that are criticizing Biden … they’re like ‘the withdrawal should have gone perfectly’. Like the whole war did.”
When it comes to COVID-19, he’s done a decent job on COVID-19 by pushing out vaccine roll-outs (which was better than Trump’s), testing being available, achieving the “100 million doses of vaccine administered in the first 100 days” and getting “half of the U.S population fully vaccinated in the first six months of 2021”, which were from KHN.org.
Biden is criticized for handling Russia’s invasion threat and The Hill pointed out, “54% of registered voters say that Biden is not able to ‘handle difficult international issues like defending Ukraine from the Russians and protecting Taiwan from China.”
The final negative that Biden was in control of is inflation, which I disagree with. I disagree because a President can only do so much to fix inflation.
An article from FiveThirtyEight talks about inflation, “Biden is stuck between a rock and a hard place. What’s good for the economy in the long term may not be good for his political and electoral concerns in the nearer future.”
Overall, Biden did a decent job but still has lots of room for improvement by trying to get some of the “swing voters” and Democrats back on his side. He’s able to appoint a Supreme Court Justice since Justice Stephen Breyer retired, which will be interesting.
