There is no shortage of issues plaguing the country at the moment, all of which have (correctly) landed in the lap of President Joe Biden. People are dealing with rising prices for everything from gasoline to breakfast cereal, inflation, a labor shortage, and foreign policy disasters popping up on a weekly basis. All of these things have contributed to the President’s approval ratings nosediving to the point where he’s threatening to hit single digits at some point, dragging down his party’s hopes for the midterms in the process. So why is this all happening and what could he possibly do to turn things around? When Jen Psaki was asked that question recently she blamed it entirely on the pandemic, saying “We’re still in the middle of fighting a pandemic and people are sick and tired of that. We are, too.”
That immediately brought up the specter of the millions of Americans who remain unvaccinated. White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients reminded everyone that we “have the tools to accelerate out of this pandemic.” On Friday, Biden himself said, “it’s a patriotic responsibility” for everyone to get their shots. In other words, you wouldn’t have all of these problems if you’d all just obey our mandates and go get the vaccine. And if you don’t, your patriotism is suspect. (Associated Press)
Inflation is soaring, businesses are struggling to hire and President Joe Biden’s poll numbers have been in free-fall. The White House sees a common culprit for it all: COVID-19.
Biden’s team views the pandemic as the root cause of both the nation’s malaise and his own political woes. Finally controlling COVID-19, the White House believes, is the skeleton key to rejuvenating the country and reviving Biden’s own standing.
But the coronavirus challenge has proved to be vexing for the White House, with last summer’s premature claims of victory swamped by the more transmissible delta variant, stubborn millions of Americans unvaccinated and lingering economic effects from the pandemic’s darkest days.
The Associated Press goes on to make a reference to “stubborn millions of Americans unvaccinated.” You see, if you haven’t had the shots, it’s all your fault that Biden’s approval numbers are in the tank.
Let’s allow for the moment the idea that peop[le are unhappy that the novel coronavirus in its increasingly numerous forms hasn’t simply disappeared into the sunset. I’m sure we all wish it would. But Joe Biden ran for president on a promise that he would “fix the mess” that Donald Trump supposedly created and get this pandemic under control. Does he now actually have the nerve to be surprised that people are expecting him to deliver and get this done?
Moving beyond that, neither the virus nor those Americans who remain reluctant to serve as laboratory experiments for these new vaccines can be blamed for all of the other issues I mentioned above. The unvaccinated haven’t exacerbated the deteriorating situation with China. Those without CDC cards are not cutting off the flow of gasoline and natural gas, nor did they create the gaping holes in the supply chain. And they certainly aren’t the ones ferrying tens of thousands of illegal aliens over the border every month. (Though I’ll grant you that most of the coyotes and their human cargo probably haven’t had their shots either.)
These are all very real problems and Americans expect the president to take care of such things. But not only has Joe Biden failed to deliver on those expectations, but he has also arguably caused several of them or at least made them considerably worse. It’s also not the fault of the unvaccinated that most of Joe Biden’s agenda has been stalled in Congress for the entire year. You can try to blame the Republicans if you like, but those items are not conservative policies. The Democrats control the majorities in both chambers. They should have been able to pass all of those bills by themselves but they spent too long arguing with each other.
If this is the current version of the ever-popular “blame game” in the White House, they’re not doing a very good job of playing it. Trying to create two classes of citizens based on their vaccination status and then attempting to diminish the rights of one group was never going to end well. If Joe Biden and Jen Psaki want to know why Uncle Joe’s approval numbers continue to plummet, they might want to start by looking in the mirror.
