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Why It’s Hard to Explain Joe Biden’s Unpopularity
(www.nytimes.com)
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this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2024
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politics
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Amazing. Not a single mention of Palestine.
Putting his backing of Netanyahu aside, there's a number of things he could do to up his popularity. Naming two from the top of my head, he could forgive medical debt at the federal level and federally legalize marijuana and remove it as a Schedule 1 drug.
He can only forgive debt owed to the government, and people don't generally owe the government for medical services.
This was an issue before Israel was attacked.
As far as I can tell he’s done a lot of the right things, and has been as effective as you can given the political situation. I never understood why so many people seem to have an issue
Having framed the current conflict as having started "when Israel was attacked", it's not surprising that you don't understand why people might have an issue with Biden broadly
I believe that's the opposite of their point. They're saying he was loudly on Israel's side well before the attack.
It was an attack. There were and are hostages. Whether it was retaliatory can be a topic, but that it was an attack hasn't been in dispute.
I'm not sure it is exactly 'opposite' of their point, but Biden being largely on the side of Israel is the reason a lot of leftists have always been unsupportive of him as a president.
Like most liberals, he gives a lot of lip-service to progressive causes, but ultimately finds excuses to avoid having to really upset the current hegemony. The reason he is unpopular despite his objectively skilled politic-ing around progressive issues (i think) is because more people are seeing liberalism generally as a failed political project and want actual change rather than lip-service and half-measures.
His support of Israel is only the most pertinent example of his politics clashing violently with reality.
Uh... A good number of Americans give two or three flying fucks about genocide. Israel is getting off lightly because they can call anyone who opposes them antisemitic, but historically ever since they finished their own Americans have been pretty intolerant of genocide. This especially applies to Muslim Americans who are taking this personally, and young progressives who are becoming disillusioned with the Democrats. Now remember that Biden needs both of these groups to have 2020 level Democrat turnout to win the election.
I'm not familiar with overall demographics, but an important demographic for Democrats is Arab Americans and young people, where Democrats have had a stronghold on them for some time now.
Biden used to have I think it was 60% support among Arab Americans. Then after October 7th that support tanked, and all you have to do is look at Michigan's uncommitted vote in the primaries to see the effect that it's had for his support with them and young voters, especially in communities like Dearborn.
Like at first glance the Michigan polls show that Biden completely dominated the primary, but you also have to keep in mind that the Uncommitted movement was aiming for maybe 20k votes at most. Instead they got over 100k votes.
Back in 2016 Hillary Clinton lost Michigan to Trump by an incredibly small margin. When you add together the Uncommitted votes with the votes for Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips (who I understand has dropped out and has the same stance as Biden), you get an amount similar to that which Hillary lost by.
Arab Americans and young people have made their voice clear in focus groups that while some of them will not vote for Biden come the federal election, others will if he just simply condemns Israel properly and stop sending them weapons and aid while also calling for a ceasefire. Biden can either lose these crucial votes and possibly lose Michigan to Trump, or he can do what the voters want and regain at least some of their support come November.
I don’t live far from Dearborn at all. I don’t think the primaries are a good measure, because people were purposely voting against Biden, knowing that it wouldn’t matter. I’m hoping that they would never vote for Trump in lieu of Biden because of his support for Israel because obviously it would be way worse if Trump won.
That being said, there are more Arab Americans in Dearborn and Hamtramck than anywhere else in the country. I can’t imagine it actually affecting the election negatively for Biden, except for a small amount in Wayne county.
I don't they'll vote for Trump either, it's more likely that they'll vote for an independent or third-party candidate or just stay at home.
I could absolutely be wrong about seeing the primary as an indicator for what could happen in the federal election, but Biden's massive drop in support in polling from Arab Americans and young people has me really concerned, even if Trump isn't picking up that lost support for himself.
Biden and Trump are far from strong candidates. While she performed like crap with Republican primary voters, polling showed that in a general election Nikki Haley would have destroyed Biden in an election. In a similar sense, polls showed Trump losing the general election if facing "a generic Democrat" that wasn't Biden.
Overall, I don't want Biden running, hell I'd have any Democrat take his place. I don't like Kamala, but when compared to Biden, I feel she would have a better chance at beating Trump than he does. However, if Biden's not going to pass the torch to a better-performing Democrat, he can't take these risks losing crucial voters like this in my mind.
I doubt they would vote for Trump either but not voting would have the same impact on the Palestinians as voting for Trump. I hope that people considering sitting it out think about what trumps finish the job comments would actually mean. It's hard to see the difference right now but I can't see any future at all with trump winning that is not full on ethnic cleansing of the region rather than the slow walking genocide that's happening now.
I think that you are underestimating, new voters and overestimating the loud Trumpers. I do think if the Democrats don’t vote, then Trump will win like before. However, I do think that this election is going to be supercharged before November activating all progressive voters to vote a non-Trump vote.
I do agree though Biden is not the best candidate and I hope that in 2028 that Gretchen Whitmer can run for president because I would vote for her all day.
I can say agree to disagree here, but really I guess we'll have to see what happens between now and November. Honestly it's a bit of a relief to have more good-faith discussion here, so can say I definitely appreciate that.
SHUT UP, ASSHOLE!
nah jk