Biden is facing fire from almost every direction. Liberals, leftists, rightists, conservatives, energy firms, environmentalists, foreign allies, and immigrants all seem to be disappointed by a president under growing pressure to take a cognitive test in the way his predecessor did.
Over the last few days, a number of news headlines highlighted the dire situation Bide is grappling with. The first blow came from Saudi Arabia whose state television aired a sketch lampooning Biden’s cognitive health. The skit, aired by the Saudi-owned entertainment television MBC, features a press conference at which Biden confuses national security issues with each other and falls asleep in the middle of the speech. The sketch went viral on social media platforms in the US and racked up more than 6 million views.
Many analysts believe that the Saudi move reflects broader unhappiness with the United States and more specifically with the Biden administration.
But the Biden administration’s woes are not limited to foreign policy. They are even bigger back home. Biden assumed the presidency at a time when America was strictly divided along party lines. So, it goes without saying that Biden is unpopular with the more than seventy million voters who voted for Trump. But Biden’s popularity with the independents and even leftists is on the decline by virtue of mismanagement or policies that went against his campaign promises.
According to a recent survey conducted by CNBC, Biden's approval hit a new low amid economic pessimism and inflation woes.
Biden’s approval rating slid to a new low of 38%, according to CNBC’s All-America Survey. His approval rating on the economy dropped for a fourth consecutive survey.
According to the survey, 47% of the respondents said the economy is “poor,” the highest number in that category since 2012.
Americans harbor some of the most downbeat views on the economy since the recovery from the Great Recession, and some of their attitudes are in line with those seen only during recessions, according to the latest CNBC All-America Economic Survey.
And Biden keeps alienating even his constituency base. An announcement by the Department of the Interior (DOI) on Friday showed that Biden could be chipping away at the very constituency that made him president.
The Department announced that it was resuming fossil fuel lease sales for the first time since President Biden took office, a move that stood in stark contrast to Biden’s agenda on climate change.
The announcement elicited strong criticism from the energy industry and climate groups alike. The energy industry opposed the move because the new leases on public lands for oil and natural gas drilling came at a higher cost to producers. And climate groups inveighed against Biden because he had once pledged to curb oil and natural gas drilling in order to reduce global warming.
Biden reneging on his climate change frustrated environmental activists within his own party and crushed his carefully-built image of being an environmental-minded president.
News organizations close to the Biden administration sought to justify the anti-climate move with the war in Ukraine that pushed gas prices high and cost Americans more bucks at the pump. But that didn’t produce the desired results as some climate advocates continued to question the efficacy of the move.
“Allowing drilling on public lands won’t solve price gouging by oil companies. So why is @JoeBiden going back on his word?” tweeted Sunrise Movement, a political action group that advocates on climate change issues. “To stop the climate crisis, we need to move towards 100% renewable energy, not deepening our dependence on fossil fuels.”
First published in Tehran Times
Your Comment