President Joe Biden’s empathy defined his campaign, but what’s perceived as one of his greatest political strengths may offer him diminishing returns now that he’s in the White House.
Biden has been in office for fewer than 100 days, but he’s already had what some observers may describe as too many opportunities to convey compassion. His responses to the country’s mounting coronavirus death toll, the mass shootings in Georgia and Colorado, and the death of U.S. Capitol Police Officer William Evans are high on the list of examples.
Polls suggest voters relate to Biden’s personal experience with tragedy and grief amid the pandemic, particularly given the contrast with former President Donald Trump, who regularly spoke to victims’ families privately but never looked or sounded comfortable in the public role as chief consoling officer. Still, any political power derived by Biden from his consoler in chief role may lose its potency heading into the 2022 midterm elections, pollsters say.
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A Quinnipiac University poll published Wednesday found a majority of respondents believe Biden has displayed strong leadership so far in his term, while almost 6 in 10 people think the president cares about “average Americans.”
“President Biden has always scored well on empathy, and his approval numbers on handling of the coronavirus would seem to fortify that,” analyst Tim Malloy told the Washington Examiner.
He also pointed to Biden’s positive-yet-modest approval figures on his economic management, as well as his climate change and tax policies.
“The one looming issue which could signal some erosion of confidence in his reputation as healer in chief is the very poor number on how the administration is handling the situation on the Mexican border,” Malloy said.
For Suffolk University Political Research Center Director David Paleologos, there is “a premium in politics for calm” thanks to the so-called chaos of Trump’s presidency coalescing with COVID-19’s upending of “normal” life. Both of those factors dictated Biden’s 2020 campaign strategy and communications. And that premium for calm has carried over for Biden in the White House, at least according to the 25 latest national polls that demonstrate his popularity, Paleologos said.
Biden didn’t invent political empathy, nor is he the first president to benefit from the premium for calm. Voters reacted positively to former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama’s mostly “steady hand at the wheel,” although Trump “accelerated the negativity of turbulence in politics,” Paleologos explained. Clinton, for instance, famously told protesters during his 1992 campaign, “I feel your pain.”
Former President Ronald Reagan was widely viewed as a master of public displays of empathy during crises such as the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. Like Reagan, the younger Bush deftly, at least in the weeks after, dealt with a true national crisis in the 9/11 attack. Biden, however, has yet to face a challenge quite like those.
“People want to be understood,” Paleologos said. “If you acknowledge the pain that people are feeling, the concerns that they have, and try to do something about it on top of that, that’s a terrific one-two punch for a president.”
And while empathy is “a poll-tested characteristic,” Paleologos insisted that didn’t mean “it’s not authentic.”
He predicted voters will gravitate back toward confrontational Trump-style politics ahead of the 2022 cycle. The size and velocity of the swing, however, depends on factors outside Biden’s control, such as the economy, foreign developments, or any pandemic or major vaccine setbacks.
The swing will also be influenced by factors within the president’s control. That includes how aggressively he pursues a more liberal legislative agenda on policies covering “Medicare for all,” climate change, free college, expanding the Supreme Court, and racial justice.
Biden’s political honeymoon is coming to an end, especially with independents. And his “biggest threat” is being labeled not “progressive” enough, Paleologos said. If Biden doesn’t act boldly, liberal Democrats likely would feel more emboldened to launch primary challenges, much as New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did in 2018. Veering too far to the left, though, could drive independents away from centrist candidates who are more ideologically aligned with the president.
“He’s been managing that distance right now. He’s kept both independents happy and progressives happy, but as soon as he goes too far one way or the other way, he risks losing a slice of the voting electorate,” Paleologos said. “And even with the premium of calm, that may not be enough if he’s too far center or too far left.”
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Biden delivered an emotional tribute to fallen U.S. Capitol Police Officer William Evans on Tuesday after the 18-year veteran was killed this month during a car attack. As he did on the trail, the president leaned into the loss of his first wife Neilia and their one-year-old daughter Naomi in a 1972 Christmas car crash and the 2015 death of his eldest son Beau at the age of 46 to brain cancer as he consoled Evans’s family. During the service, Biden gave Evans’s son Logan a challenge coin and scooped up a toy dropped by his daughter Abigail.
“The truth is that a time is going to come, I promise you, not believable now, when a memory, a fragrance, a scene, a circumstance, the way his son tilts his head the way he did when he was that age — it’s going to bring back the memory,” Biden said.
He went on, “You know, my prayer for all of you is that a day will come when you have that memory, and I’ve said, ‘Just smile before you bring a tear to your eyes.’ It’s — I promise you it’s going to come. It just takes a while. It takes a while.”
