Public opinion is going from bad to worse for President
Joe Biden
.
The latest Monmouth poll
numbers
are eye-popping. They show the president 22 percentage points in the red on public approval, with 88% saying the country is on the wrong track.
Some of those dislike events for which Biden is not responsible. The Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision last month that ended the pretense of a constitutional right to abortion is a good example. The president vociferously opposed the ruling, but it happened on his watch, his left-wing bosses are disgruntled by his lack of energy and fight on the subject, and they are
increasingly dissatisfied
with his leadership. But despite such caveats, and conceding that the wrong track/right track measure lacks nuance, there is no doubt that it is an important number. Whatever voters’ reasons for being disgruntled, a sour electorate is bad juju for the president and his party.
The Democrats’ doom in the midterm congressional elections is surely sealed. They are heading toward a pummeling defeat in the House of Representatives and will probably also lose the Senate. (As Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) happily pointed out when Democrats were about to pry the Republicans’ grip off the Senate in 2006, the idea that the upper chamber is less volatile than the House is fiction).
The Monmouth poll also contained crushing details for Biden, with 57% saying the actions of the federal government this year have hurt them and only 8% saying they have helped. Inflation was the top issue for 33% of respondents, gas prices (i.e. inflation) were cited by another 15%, the economy (i.e. inflation) came in at 9%, and grocery bills (i.e. inflation) at 6%. Taken together, that’s 63% citing inflation in one way or another as their most pressing issue. No wonder 42%, compared to just 24% a year ago, feel they are struggling to stay afloat financially.
Biden is rightly getting the blame. He misdirects attention toward his twin nemeses: Russian President Vladimir Putin and small-fry gasoline retailers who scrape by selling cigarettes and snacks. But it was not they who hosed the overheating economy with
$1.9 trillion of unnecessary cash
rather than with fire suppressant back in March. It was him.
Inflation, which is the tool fiscally irresponsible governments use to incinerate their mounting debts, is showing signs of moderating, but not in a way likely to benefit Biden or his party. There is a strong chance Democrats will get out of the inflationary frying pan only by falling into a recessionary fire. Commodity prices have started tumbling, which presages an economic slowdown. The crashing prices of oil (off more than $20 a barrel to under $100), agricultural crops, and building lumber (-31%) and copper (-23%) — for generations a predictor of economic activity — all point to a significant threat of a recession.
Homebuilding buckled in May to a 13-month low, and the froth is being blown off inflated house prices (5% even in the more-or-less recession-proof suburb of Washington where I live). The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday that the number of job openings also fell in May to 11.3 million, 400,000 fewer than in April and 600,000 lower than the record set in March. The massive number of vacancies had stoked inflation and prompted employers to offer signing bonuses to hard-to-find workers, but such days are disappearing in the rear-view mirror.
Inflation causes universal pain because everyone can feel the money in their pocket losing its purchasing power. A recession is a bit different. It is felt most acutely only by those people who lose their jobs, a minority even in the worst of times. One in 5 people were unemployed from 1929 to 1932, which means 4 in 5 kept their jobs, yet that period is remembered as the Great Depression. The desperation of the 1 in 5 tainted the whole era.
Biden looks like he is delivering a recession following this sustained period of Bidenflation. It probably won’t be a full-blown depression, and it may prove relatively short. But it will be painful and could taint this entire presidential term.
It deals Republicans a winning hand for this November and a strong one for the presidential election of 2024. The GOP can still blow it by picking the wrong nominee for the White House. But the Democrats have already got the wrong nominee, and they know it.
