Obstructionism is its own reward
Over at 538, Nathaniel Rakich points out that Biden’s approval rating is continuing to decline, despite the fact that Afghanistan coverage has declined.
It’s hard to know what is going on here, but my guess is that two factors outside Afghanistan are important. First, the pandemic is dragging on, and people tend to blame the President and his party for not fixing problems. This reflects what Brendan Nyhan called the Green Lantern theory of the presidency – the belief that the President can accomplish anything if he just tries hard enough. This general tendency to blame the President may be exacerbated in the case of covid because Biden promised more than he delivered.
Second, I suspect that some people are simply reacting to the interminable political bickering they see on Capitol Hill. Many people just hate political squabbling, partly because they dislike conflict, and partly because they believe that there are easy solutions to public policy questions. They wish that we had a political class that could put its differences aside and do the people’s business. When Congress is divided, and bickers instead of legislating, they assume that someone is corrupt or incompetent, and it gets them angry. (The evidence for this is laid out here.)
Biden may be particularly vulnerable when politics descends into disagreement and stalemate because he promised he could bring people together and get things done in a bipartisan manner.
The upshot of all this is that obstructionism is a useful strategy for Republicans when they are in the minority. It leads to acrimony and frustration, and blame gets laid at the feet of Democrats since they are nominally in charge.
I suspect that this is the main point of McConnell’s debt limit obstructionism. He knows he can’t trigger a debt default (at least, I really, really hope he does), and he probably can’t extract much in the way of concessions from the Democrats, but he can weaken Biden and the Democrats simply by adding to the perception that Congress is divided and things are out of control. If McConnell and the Republicans end up folding again in December or January without getting much in the way of policy concessions, don’t assume they lost.
Per my old man “clearly Biden is not the one in control”
I agree. Manchin empowers the lack of control too.
Well I think Biden is doing just fine. Underestimated how corrupt the Afghanistan government/ military was but dealt with it by getting out 125,000 people; underestimated how moronic the American people were and dealt with it by imposing vaccine mandates; underestimated what asses Manchin and Sinema are and is dealing with it by getting what he can and hopefully putting those two on islands they will never get off. At the same time they are methodically building the case against Trump and the fascists. At the end of the day he only has to be modestly competent to outshine his predecessor. Of course, most people are not paying attention but that is a two edged sword— I do not see anyone bringing the deplorables out from under their rocks like Trump and he certainly will not be at the top of the ticket in 2022 and I will bet not in 2024 either.
Close to 3/4s of Rep voters think he stole the election. Combine that with half of all Dem voters that believe Dem Presidents have Green Lantern’s Magic Ring and therefore the only reason his entire agenda has not been passed is because he really doesn’t want to do it and you get that approval rating.
I think that Kramer is mostly right. But consider also that the R’s are better at propaganda than the D’s. They control more media..including the “mainstream” media. They have also discovered that they don’t need to be even approximately reasonable.
There is also a good chance that the Dems are calling for changest that are too radical for the people to accept in one giant mouthful. This might be just the result of decades of prior R/Mainstream propaganda, or it may be that R propagnda succeeds because it is based..just enough… on things ordinary people have believed for millennia.
might also consider that Biden’s “low ratings” are also media disinformation, or at least being played for more than it is worth.
“…they assume that someone is corrupt or incompetent…”
[Maybe many “they” bodies, but somebody or a few know that everyone in politics is corrupt and incompetent. Some politicians are just bigger assholes than decent people can bear, so they must go – especially the orange ones.]
Ron
I didn’t see where the quote came from, but I agree with it wholeheartedly. The Dems and used to be Republicans are, were, both corrupt and incompetent, but they generally kept the trains running more or less on time. today’s R’s might well be competent, but they are competent about pulling down civilization and replacing it with the law of the jungle…you hardly need to be corrupt if you can just take what you want by force.
Worth noting that the R’s…”Righties”…for at least the last two hundred years have been quite frank about this… they believe, openly, that the poor must suffer and die so survival of the fittest (themselves) will assure progress (more money for them). They are quite clear about survival of the fittest, less clear about the unsurvival of the less fit. And most people don’t recognize that the one means the other. They just go on believing they are “the fit” and the less fit are not even real.
Incidentally, they are completely wrong about “the fittest.” Our ancestors discovered the survival value of cooperation and sharing a million years ago.
Unfortunately nowadays even “liberals” have lost their grasp on the concept, choosing to fight their “enemies”… all whites, all the rich…for all the money.