Astonishing Failure! 71% of Americans Do Not Want Joe Biden to Seek Re-election

• Shell president.  Intelligence's claim that Biden "does everything a president is essentially expected to do" is interesting.   There's more going on there than might be gleaned from a first glance, intentionally or not.   
  
• It's worth noting the differences in expectations, based on their source.  The party establishment who chose Reagan expected almost nothing of him.  I am reminded of Chomsky's criticism of Reagan, in handling Iran-Contra. 
  
• Chomsky's basic point was that no one expected Reagan to be able to keep track of what his administration members were doing in the shadows, because there was nothing going on upstairs.  By that time, he was so far gone and his brain was so riddled with Alzheimer's, Reagan was probably being truthful when he claimed not to have known.   
  
• But that wasn't the whole picture, either.  No one expected Reagan to know what was going on, because Reagan was not elected to be a thinker, strategist or decision maker. 
  
• Reagan was not elected to be a commander in chief or chief executive.  He was elected to be a figurehead for the monied interests that, at that time, defined the Republican establishment.  Basically, Reagan was the first shell president.
  
• Incorporeal form wasn't enough.  The party establishment who chose Biden expected less than nothing of him; simply not being Donald Trump was enough.   
  
• That plan hasn't worked out so well.  Biden isn't specifically the second after Reagan (other contenders are out there), but he's certainly a shell.  And that's what Biden was expected to do by the people who put him in that position. 
  
• There is nothing going on in his head.  And what little bandwidth Biden ever had, he focused on looking out for his own financial interests. 
  
• Biden's political career has been defined at every stage by riding the tide in whatever direction it's flowing.  I am not saying he shouldn't change over time or that his political views shouldn't evolve.  I'm saying he never had political views, probably beyond the fifth year in DC after his brief, failed venture in private practice.  He stopped giving a shit about civil rights and started caring a LOT about the monied interests that defined the Democratic Party because they paid him for his trouble.  His net worth is proof positive, if there was any doubt.   
  
• But the party agenda isn't the only source of expectations on the line.  The American people expect the economy to grow or at least be stable, for oil prices to be reasonable and to be able to afford to fill their tanks on their way to work.  At the very least. 
  
• Biden is failing them in every way that matters.  Despite the fact that his own fellow Democrat figured this out more than 30 years ago, "It's the economy, stupid!"  Biden's economy is a disaster.  
  
• There is no end in sight to Biden's economic failures, among others. 
• The career politician can sell.  It's not precisely clear in what context you're claiming Biden is terrible at selling himself, but his political track record would say otherwise. 
  
• No one becomes a career politician as successful as Joe Biden's has been over all of these years while at the same time being "terrible at selling himself to the public." 
  
• He isn't the best, but that doesn't mean he isn't at least marginally good.  Biden certainly isn't as good as Obama, but if that's the standard then there have been exactly three politicians in living memory who could approximate that bar.  Reagan, Clinton and Obama.  No one else comes close.  Not even by a mile. 
  
• Biden is more like a stupider version of John Kerry, that is at once more aloof and less capable of handling basic responsibility.  But Biden is better at selling than Kerry.  
  
• The problem is what Biden is selling, since he's delivered them a bill of goods so far.  As I have said before, folks just don't want what he's offering.  Trump ended regime change wars, did not launch a war while he was in office and the economy was at an all time high.  Then COVID hit, Fauci lied, the CDC played politics, Democrats supported lockdowns and destroyed the economy.  
  
• There's a figure in the survey I linked above, identifying a large percentage of Americans who actively believe the Federal Government has set out to do them harm or will harm them in the near term.  That's the point we're at.  Inflation is through the roof.  The debt is out of control. 
  
• The apocalyptic economic forecasts that deficit hawks complained about during the 1990s,  thereafter again before Bush invaded Iraq (at which time, they were no longer concerned with the deficit) and again at the time Obamacare was considered by Congress. 
  
• COVID spending and Biden's economic policy (again, not like he designed it; it's just what's happening while he's in the oval) has set the stage for those forecasts to become reality.  More reckless inflation, at least in the United States and Europe, has not been caused by the acts of a government since the Weimar Republic.  People feel that pain every day they go to the grocery store, fill up their gas tank or observe the buying power of their dollar erode before their eyes. 
  
• Again, this is also not to imply that Biden has, in fact, done things to directly cause, for example, high energy prices.  He has not.  Biden is apparently so economically illiterate that he doesn't understand how oil/petrochemicals are bought or sold, as commodities.  Much less how the supply chain works.   Blaming Biden for the economy is like blaming a dog for failing to solve a high school student's differential equation homework.  All the dog knows how to do is eat the homework.  And apparently the rest of his administration is in the same boat.  
  
• But all of this shit still happened on his watch.  Biden chose this job and this life.  The buck stops with him, whether he's lucid enough to comprehend that fact or not.  

I will say though, the left is increasingly difficult to appease. They actually care about issues, so he's is in a bit of a damned if you do damned if you don't situation. If he cancels all student loan debt he loses the moderates. If he fails to do so he loses the base. If he goes all out on climate changed he gets blamed for gas prices. If he doesn't he loses the environmental advocates.

• Biden doesn't give a fuck what the left thinks.  All he does is placate them, because that's all that can be done for them. 
  
• Meet their demands today, they'll have more ostentatious ones tomorrow.  Basically, Biden is doing the old trusty "pretend to be useful" trick, kicking the can down the road while making this look like an exercise in furtherance of their interests. 
  
• This is hilarious, but only because of how fundamentally stupid leftist progressives have become.  They're off the rails, and everyone knows it.  
  
• The only thing Biden seems to care about is Ukraine, because that is the only situation where he's acted.  I disagree with essentially every aspect of his strategy, but it's fairly obvious what's going on.  At least to anyone with knowledge of the industry.  
  
• Ukraine is about natural gas.  There are tremendous proven gas reserves in Ukraine's EEZ (hence why Russia seized Crimea).  Ukraine's reserves are large enough in size to displace Russia's stronghold on that market in the European continent.  
  
• Before those reserves were discovered in 2013, Ukraine had no pathway to NATO membership because Ukraine had no strategic value.  
  
• Now with those reserves known and available for potential commercialization, Ukraine all of a sudden matters. 
  
• It took the media a hilariously long time to pivot; basically as soon as they figured out Biden stood to benefit personally from dealings with a certain Ukrainian energy company.  Now they have, and so instead of being the second most corrupt country in Europe populated by Azov Nazis and anti-semites, Ukraine is the embodiment of our highest democratic ideals --- or so says the media.  This is stupid.  This rhetoric is stupid.  People who believe it are stupid.
  
• There are, however, very good reasons to have done far more than Biden did in Ukraine.   But that's not how this is going to work.   Here's the State Department's playbook:
  
• Status Quo Ante:  United States has tentative deal to commercialize Ukraine's oil fields, on terms not as favorable as United States would like.  
• Step 1:  Let Vladimir Putin destroy Ukraine's infrastructure.
  
• Step 2:  Arm Ukraine to resist Vladimir Putin and provide logistical support.
  
• Step 3:  Once Putin's forces are exhausted (a point we are fast approaching), discuss the terms of reconstruction with Ukraine.
  
• Step 4:  Finance Ukraine's reconstruction, via World Bank or other similar apparatus.
  
• Step 5:  Use terms of financing as leverage to get better deal with Ukraine's natural gas fields, than before Putin invaded.
  
• Step 6:  Admit Ukraine to NATO.
  
• Step 7:  Commercialize Ukraine's natural gas, displacing Russia's hold on the natural gas market in Europe.