Biden: Can he recover his lost popularity?

An exclusive preview from the latest issue of The Week magazine If you have trouble viewing this email, [read the online version](. NEWS In this issue of The Week --------------------------------------------------------------- Dear newsletter reader, We thought you'd appreciate this special preview from the latest issue of The Week magazine, where you'll find everything you need to know about the most important stories in news, business, technology, and culture. Today's preview comes from the Talking Points section. If you like what you read you can [try 6 Risk-Free issues of The Week](. Biden: Can he recover his lost popularity? "The wheels are coming off for Joe Biden," said Matt Lewis at The Daily Beast. Ahead of a House vote this week, the president's two-track plan to pass the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill and a $3.5 trillion social-spending package risks being derailed by Democratic infighting. Congressional moderates insist on shrinking the $3.5 trillion proposal. But progressives say they won't vote for the bipartisan bill until the larger package is passed through budget reconciliation. "Biden's problems don't end in Washington": A disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, the pandemic's persistence, and the border crisis have damaged his standing with independents and caused his approval rating to tumble 13 points since June, to 43 percent. Next year's midterms could be a "backlash election," said Josh Kraushaar at National Journal. A dip of a few percentage points more "means politically capable Democratic moderates losing to Trumpist Republicans in unlikely places" and Democrats losing control of both the House and the Senate. "A combination of bad luck, bad choices, and inherent weakness" caused Biden's fall from grace, said Ross Douthat at The New York Times. The bad luck was the Delta variant surge, which no president could have stopped. But the president has also "done popular things incompetently" — the long-overdue retreat from Afghanistan — and has "let liberal confidence lead him somewhat astray." The $1.9 trillion COVID relief package that passed in March now appears "a little more inflationary" than supporters anticipated, and Biden's promise of a humane alternative to Trump's punitive immigration policies proved "inadequate to the constant challenge of migration waves." It's much simpler than all that, said Matthew Continetti at Commentary magazine. "Biden is in trouble not because of his failures in any one crisis," but because he's "just not very good at his job." It's no surprise that "those who want Biden to fail label him as having failed," said Susan Glasser at The New Yorker. Their certainty is as "wildly overstated" as that of the boosters who proclaimed Biden the next FDR. Still, the possible failure of both "Build Back Better" bills would be "the kind of political blow that few new presidents can recover from." And though Biden is responding to headwinds with what he calls "relentless diplomacy," effective governance requires more than kind words and bridge building. Right now, his presidency is "a jumble of aspirations — and retains a haze of uncertainty about how to achieve them." [Try 6 Risk-Free issues of The Week]( [The week Logo] Copyright © 2021 The Week Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.. You’re receiving this because you subscribe to or signed up to receive emails from The Week. To unsubscribe from these emails, click [here](. The Week Publications, Inc. Registered address: 155 E 44th St Fl 22, New York, NY, 10017-4100. Further information about how we use your data can be found in our [Privacy Policy](.