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Opinion | Voters punished Biden for problems he didn’t cause and effectively addressed

www.msnbc.com Opinion | Voters punished Biden for problems he didn’t cause and effectively addressed

The fight against rising prices has essentially been won. But few in the electorate seem aware.

Opinion | Voters punished Biden for problems he didn’t cause and effectively addressed

Summary

President Joe Biden’s economic achievements—lowering inflation, reducing gas prices, creating jobs, and boosting manufacturing—are largely unrecognized by the public, despite his successes.

His tenure saw landmark legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act, CHIPS Act, and major infrastructure investments.

However, Biden's approval ratings remain low, attributed to inflation backlash, weak communication, and a media landscape prone to misinformation.

Democrats face a “propaganda problem” rather than a policy failure, with many voters likely to credit incoming President Trump for Biden’s accomplishments due to partisan messaging and social media dynamics.

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  • Remember when he first got elected and people blamed covid on him as a joke (it happened before he was in office)
    ...then now people actually believe it

    Edit: point proven.

    • Remember 8+y of "Thanks Obama" when the dude passed a healthcare act that got tens of millions affordable coverage?

    • When he first got into office he wasn't responsible for what happened.

      Now he's been in office for four years and is responsible for what happened.

      More people died of covid under his watch. The meager covid response we had was dismantled by him.

      Not only is he responsible, he is more responsible. Not only was his covid policy bad, it was worse. And not by a little.

      • One guy told people they could try to cure COVID by shoving light bulbs up to their asses and inject disinfectants whilst their staff was eye rolling in the background.

        All this whilst abusing people wearing masks

        That dumbass also helped the anti vax movement

        Trump was not only responsible for deaths in America, but also internationally. He also helped bring back mostly extinct diseases to the US and intentionally

        He has every opportunity to attempt to control the virus but he chose instead to use it as an opportunity to gain more power

        • And yet with all of that being true his response to covid was objectively better than Biden's for the reasons that were already written down when you decided to reply to this post and not that one

          He has every opportunity to attempt to control the virus but he chose instead to use it as an opportunity to gain more power

          The cynicism of the liberal cannot be measured by earthy tools for its scale is greater than the earth itself

          Did Biden stop using the covid state of emergency at the border or did he use more than Trump? The answer is that he deported as many as Trump's entire term in his first two years.

          • Which reasons? It objectively wasn't better at all lol

            Trump was in office for only 1 year of covid. During which he did nothing except increase shares of horse medication companies and sabotage pandemic measures. The entirety of Bidens presidency was with covid

            What covid response did you want Biden to continue with long term specifically?

            The idea was to get vaccinated which made it safer to reopen and vaccines were released shortly before Biden became president, and they were effective at reducing deaths.

            Many people who died were people who listened to Trump and chose to deworm themselves instead of vaccination

            It ends up on Bidens tally sure. But if king dumbass spent his time telling people they were safe and encouraging his dumbass followers to wear masks and vaccinate, we possibly could have delayed some variants too

            But his followers only seem to want to stick baby diapers on their ears apparently, not wear masks thanks to Trump

            Trump was more interested in sabotaging his opponent after he lost. Just like he spent Bidens presidency trying to sabotage the economy

            • Which reasons? It objectively wasn’t better at all lol

              I was accused of engaging in bad faith before anyone had even replied to me and this shit is getting upvoted despite objectively being in bad faith.

              I listed a half dozen things in the comment you chose not to reply to. I mentioned his opportunistic use of the pandemic to expand Trump's (Obama's) fascist policies on the border IN THE COMMENT YOU REPLIED TO. There were no other replies at that time. It was literally on your screen just below where you clicked to reply. Now you're choosing to pretend they don't exist while making a counter argument supported by nothing but the 'lol' at the end of your sentence.

              Is this the best your community has to offer? Because the level of debate here is dogshit no matter how many 'no u' throwaways I get as a reply.

              • Umm.

                Some of your list is nonsense like ending the state of emergency. It ended in 2023. That was 1.5 years after the vaccines were readily available and nearly 3 years after the first detections. Most people dying at that point were people making that choice. It was bad, but not an emergency anymore. That's normal. RAT tests were also available by that time

                And stuff like the 5 day quarantine period was done worldwide. That's the minimum period. When that change was made everyone who wanted a vaccine was already vaccinated. You'll note that diseases like influenza which can also kill don't and didn't have a minimum quarantine period. This doesn't mean the period can't be longer

                Or do you propose the full 10 days even in 2024? I'm sure Trump followers will certainly follow that

                In fact, trump has all but eliminated the chances of eliminating many diseases in many countries now because he's spread distrust

                What part do you think Trump did well? When Trump gave Rat tests to Putin, that was really useful. I bet the first thing Putin did was share them to people in need on a non partisan basis and not boast what a great leader he was

                • For a moment I'd like to step away from directly replying to your comment because every revision I write ends up being all caps screaming at you. Instead I'd like to ask you a question:

                  Do homeless people deserve to die? They have the option of getting a job and finding a place to live. They're choosing not to. They chose to live how they are, right? And the disease and crime that affects the community around them because they're cut off from government services like plumbing and mail... that's not an emergency, right? It's just normal.

                  Transitioning back to your covid denialism... let's step away from the people you explicitly write off and talk about the people you implicitly wish death upon:

                  Do disabled people deserve to die because you have an axe to grind with Trump supporters?

                  There's so goddamned much in your comment that it feels irresponsible to let even a single line go without direct confrontation. You repeat the covid denialist lies about "a pandemic of the unvaccinated." You ignore the effects of the virus in total. You ignore the scale of the pandemic today.

                  One last question: Do you even wear a mask in public anymore? Do you deserve to die if the answer is no? Do you deserve to be disabled for the rest of your life? Do the people in the grocery store deserve to die just because you walk past them?

          • And yet with all of that being true his response to covid was objectively better than Biden's for the reasons that were already written down when you decided to reply to this post and not that one

            You realize that the entire reason COVID spread so fast and sickened so many is that Trump gutted the CDC (and more specifically gutted the CDC's pandemic task force) then aggressively pushed misinformation during the opening phase of the pandemic right? The few folks remaining at the CDC were under politically motivated orders to play down the pandemic the entire time Trump was in office so that Trump could try and pretend his economy (which he inherited from Obama) wasn't shitting the bed while he ran for reelection.

            Remember the bit where Trump thought a big pandemic would be good for his voting numbers because it was supposed to hit the blue cities harder than his red state supporters? Remember how we needed freezer trucks as temporary morgues for a year as a result?

            • You realize that the entire reason COVID spread so fast and sickened so many is that Trump gutted the CDC (and more specifically gutted the CDC’s pandemic task force) then aggressively pushed misinformation during the opening phase of the pandemic right?

              No, not the entire reason. Not even the entire reason for the first year before Biden did all the same things but with liberal complacency. The main reason was because we never had a shutdown. We never payed people to stay home sick. The way to address a pandemic is fundamentally at odds with the basis of our economic system. The only reason there was a reaction besides the trillions of dollars of bailouts during Trump was because capital was genuinely panicked. Once they realized it was something that would just slowly kill us off with disability and repeat infections, they had to slowly remove that reaction which happened under Biden. That's why Biden was objectively worse than Trump. They're not better or worse than each other they're flipping figureheads in the first place.

              The few folks remaining at the CDC were under politically motivated orders to play down the pandemic the entire time Trump was in office so that Trump could try and pretend his economy (which he inherited from Obama) wasn’t shitting the bed while he ran for reelection.

              And what did you think happened after Biden appointed a damned venture capitalist to run the agency? I already laid out just one example of Biden's CDC warping their presentation of evidence to falsely downplay the pandemic. And look at the reaction in this thread! Liberals honestly believe the pandemic is over! Despite all measurable evidence to the contrary!

              Remember the bit where Trump thought a big pandemic would be good for his voting numbers because it was supposed to hit the blue cities harder than his red state supporters?

              Okay?? Remember when Democrats pretended to care about the pandemic purely as a way to beat Trump? And then started their Op-ed mill about sending kids back to school before the vaccine was even out??

      • Man, I thought I escaped comments this dumb when I left Reddit.

      • Were you not following the court's impact on public health policy at all? Every sane state passed a mask mandate and other public health measures to combat COVID spread, then the courts (appointed by Republicans no less) crushed those efforts

        • A court doesn't crush anything. Decisions have to be enforced. And why are you accepting the framing that it should be left to the states?

          I don't care what direction the 'other team' is pushing in. I'm pointing out the direction your team was pushing in.

      • Hello moral and intellectual coward. You've just downvoted this comment without replying. I'm sorry you're upset.

        But it wasn't me that manipulated the covid map by changing what it measured from "People getting infected" to "how many hospital beds are available" in order turn it blue. And neither was it Trump. It was Biden.

        And it wasn't me that took a meeting with the CEO of Delta Airlines and changed the quarantine period from what scientists said was nesssesary (14 days) to what monopoly capitalists said (5 days). And neither was it Trump. It was Biden.

        I wasn't the one who gutted unemployment insurance. I wasn't the one who manufactured consent for the end of masking. I wasn't the one who ended the state of emergency. And neither was it Trump. It was Biden.

        Stop taking your anger out on me.

        • Sometimes I downvote something when I'm annoyed by the time I spent reading it, and I'm merely trying to signal to the good folks here that they can spend their time a better way. Not every dumb take deserves an actual reply. In fact almost none of them do. I just want to help people who value their time, as they have done for me. That is pretty much the purpose of the voting system. We're helping each other out.

        • At risk of being downvoted into oblivion: People are hyper polarized and unable to have nuanced discussions as a broad generalization any longer. And that, is the core of the problem.

          But where does it stem from? Misdirection - it might not seem relevant, but, I assure you: It is. We have to talk - as a recent video reminded me, and taught me something very important, Beoing. And maybe Intel - but mostly Boeing.

          Back in the Early 60's - Boeing was Successful, very successful, it was THE MOST SUCCESSFUL airplane company - and it was, surprise surprise: ran by engineers. Then we have Douglas - ran by Finance bean counters. In 67, Douglas was facing bankruptcy, and - as a defence contractor, the US government in it's infinite wisdom forced Boeing to merge with it, and - to put the cream on the top followed by the crowning toxic jewel on top: The executives that caused the problems at Douglas were put in charge, and - Boeing has gone downhill since. At one point an executive at the new Boeing said something along the lines of: "I don't want to be distracted by the details of building airplanes" - like, I'm sorry: THAT IS WHAT YOUR COMPANY DOES, those aren't the distractions - that is your core needed responsibility to make sure it's done right.

          We good with why the above is a problem?

          So lets look at Covid: Finance people want the economy to keep going - so drag their feet on doing what is necessary. Finance people don't want to be inconvienienced, so... push for changes that are beneficial to them IN THE SHORT TERM. And finally, we see the idea that a Stage 4 Cancer Patient who passes away being labeled as a Covid Death... Why? I think it serves 2 reasons: 1, it makes the hospital numbers look more paletable for awhile - Covid death is "new scary virus" not, "Something we have been dealing with for forever" and 2. It justifies massive inflationary spend by the government - enabling them to effecitvely pick winners (big business), and losers (small business).

          The thing is: This shift - this Financiers over Engineers and people in their field running the show, is both the Republicans AND Democrats. That is: Democrat Social Justice types use inflationary spending to shove money at the cost of EVERYONE at whatever group they are "fighting for" and, Republican types love to shove tax benefits in the hands of their prefered businesses. And what are the fixes? It's really simple: End Inflationary Monetary Policy.

          Thing is: Sick people masking? Makes sense. Properly cleaning high contact often terribly dirty things like debit pin pads - makes sense. More frequent cleaning of public bathrooms: Makes sense. This isn't exactly rocket science. But forcing an untested thing onto people, after hiding the details from the public is disgusting. And the fact that people don't get it - that is a huge problem.

384 comments