Republicans' Joe Biden Problem: He Keeps Doing Things People Like

[babylonsister]

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/05/republicans-joe-biden-problem-he-keeps-doing-things-people-like

Republicans’ Joe Biden Problem: He Keeps Doing Things People Like
The sheer popularity of the president’s agenda could be a major problem for Republican candidates in the upcoming midterm elections.
By Eric Lutz
May 17, 2021


In last year’s presidential campaign, Donald Trump tried to scare voters away from Joe Biden by framing him as a dangerous radical—someone so far left and so unhinged that he was “against god.” It was a losing strategy: Biden, who has spent decades in the public eye, was so clearly not the person Trump was describing him as that none of the punches landed. Biden won a decisive victory on a unity platform.

Even now, as Biden oversees an ambitious and unabashedly progressive agenda, efforts by the MAGA right to cast his presidency as a “disaster” have been mostly fruitless, in no small part because his policies are largely popular. While the country is fiercely polarized, more voters than not appear to prefer Biden’s steady hand and policies aimed at actually improving their lives to the right’s chaos and focus on inane culture wars. That’s left the GOP with a problem in next year’s midterms, which the minority party typically turns into a referendum on the president: How do you run a campaign based on the idea that the guy in charge doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing when voters seem pretty satisfied with his performance?

The answer is that maybe you don’t. Dozens of Republican strategists told Politico on Monday that the party’s 2022 playbook will not focus on linking Democrats to Biden the way they did with Barack Obama in 2010 and the way Democrats did with Trump in 2018. Instead, the strategists said, Republican candidates will seek to tie their opponents to Nancy Pelosi, socialism, cancel culture, and various other liberal bogeymen. “Biden is not a good bad guy,” Republican strategist Ed Rogers told the outlet. “It’s hard to demonize him.”

Taking over for Trump at one of the most dire points of the pandemic, Biden has steered the nation toward normalcy, with a ramped-up vaccine rollout that has sent infection rates plummeting, to the point where government health officials say they no longer believe masks are necessary for those who have been inoculated. Meanwhile, his administration has championed largely popular policies, while avoiding the kind of drama and chaos that Trump inflicted on the nation. Trump supporters and GOP elected officials may continue to treat Biden as an illegitimate leader who stole the election and is either a left-wing extremist or a puppet for socialism. But it may be harder to convince anyone else that he is some kind of sinister force, as evidenced by Trump’s failed efforts last year.

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https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/05/republicans-joe-biden-problem-he-keeps-doing-things-people-like

[Chainfire]

1. Ah, but to hear them talk...Nobody likes Biden!

The Country has gone to hell in a handbag since Jan. Democrats are regretting voting for him and his dementia is getting worse by the day. They think that he spends his days in the basement of the White House playing with paper dolls. I keep tossing the popularity polls and reminding them that the dementia patient beat the former loser in chief like a drum and is far more popular with the people than Trump ever was. Of course, like all "democraps" I believe everything that I am told by the fake news...

I am enjoying it all immensely.

[COL Mustard]

3. I'm 63. I Only Hope That If I Live To Be 78

I'm half as sharp as JRB is. He got it going on!!!

[calimary]

4. Time to call the WAAAAAAAAAHmbulance.