I keep reading about how Biden’s approval ratings are sinking, especially with independent voters, because of inflation and the continuing opioid epidemic. And because he hasn’t been able to get Build Back Better through Congress.

Hello America, does anyone here remember Donald Fucking Trump? The extraordinary grifter who conned his way into the White House and still hasn’t been able to admit that he lost the 2020 election?

Let’s first demonstrate that Joe Biden has very little to do with inflation and almost nothing to do with the continued epidemic and certainly didn’t elect Joe Manchin to the Senate. But let’s take them one at a time.

Inflation

Inflation is complicated and not usually caused by one thing. But the current round of inflation is caused at least substantially by the current supply chain problems (which in turn have mostly been caused by the pandemic) and by the Federal Reserve system’s strong support to re-engage the economy. It’s not being caused by Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan — the spending on which hasn’t even begun yet — or by the Build Back Better legislation, which hasn’t even been passed into law yet.

Covid Epidemic

One also can’t pin the continuation of the Covid epidemic on Joe Biden. First of all, the pandemic is a world-wide phenomenon, not just something happening here in the United States. But mostly, it’s being exacerbated here (and also worldwide) by all the anti-vaxxers who refuse to be vaccinated or wear a mask, and whose unrelenting obstreperousness has contributed substantially to the pandemic’s continuing long enough to develop multiple variants. The one thing where Biden could do more is by pushing harder to make the vaccines available in countries like India and South Africa, where some of the variants mutated (or at least where some of the mutations were discovered).

Build Back Better

Joe Mancin, the Senator from West Virginia has been a singular roadblock to Build Back Better, and there ain’t much that Joe Biden can do about it. First of all, the House progressives held out so long precisely because they didn’t trust Joe Manchin. And they were not wrong. Build Back Better has been scaled back and reduced in size and scaled back some more and been reduced in size some more all to please Joe Manchin, who gave President Biden his word and then broke it. By announcing his opposition on Fox News and letting a staffer notify the White House instead of manning up himself, Manchin really pissed Biden off.

In explaining himself Manchin, of course, trotted out a bunch of Republican tropes, like claiming that he couldn’t support the continuation of the expanded child care tax credit because he fears that families will use the extra income to buy “drugs.”

Nice thought, Mr. Racist.

Although Manchin is a Democrat in name only, we still need him to maintain the Democratic majority and allow Shumer to be the Majority Leader. Otherwise we’d be back to having Mitch McTurtle back in charge.

In any case, it ain’t over yet, because Shumer has promised to bring back Build Back Better and get all the Senators on the record with a vote. Manchin will be feeling the heat, and there is still time to negotiate some more. This is where the fact that Manchin and Biden have a relationship is to every one’s advantage.

Short Memories

In the meantime Americans are seeming to have a remarkable amount of amnesia about #45, who is being investigated in New York, Georgia and Washington DC. The January 6th committee is clearly getting a lot of information on the attempted insurrection, and if one more former staffer writes a book throwing Trump under a bus it will be an all-time world record.

All the pundits keep claiming that the Democrats will be wiped out in the mid-terms, which might be a good reason to stop listening to the pundits. I’m not quite sure what all the naysayers want Biden to do that he isn’t doing, but God help is all if the Republicans get back the reins of power in 2022.