When it comes to intolerance, Biden’s America looks a lot like Trump’s America | Opinion
President Biden turned 81 on Monday, but he got an early birthday surprise in the form of a public opinion poll that he probably wished he hadn’t seen.
According to the latest NBC News poll, Biden’s approval rating has degraded to the lowest level of his presidency — just 40 percent of American voters approve of his job as president.
But more alarming for the president and his team of advisers should be the fact that for the first time in a hypothetical general-election matchup, Donald Trump is beating him.
Let that sink in for a minute. The man that the whole of elite political society spent years portraying as a sexist, racist, homophobe is beating “Uncle Joe.” How could that be?
There are lots of reasons cited for voter dissatisfaction: Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war ranks high, as well as the floundering economy and crippling inflation.
As awful as Trump may be, it’s easy to imagine him standing before a presidential debate audience next year, appealing to voters as Ronald Reagan did back in 1980: Are you better off today than you were four years ago?
The question, of course, would have the added intrigue of being asked by the person who was actually leading the country only four years prior.
By lots of measures, the promises of “Biden’s America” have fallen flat — a reality confirmed by growing disappointment within his own political party.
People are paying more for food and gas and they can’t afford cars or new homes. These things matter especially for young people who can remember a time when these hardships weren’t present.
Then there was the great hope of restored national civility, which seems about as far from coming to fruition as it was during the darkest days of the Trump presidency.
The collapse of efforts to return to a time when people of differing viewpoints could still respect one another may not be more salient with the voters than their economic well-being, but it is still worth further consideration.
This is especially the case because Trump’s presidency is so closely associated (at least in the public psyche) with the empowerment of vocal racist and fringe factions, causing many to lament the looming collapse of American society.
Trump’s tenure did, in fact, coincide with some terrible events that understandably fed the notion that intolerance was ascendant, including the infamous white nationalist rally in Charlottesville and the nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd.
But a look around the nation today – at college campuses and the streets of major cities — would suggest that when it comes to racism and social unrest, Biden’s America actually looks a lot like Trump’s. Maybe it’s even worse.
In Biden’s America, racism is regularly on full display: in the student organizations calling for the death of their Jewish peers with little or no condemnation; in the dramatic rise of antisemitic violence and vandalism across the nation; and most importantly, in the words and actions of high-profile officeholders in the president’s own political party.
Unlike the fringy white supremacist protesters during the Trump era, who were summarily denounced by most thinking people on the right, much racism being spewed today comes from figures and persons in positions of great influence or authority. From Harvard law students to celebrities to members of Congress, many of these racist words and actions go unchecked within the Democratic Party.
And just as with his predecessor, whether Biden bears any personal responsibility for the rise in intolerance is irrelevant. He is the nation’s leader — not to mention his party’s chief — and the job of standing up to it is implicitly his, especially given his promise to restore civility.
So it really shouldn’t be a surprise that Biden is now losing to Trump in the polls. By any measure, including the rise of intolerance and racism, life under Biden isn’t better than it was under Trump.
