Podcast: I Feel Snitty
Episode 207: Perception Is Deception
Premiere Date: 7/25/2022
Length: 9:24 (1,559 words)
Link: https://ifeelsnitty.podbean.com/e/perception-is-deception/
Transcript:
Welcome to I Feel Snitty, episode 207, entitled, “Perception Is Deception.” I’m your host, Craig Rozniecki.
I’m not sure I can remember a time where there persisted such a wide gap between reality and perception. Let’s cut right to the chase – Joe Biden is not a popular President. In fact, at least at this point in his tenure, he could very well be the least popular President in U.S. history. According to FiveThirtyEight, his current weighted poll average is 37.9% approval and 56.9% disapproval. We’re just a year and a half into his presidency. To put this into greater perspective, Donald Trump was 4 points higher than him at this point in his term, at 41.8%. Even Democrats have gone sour on the President, with his approval ranging between just 70-75% among members of his own party. With the midterm elections right around the corner, and both Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis looking up and drooling from their dungeon in the underworld, Democrats are understandably freaking out about Biden’s numbers. Based on what he’s accomplished to this point in his term, his numbers should be far greater than they are.
The reality is Joe Biden signed a $1.9 trillion COVID relief package, which included a $20 billion vaccination program. Unlike his predecessor – Dr. JustTakeThisPoisonAndSeeWhatHappens, Biden has taken the worst pandemic in 100 years seriously. The average number of daily COVID-related deaths in Donald Trump’s final three days in office was 3,035. Today, that average is down to 242. As of Trump’s final day in office, 16.1 million vaccinations had been administered. Today that number is over 596 million. When Trump was Master Puppet, he wanted nothing to do with the pandemic. He was like a herpes-ridden nymphomaniac high on ecstasy – he just wanted to deny and fuck everything…up. People were dying by the thousands; businesses were being shut down because of it; and he made like Lieutenant Frank Drebin, in telling the country, “Nothing to see here. Please disperse; nothing to see here. Please.” With Biden as President, we’ve finally been able to get back to our “normal” lives. Isn’t that what people wanted? What they were yelling about for a couple of years? Hm, maybe it’s that whole, “There are things I miss about being single when I’m seeing someone and there are things I miss about seeing someone when I’m single.” Perhaps the country now realizes working from home in your pajamas; ordering delivery multiple times a week; and Netflix-and-chilling by yourself until 4 in the morning isn’t so bad after all.
Not only that, after the U.S. received a C- grade with regard to their infrastructure in 2021, President Biden signed a $1.2 trillion bill to help improve our roads and bridges – the largest infrastructure bill in this country’s history. While construction may be annoying at times, bad roads and bridges can be annoying and fatal. It’s like So-Crates once said, “We need to build bridges, not walls, and then rebuild bridges, so we don’t fall. …and die and shit.”
If that wasn’t enough, President Biden signed the Safe Communities Act – the first gun-reform bill passed in nearly 30 years. Anywhere from 55 to 90% of Americans believe in at least some form of gun-reform.
Oh, I’m being told there’s more. After nearly 20 years there – where 2,400 of our troops were killed and over 46,300 Afghan civilians died, President Biden finally ended the War in Afghanistan. Most of the country agreed with this move, as polls showed over 60% believed the war wasn’t worth fighting and approximately 70% thought the war was a failure and that the U.S. didn’t achieve its goals.
I haven’t even mentioned the jobs numbers yet. When Trump came into office, the unemployment rate was at 4.7%. When he left office, that number increased to 6.4%. Now, after a year and a half of Biden in the White House, unemployment is down to 3.6%. Those numbers probably don’t do the two presidents proper justice. This next set will. In the 48 months Donald Trump sat on the golden toilet in his Oval Office, 2, 511,000 jobs were lost, or an average of -52,313 per month. In the just 17 months Joe Biden has been in the White House, there have been a total of 8,963,000 jobs created, or an average of 527,235 per month. In other words, Biden has already helped to create 11,474,000 more jobs than Trump, and he’s not even halfway through his first term, or an average of 579,548 per month. Under Joe Biden, the U.S. has added more jobs in a President’s first 17 months than at any other point in its history. Even if you want to say, “Well, Craig, the country is more heavily populated today than it was even last year, let alone 50 years ago,” I could still accurately tell you that, under President Biden, we’ve seen the highest increase in job creation since 1979.
So, in just a year and a half, Joe Biden has gotten us over the seemingly never-ending hump that is COVID – the worst pandemic in 100 years; he’s helped get us out of a seemingly never-ending war – one in which we fought for 20 years; signed the largest infrastructure bill in our history; signed the first gun-reform bill in 30 years; and has overseen the largest increase in job creation in over 40 years. All this, and yet his job approval is at just 38%.
So, why? Why, with all Joe Biden has accomplished in less than half a term, is he seeing the worst approval ratings we have on record? Gas prices? They certainly didn’t help matters any, but polls consistently showed people were aware of the reasoning behind the higher-than-normal prices, and were willing to make that sacrifice – not to mention said prices have been decreasing for the past 3-4 weeks.
Inflation? I’d say that’s definitely a factor – especially among Republicans and some Independents, but what about Democrats? Do 25-30% of the President’s own base suddenly not approve of him because of what they know to be a worldwide problem, largely due to the supply-and-demand issues which have arisen because of COVID? I doubt it.
The main problem is, and I haven’t heard many people talk about this, but the main problem is that, in 2022 perception is often times of greater import than reality. In my mind, Joe Biden has done an excellent job as President thus far. It’s also my firm belief his approval numbers would be through the roof if we lived in the pre-television era. That’s not the case, though. When people see Biden, they see an old man, frail, whose stutter and tendency to gaffe have become more prominent after entering the White House, and being forced to speak publicly more than he would otherwise.
The first President to effectively use television as a means of outreach was Dwight Eisenhower. He was followed by John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump. Besides Trump, all of these men were viewed as strong, handsome, charismatic, or a combination of the three. I suppose Trump could be considered all three to the blind trailer-park demographic, but I digress. Once television became one of the main means of outreach, appearance and eloquence superseded experience, and at some points, even intelligence. Politics became progressively more of a show than a job, and ironically, the most important part of said job wasn’t to actually do it well, but get the public to believe you were. Joe Biden is old-school. The guy is so old-school, he probably has a dial-up for his AOL account, and thinks Instagram is an on-demand drug-dealing site. He doesn’t want to go up to the podium and talk about what he’s done or wants to do; he just wants to get behind the desk and do it.
Look, the guy has never been a great speaker, but he’s long battled a stutter. He’s always been prone to gaffes, which is one reason why he’s so relatable. And no, he’s not a spring chicken, but none of this should detract from what he’s accomplished in office thus far. This has been the GOP’s gameplan from the start – to paint President Biden as old, forgetful, ineloquent, and take all this to mean he’s losing it. This is, of course, BS, but sadly, I think some Democrats are buying into it. His numbers are awful, and if they don’t improve in the next year or so, I will likely sadly get on board with the idea of nominating someone else for the 2024 election – because, for as much as I like Joe Biden, I dislike the idea of Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis winning the next election more than I like the current President. However, until that time, let us not allow our perception of an old, frail, ineloquent man cloud the reality of a great President. We can look at the exterior of any home and cast our judgments, but will never know the reality of it until we see what goes on inside.
That’s it for today’s episode. Until next time, you can find me on Podbean, Amazon, Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, and your mom. This has been I Feel Snitty, with Craig Rozniecki. Take care.
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