By Isolde Walters
No amount of wishful thinking changes the fact that the American people blame Biden for the country’s economic woes leaving Trump on track to take the White House, writes Dr John C. Hulsman
Sometimes in political risk analysis, facts end up staring you in the face which, for whatever reason, elude your competitors. Seeing ahead of the rest is everything in my industry.
The facts show that we have reached “Peak Biden” and, what’s more, that Donald Trump is going to retake the White House next November.
“It’s far too early to make such a bold statement,” you shriek. But the facts are right there, under our noses, if we have the wit to shut out the noise and see what matters.
Last month, a startling ABC News/Washington Post poll had Donald Trump at 52 per cent, a whopping ten points clear of Biden at 42 per cent. While that huge lead may be an outlier, the Real Clear Politics average of aggregated polls has Trump ahead of Biden by between 1 to 2 per cent, with the momentum firmly on Trump’s side. Given the slowness of the aggregated number to reflect change, Trump’s lead is probably somewhere in the middle, but it is real.
Far worse for the Biden administration are the reasons why he is polling so badly. The president’s approval rating stands at a measly 37 per cent. A simple rule of thumb is that if the president’s approval rating is over 60 per cent (FDR and Reagan territory), he can pretty much do what he wants. If it falls below 40 per cent, he is trying to squelch rumours that he is dead. There is no doubt that Biden is on political life support.
Only 30 per cent of those polled approve of “Bidenomics”, the president’s economic programme. Tellingly, the American people squarely blame the administration for the cost-of-living crisis, remembering all too well that Biden spent like a drunken sailor as the nation came out of Covid, thereby igniting inflation.
A decisive 74 per cent think Biden is “too old” to be president. What they actually mean is that he lacks the mental acuity for the job. Almost every week, there is a misstep. The latest being when the president bumped into the Brazilian flag at the UN and forgot to shake Lula da Silva’s hand, to his obvious annoyance. The world is too dangerous and his position too powerful for the majority of Americans not to view this decline with anything but alarm.
Even David Ignatius, the respected Washington Post columnist and unofficial spokesman for the deep state, penned an op-ed where he thanked Biden for his service but suggested it was time for him to go.
Worse lies ahead for the White House. The distasteful Hunter Biden saga is set to run and run, as the House Impeachment Inquiry slowly draws out how the family peddled its own influence. The economy may or may not avoid recession in the year ahead, but it is unlikely to markedly improve. Biden’s mental acuity at eighty is unlikely to get any better. The porous border is unlikely to be re-sealed. The stalemate in Ukraine is unlikely to lead to decisive victory for Kiev, leaving America stuck paying Zelensky’s government’s endless bar tab in another “forever war”. Crime-ridden, Democrat-run inner cities like San Francisco and Chicago are unlikely to see a renaissance. Indeed, in all these cases, things are overwhelmingly likely to get worse.
The final nail in the coffin is the brewing third party activity in the upcoming election which will finish the Biden White House. Cornel West and his Green Party are polling at a statistically significant five per cent. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., with the support of 15 per cent of those polled in the Democratic Party, is set next week to bolt, launching his own third-party run. Both the Green’s and Bobby’s supporters are overwhelmingly on the left, more likely to vote for Biden than Trump.
No amount of wishful thinking or lack of curiosity from the mainstream media changes these facts. And what they amount to is a stake through the heart of the Biden presidency. We are at “Peak Biden”, for anyone with eyes to see.
Dr. John C. Hulsman is managing partner of John C. Hulsman Enterprises, a global political risk consulting firm. His new book is The Last Best Hope: A History of American Realism.
