Biden's sinking approval rating is a win for propaganda
Over the past few weeks, news outlets have made a big stink about President Biden's poor approval rating. They are partially responsible for that precipitous drop.
Imagine, if you will, that you’ve hired a plumber to fix your clogged toilet. They arrive, tools in hand, and instead of unclogging the mess, they sit down on the top of the toilet seat and spend 30 minutes explaining to you why having a broken toilet is making it more difficult for you to use the bathroom in your own house.
That’s what it feels like watching news programs discuss President Biden’s sinking approval ratings. An increasing amount of propaganda is convincing Americans that Biden should be impeached for his botched pullout of Afghanistan, that he’s dragging the country into tyrannical rule with his insistence on vaccine mandates and that his lack of press conferences is due to his diminished mental state. Meanwhile, mainstream network and cable news channels are zeroed in on Biden’s approval ratings as a legitimate news story.
There is no wonder Biden is far less popular than he was on Inauguration Day. At the time, he was replacing a man who, two weeks prior, incited a domestic terror attack on the Capitol. Some Trump voters, ostensibly, were more open to seeing if Biden could deliver following the revelation that maybe a second Trump term wasn’t the country’s best option. Propaganda, however, is a powerful tool. Many Republicans who were disgusted by January 6 now suggest that it was not a big deal, rendering one of the most horrific moments in modern American history a blip in the past. Meanwhile, they’ve been convinced Biden is a rising authoritarian.
Republicans are not the only ones susceptible to this type of thinking. Even Democrats and Never-Trump Republicans could be convinced that Biden’s old age is an issue or his push for vaccine mandates is un-American.
To be sure, Biden has stumbled along the way. He has broken promises, most notably his insistence that America would put COVID-19 in the past. He has only poured more money into policing, making it abundantly clear the death of George Floyd impacted him none. And while he has cancelled 11.5 billion dollars in student loans, he has failed to wipe out student-loan debt completely. Voters expect the officials they elect to keep their word.
And yet, it’s difficult to blame Biden for a virus that has lingered almost solely due to anti-vaccination disinformation. He has tried too hard to work with Republicans when his primary duty should be abolishing the filibuster and has rarely answered questions from the DC press corps. But these are less faults of Biden’s and more a result of Republicans who are hell-bent in standing firm athwart the Democratic agenda and a right-leaning press that asks Biden such nonsensical questions that it would be a waste of his time to be as front-facing as past presidents just for more air time.
Approval ratings are a result of how the media reports its stories, what it chooses to include and what gets left on the cutting room floor. If Biden’s approval ratings are low, that is confirmation that the propaganda is working. Poll participants don’t reach into a hat and decide on a whim how they feel about a president; they mold their feelings based on the information they take in, via social media, TV, print or elsewhere. Biden’s approval ratings aren’t low because of the supply chain issues or the unemployment rate. The percentage points were always going to drop because there exists a right-wing media ecosystem that portrays Biden to be worse than his predecessor no matter the decisions he makes. It is inherent among the establishment media to serve as a counterbalance to the deluge of disinformation Facebook and Fox News is feeding Republican voters.
When the news media presents Biden’s approval ratings as a stand-alone story without considering what has caused this change, they are acquiescing to propaganda rule. The media must acknowledge that some of the most prominent Republican media personalities are calling for a Civil War and most GOP politicians are more concerned about Biden’s poor image than eradicating COVID-19 in their states. Democrats cannot afford to take this lightly, to assume to the best in the opposing party and decide that voter suppression is a thing of the past. Voter apathy cannot plague Democrats in the 2022 midterm elections if democracy is to remain intact. That begins with media outlets covering the Biden administration and the real threats the president faces with the appropriate severity each threat poses.
Biden is no savior. He is also no authoritarian. If significantly less people like the job he’s doing, that’s a sign the conspiracy theorists are winning the battle. The media can’t let them win the war.