A number of factors have to be considered when evaluating a poll, particularly when that public official is President Biden who is persistently the target of negative news from GOP members.
First of all, there are polls, polls, and more polls, and they fluctuate and only indicate a moment in time with a limited number of respondents. Who is conducting the poll, where and among what pool of citizens, and what are the questions being posed are important vectors.
Not too many days have gone by since the withdrawal fiasco of troops and others from Afghanistan, and the blame for the blunders there stopped at the Oval Office, if we listen to Biden dissenters. But as we have said before, Biden is not alone in determining foreign or domestic policy and, for the most part, he has been a good listener, if somewhat slow in his reactions.
It was good to hear some of our concerns about the previous administration echoed by actor/director George Clooney. He stated that the nation was still recovering from the disaster left by Trump. “It’s like taking a battered child and thinking everything’s going to be OK on his first day in school,” Clooney told BBC. “There’s a lot of things that have to be repaired, you know? There’s a lot of healing that has to happen, and it’s going to take time.”
A battered child is a useful metaphor in place of a battered America under Trump’s watch, and it will indeed take a long time to restore a sense of normalcy and well-being. In fact, depending how battered the child was, the condition can linger for years.
Let us hope that it doesn’t take that much time for us to get over Trump, though he’s still around and as threatening as ever with his menacing ways. And even more troubling is the number of prominent elected officials who stand by his litany of lies.
Yes, we have been battered, bruised, and bullied by Trump, but we should not lose hope and put too much stock in a momentary barometer of Biden’s lack of popularity.