The presidential election is more than a year away still, but Democrats and the team around President Joe Biden should be focused on a warning delivered by one of their own more than three decades ago.
Democratic strategist James Caville made a mantra of the words “It’s the economy, stupid,” while masterminding Bill Clinton’s campaign for the presidency back in 1992.
The current president’s “Bidenomics” are proving to be nothing but a disaster for ordinary Americans — and a new CBS News poll proves how devastating that’s turning out.
CBS reported Sunday that its poll shows Biden with an overall approval rating of 40 percent — the lowest of his presidency for CBS (though some polls have put him slightly lower at some points). When it comes to the economy alone, Biden scored an even more dismal approval rating of 34 percent, matching the lowest point recorded in June of last year.
CBS POLL: President Biden’s approval rating hits an all-time low
Approve 40%
Disapprove 60%The Economy
Approve 34%
Disapprove 64%CBS/YouGov (B+) | n=2,181 | 07/26-28https://t.co/c7cssfXrja pic.twitter.com/Byoy1U1a2I
— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) July 30, 2023
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For Americans with eyes, it’s not hard to see why.
With inflation still keeping sticker shock a regular part of the trip to the grocery store for most Americans, and gas prices still obscenely high, even Americans willing to overlook the serial, self-inflicted catastrophes of the Biden era are confronted with daily reminders that the wrong man is in the White House — and the wrong party is in power.
Rabid partisans, knee-jerk liberals and the establishment media might be able to close their eyes to the ongoing, ever-more-serious revelations about corruption in the first family.
Were you better off financially under Trump?
Yes: 99% (1278 Votes)
No: 1% (11 Votes)
They might be able to explain away the invasion of illegal immigration overrunning the southern border, the international disgrace of the Afghanistan withdrawal and kowtowing to China, the ostensibly Catholic president’s fervent support for taxpayer-funded abortions and his party’s insane pretenses about the supposedly changeable nature of innate sex.
But Americans who pay for their own meals understand that “Bidenomics” have been no gift to the country.
“It’s not just whether one has a job, but what your wages can buy you. Most of those working say their pay is not keeping pace with rising prices,” CBS noted. “And even if the rate of inflation is slowing, those price hikes have clearly left their mark.
“Prices are the No. 1 reason people give when asked why they call the economy bad and the top reason given when they describe their personal financial situation as bad.”
Yeah, well, “prices” have a way of doing that — concentrating the mind on exactly how much is in the wallet or purse.
And Americans told the CBS survey they’re not happy with how things are going: Of 2,181 polled, according to CBS, 35 percent said they were falling financially behind, 52 percent said they were staying in place, while only 13 percent said they were “getting ahead.”
(It’s a good bet that 13 percent is in the “diversity, equity and inclusion” racket or some other lefty grift of the moment.)
Sixty-five percent rated the economy as “bad,” versus only 29 percent who called it “good.” And 70 percent said their work income wasn’t keeping up with inflation as opposed to 30 percent who said it was.
None of this bodes well for Biden or his re-election hopes.
At the same point in his presidency — before the COVID-19 pandemic — former President Donald Trump was watching an economy that was booming on his pro-growth policies.
In the summer of 2019, the inflation rate was 2.3 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment was low (including among blacks and Hispanics), and the stock market was rising.
Times were good and everyone knew it, even if the caterwauling Democrats in Washington and their propaganda outlets in the mainstream media pretended otherwise.
By contrast, in June of this year, CNN reported, the U.S. inflation rate was 3 percent, which might not sound like much higher than 2019’s 2.3 percent, but it came after numbers like the 9 percent inflation of June 2022.
In other words, prices are rising on prices that were already risen in the first place.
Americans might not be great in math as a rule, but they can run numbers when it matters. And when it comes to the amount of food a family can buy, putting gas in a car and paying bills, it matters a great deal.
What should really alarm Biden and his Democratic handlers is the fact that he’s scoring 40 percent (and even that’s probably too high) when he has the combined power of the hideously biased mainstream media cheering him on, ignoring negative stories or putting the best possible spin on them.
That means Americans are seeing through the propaganda — and it should be a wake-up call to the Biden White House and the Democrats who’ve pinned their hopes on its success next year.
No matter who the Republican nominee is — whether it’s current front-runner Trump or one of his competitors — Americans are going to have a clear comparison to make when they go to the polls in 2024.
When it comes to the phrase, “it’s the economy, stupid,” they’ll have to ask if the country an afford another four years of a corrupted, ideologically insane administration. The answer is, literally, no.
The country can’t afford it. And neither, quite literally, can its voters.
