 A new NBC News article claims that President Joe Biden is mystified as to why his approval rating is so low and it's bothering him that his approval rating is nearly as bad as Donald Trump's. Now, the entire article is very long, so I'll link to that down below if you want to read the whole thing. But I've taken out the highlights and I've got to say it's an enlightening article. I guess we'll use that word because I don't understand how he doesn't understand why he's viewed as unpopular. He's failed to deliver time and again and won't do the bare minimum to help people won't even push people in his own party like mansion and cinema won't call them out by name won't even really call out Republicans. But yet he doesn't know why he's unpopular as nothing gets done and the country continues to circle the drain. Let's hear him out. Biden is rattled by his sinking approval ratings and is looking to regain voter's confidence that he can provide the sure-handed leadership he promised during the campaign. People close to the president say. Biden has vented to aides about not getting credit from Americans or the news media for actions he believes have helped the country, particularly on the economy. Unemployment rates have dropped to below 4 percent pre-pandemic levels, but polling indicates most Americans believe the economy is in bad shape. Biden grouses that Republicans aren't getting their share of the blame for legislative gridlock in Congress while he's repeatedly faulted for not getting his agenda passed. The president has also told his aides he doesn't think enough Democrats go on television to defend him, a particular sore spot in his slumping poll numbers. He's mystified that his approval rating has dropped to a level approaching that of his predecessor Donald Trump, ranked by historians as one of the worst presidents in history. He's now lower than Trump and he's really twisted about it another person close to the White House said. OK, so there's a lot to unpack here. First and foremost, it is true that Republicans are culpable partially for gridlock in DC if you go by the current rules in the Senate. The problem is that you don't have to go by the current rules in the Senate. You can choose to get rid of the filibuster and pass anything you want by a simple majority, but that has not happened. Now, Biden could blame Manchin and Sinema and he'd be correct about that. I'd argue that there'd be some other rotating villain that would take their place. It'd be John Tester. It'd be someone else if Manchin or Sinema wasn't obstructing, you know, Biden's own agenda by refusing to get rid of the filibuster or even create carveouts for specific policies, you know, where you don't have the filibuster. But Biden has exerted no pressure on Manchin and Sinema. And time and again, we see him start a fight kind of and then back down immediately. We saw it with voting rights. There was a failure to get rid of the filibuster. You have people like Kirsten Sinema pretending to care so much. I think she was even fake crying on the Senate floor. I could be misremembering that. But making it seem as if she cares so deeply about voting rights and how sacred our democracy is, but yet she won't get rid of the filibuster because that's more important than voting rights. Biden then said, well, you know, it's going to be hard. We might not be able to get this done, but I'm going to fight. And then what did we hear? Nothing, not a peep from the White House. No fight whatsoever. Going back to last year, build back better. You had Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema dictating everything. And Biden was just sitting back and watching it all unfold, not trying to steer the conversation as president of the United States. The reason why you're unpopular, Joe Biden, is because you're effectively letting a senator from West Virginia be the president. Be more powerful than you. You're not calling them out by name. Joe Manchin or Kirsten Sinema. You're not trying to set the agenda. I mean, as the president of the United States, you have political power and you also have the power of influence. You have the power more so than the media, arguably, to set the agenda. But you're not setting the agenda. You're not saying, hey, folks, this crisis needs to be addressed. Let's tackle it. Or if you do say that there's a vote that fails. And then you're like, OK, never mind. So you're not fighting. You're not doing anything. And these crises that you saw when you took office are getting worse. And now you're mystified as to why your approval rating is going down. Is it really that much of a mystery to think that your approval rating was higher when you were delivering to the American people? You had the child tax credit and you were rightfully bragging about that because that helped families. But now that's gone and your approval rating dipped. Perhaps there's a causal link between that correlation. But I want to move on because Biden isn't the only one confused apparently. Quote, I don't know what's required here, said Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, whose endorsement in the 2020 Democratic primaries helped rescue Biden's struggling candidacy. But I do know that poll numbers have been stuck where they are for far too long. See, this is why we have so many issues in this country, because the Democratic Party leadership is clueless. I just I don't I don't know. I don't know what's required here. We've tried nothing and we're all out of solutions. I mean, I don't know. Try anything, try something, try to put people in your party who are obstructing you in check. But I mean, that's not going to happen. James Clyburn is literally supporting anti-choice, pro-gun candidates like Henry Quayer over a progressive woman. So for you to say, oh, well, I just don't know what to do. Maybe step the fuck out of the way, James Clyburn, and things might change in this country. But until he, Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer get out of power and allow progressives to take over, I mean, you're going to continually see that Democrats aren't very popular because you're not doing anything because anything that you could do would offend your corporate donors. So really, there's this power struggle within the Democratic Party. It's like they have their base who's tugging them in one direction, saying we want these things, we want Universal Pre-K, we want a free college. But then their donors are saying, if you do any of that, well, maybe we don't cut the checks next time. And so they go with what their donors want and then nothing happens. They get more unpopular. And then they think, well, why isn't what we're saying working? We're saying really nice words and we're saying health care should be all right while not doing anything to improve the health care crisis in this country. But yet it's not landing with voters. You have to improve their material conditions. I shouldn't have to explain this to politicians who have been in power for decades, but perhaps that's the problem. So I want to get to other reasons why Biden is frustrated. I'm in a rolling series of calamities. Biden's feeling lately is that he just can't catch a break. Quote, Biden is frustrated. If it's not one thing, it's another, said a person close to the president. An assumption baked into Biden's candidacy was that he would preside over a smoothly running administration by dint of his decades of experience in public office, yet there are signs of managerial breakdowns that have angered both him and his party. Beyond policy, Biden is unhappy about a pattern that has developed inside the West Wing. He makes a clear and succinct statement only to have aides rush to explain that he actually meant something else. The so-called cleanup campaign he has told his advisors undermines him and smothers the authenticity that fueled his rise. Worse, it feeds a Republican talking point that he's not fully in command. The issue came to a head when Biden ad-libbed during a speech in Poland that Russian president Vladimir Putin cannot remain in power. Within minutes, Biden's age tried to walk back his calm and saying he hadn't called for Putin's removal and that US policy was unchanged. Biden was furious that his remarks were being seen as unreliable, arguing that he speaks genuinely and reminding his staff that he's the one who is president. OK, so we're kind of tackling two different issues at once there. So when it comes to all of the issues and he feels like he can't catch a break, this is bound to happen in a society where a problem pops up and then you either do nothing. Or if you do address it, you apply a bandaid fix to the solution. And then the problem down the road ends up getting worse. So when you do this to a number of issues, the housing crisis, education, student debt, climate change, so on and so forth, it continues to get worse. It's not like these issues go away once you apply that bandaid fix. They continue to grow. And the fact that he doesn't get this is frustrating because you knew what was required with this job. You ran for president telling all of us that you have the experience to bring us together and solve these problems. And yet you're there saying, oh, my God, it's like whack a mold of problems. You solve one thing and another thing pops up, except you haven't been solving problems, Joe Biden, you're not doing anything. You're sitting in the White House, fucking. I don't know what you're doing. Maybe you're playing fucking Nintendo Switch. I don't know. Maybe you're playing chess with Jill, but you're not doing anything. And as these crises worsen, you're just sitting idly by exerting almost no pressure on Congress, signing a minimal amount of executive orders. It's so frustrating. Now, when it comes to his authenticity, sure, you can be mad that White House staffers are technically contradicting you when you say things like that, but I'm sorry, they're right and you're wrong. You can't say things like that in public. You can't publicly call for regime change as the president of the United States. You can't publicly say that we committed to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. These are statements that escalate global tensions. And this is something that cannot stand. Hence why West Wing staffers are saying, no, this is what he meant because you're making a mess and they're cleaning it up. You're escalating tensions with nuclear armed countries and they're cleaning up the mess that you made. So I don't care if you're angry, they're copenseed. That's something that's unacceptable and you need to speak more carefully because, again, you are the president, you are the most powerful person in the world. So if you just flippantly say something that we'd go to war with China, that's kind of a big deal. That's a huge deal. That's you being aggressive. Now, one last thing that I want to touch on here, quote, he shares the view that we haven't landed on a winning midterm message, a third person close to the White House said of the president and he's putting a lot of pressure on people to figure out what that is. So on one hand, he's saying, I'm the president, the buck stops with me. But on another hand, he's saying, hey, folks, we don't really have a message. Somebody figure out what that is and get back to me. I mean, what a useless president. Maybe you should have thought about what the message would be before you decided to run for president. I mean, we all know that Biden doesn't actually have any interest in governing because he's demonstrated that over the year and a half that he's been president, but he jumped in the race specifically to stop Bernie Sanders from becoming the president. That's why he decided to run. Maybe it's not all of the reason, but it definitely was a substantial reason as to why he decided to jump in. But I mean, if you're going to seek out this job as president, perhaps you have a cohesive message, perhaps you see problems and you address them once you've identified them. But he's done none of that. And he's saying, man, we just don't have a message. Could you not come up with them? Is it really that difficult? I mean, he came up with ultra maga all by himself and this article talks about how that backfired and then rightoids began selling shirts that said ultra maga on it. So, you know, they come up with this message or he comes up with this message. It gets focus group tested and then it's like, oh, it's a success. And then he runs with that as if that's like some giant idea. Maybe propose a fucking policy prescription something. I mean, there are talks that he's going to cancel student debt. You know, you need young people, right? The $10,000 isn't sufficient. You're going to piss off people who don't want student debt canceled and piss off people who need student debt to be canceled because it's not enough. So go bigger, do $50,000. I mean, you should be doing all of it, but fuck, do $25,000. I mean, just try to pretend as if you actually care about the issues that are crippling Americans, but you don't care. And that's the thing. Now, there's also speculation that there's going to be a staff shakeup within the White House and can you guess who's going to get the ax? Well, it's Ron Klain. He's the one on the chopping block. Now, I'm not necessarily a fan of Ron Klain, but of all of the staffers, I'd argue that he's probably one of the most progressive. So, of course, Biden would consider getting rid of him first. Now, at this point, it's just what's being talked about. These are rumors, so you can't necessarily speak with any certainty that this is going to happen, but it wouldn't be surprising if Biden ditches Ron Klain and goes in the opposite direction and starts to really more explicitly appeal to the mansions and the cinemas of the world, not that he hasn't already been doing that. And aside from a potential White House staff shakeup, well, there's already been a mass exodus of black staffers. In fact, political reports that 21 black staffers have already resigned since Biden took office, claiming they don't get support from their superiors, among other reasons. And also, there's no opportunity for upward advancement. So in other words, working at the White House is a dead end job. I mean, maybe if Joe Biden actually listened to those black staffers, perhaps, I don't know, he'd learn something. It will never happen. But the Democratic Party leadership could prove they actually care about this country by resigning and letting progressives take control. Because when you do progressive things, well, Americans will reward you by liking you. And this was already proven at the beginning of Biden's administration when he was delivering to the American people. When he took COVID seriously, when he doled out $1,200 checks, when the child tax credit was in place. But those things are gone and Americans can see that there's no action. Biden isn't really doing anything. He's not exerting pressure on people within his party who are obstructing his agenda, the things that he says he wants to accomplish. So that's why you're unpopular. If you actually want to become more popular, then you could, I don't know, try.