https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ ... loy-475488OPINION | POLITICS
The Political Weapon Biden Didn’t Deploy
The relief package that Biden barely mentioned in his address gives him—and Democrats—an opportunity they haven’t had for decades.
by Jeff Greenfield
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The political potential here is impressive. Consider a 2022 midterm where the future of the now-temporary child tax credits is on the line, and where every Republican House and Senate incumbent will have to explain to the electorate why they voted against them. Consider the votes of tens of thousands of small-business owners—the entrepreneurial heart of what Republicans rhetorically celebrate—whose enterprises survived because of the law enacted with a clear partisan split. Imagine a Republican arguing that only a small fraction of the law addressed the costs of the pandemic, when there are countless parents of school-age children, restaurant workers, retail shop owners, hotel clerks, freelance consultants, who know exactly what happened to their lives when Covid struck.
This is a possibility that Republicans simply may not have imagined, given their midterm successes in running against the initiatives of the past two Democratic presidents, and inflicting on Clinton and Obama successive political catastrophes.
This time, the benefits of the new law are easy to grasp, and will be—literally—in the hands of Americans within weeks. The scope is broad enough to encompass both the poor and large elements of the middle class, which is why it now enjoys a level of support almost unimaginable for a law passed along such partisan lines. There is a hint that an outbreak of public happiness may be about to begin; when American Airlines tells its workers to “tear up those furlough notices!”, it portends the chance of celebration with every reopened restaurant, with every eviction notice burned. More broadly, it appears to contain provisions that leapfrog a dilemma that has plagued Democratic social programs in the past: When they are perceived as helping one class of voters, they meet with a powerful backlash, (often one infused by racial resentment). When a program reaches broadly—Social Security, Medicare and, increasingly, the Affordable Care Act—it becomes politically potent.
The DL2XIT supporters are reduced to trying to mock the view counts and deflecting. The number of their tweets is declining rapidly, interesting to watch. For regular Americans, this stuff is popular.
https://www.newsweek.com/joe-bidens-app ... ll-1575544Joe Biden's Approval Rating on COVID Pandemic 18 Points Higher Than Trump's Best: Poll
BY ALEXANDRA HUTZLER ON 3/11/21 AT 4:45 PM EST
President Joe Biden has started his presidency with a higher approval rating on the coronavirus pandemic than his White House predecessor ever achieved, according to the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll.
The survey, conducted between March 6 and 8, found that 62 percent of Americans approve of how Biden is handling the pandemic. That's 18 points higher than former President Donald Trump's best rating in the poll, in which he earned 44 percent approval in March and April last year.
By the time he left office in January, Trump's approval rating on the coronavirus had dropped to 39 percent.
Biden enjoyed the most support from Democrats, 91 percent of whom approved of his job dealing with the health crisis. Sixty percent of independents also viewed his response to the national epidemic positively.
But he also got some support from Republican voters, as 30 percent approved of his handling of the virus. Twenty-two percent of respondents who voted for Trump in the 2020 election also gave Biden their approval on his coronavirus response.