President Biden
Joe Biden: Texas House Dems puts an end to election reform. The Taliban are calling on Afghan Muslim leaders to urge unity amid protests. he endures the worst week of his presidency, unable to tame the chaos in Afghanistan and faced frustration even from his Democratic allies.
The Kabul scenes speak for themselves about the human cost of withdrawing from the United States and capturing the Taliban.
When it comes to U.S. domestic politics, a key question is whether the debacle is a turning point, foreshadowing difficult times for the president, or whether it comes to be seen as a traumatic but brief shock.
The Biden honeymoon period, as it was, was coming to an end even absent from the situation in Afghanistan.
The early success of the launch of the COVID-19 vaccine has given way to new concerns spurred by the delta variant. The nation is seeing about 140,000 new cases of COVID-19 infection each day, a level not seen since last winter’s peak.
The fate of Biden’s momentum in infrastructure is uncertain. Tensions between moderate Democrats and progressives call into question whether he will be able to approve his two separate infrastructure proposals (one that costs about $ 1 trillion and the other about $ 3.5 trillion). dollars), especially when his party has such narrow Congressional majorities.
The economy had seemed a bright spot for Biden – and could still be – but worries about inflation have not disappeared.
Meanwhile, attempts at illegal crossings of the southwestern border are almost historic highs. The issue has received limited media attention, but is a huge story for more conservative-leaning voters.
All these ingredients would create a difficult environment for any president, even without the shame of Afghanistan falling into chaos.
The scenes of those early days of desperate Afghans clinging to a U.S. military plane recalled exactly the kind of “Saigon moment” that Biden had recently insisted would not occur.
Predictably, Republicans think the episode could fundamentally reshape the political position of a president who has so far had solid public approval.
“He has a short-term problem and a long-term problem,” said Matt Mackowiak, a Republican Party strategist and Republican Party chairman in Travis County, Texas.
“The short-term problem is that it has to face this crisis and it is getting worse. The long-term problem is that it now has real challenges in terms of convincing voters of its ability to make decisions,” he said.
Mackowiak added: “The crisis in Afghanistan calls into question his ability to be an effective president of the United States, and that is really sad.”
While Republicans have clear motivations for making those points, Biden has done himself no favors this week.
The crisis was well advanced before he made a speech from the White House this Monday. Even then, the leadership faced criticism that Biden had tried to blame other people, including the Afghans themselves, in a speech that at the time had a brand recognition that “the dollar stops me.”
Wednesday, excerpts from an upcoming interview with George Stephanopoulos
George Robert Stephanopoulos Memory: Biden’s Worst Week Puts Big Questions CDC Director: COVID-19 Annual Dose After Booster Boosting Is Not Expected to Get COVID-19 Booster MORE of ABC News showed Biden stating that “chaos” in Afghanistan could not be avoided and answering “yes” when asked if he had “set a price” on his decision to withdraw northern forces -American.
In the short clip, Biden appeared both defensive and grumpy, hardly an ideal combination when facing his first major foreign policy crisis.
Opinion polls show Biden erosion. A Reuters / IPSOS poll conducted on Monday indicated that its approval rating was at its lowest point in its presidency, with only 46 percent of Americans supporting its performance.
An Economist / YouGov poll conducted from 14 to 17 August showed the public a uniform division in Biden, with 47% approval and 47% disapproval of how it does its job.
Still, an independent Reuters poll focused exclusively on Afghanistan but backed up some of Biden’s key arguments.
The survey, also conducted on Monday, found that 61% of adults were still in favor of a planned withdrawal in the United States. An even higher number, 68%, agreed with the sentiment that “the war in Afghanistan would end badly, regardless of when the US left.”
The hope in the White House will be that this agreement underlying Biden’s position will ultimately prevail, especially as this week’s images fade from the headlines.
But even some Democrats express concern about how voters will judge Afghanistan’s failure and whether it will have side effects in terms of the electorate’s overall view of Biden.
“Most Americans believe we should have left Afghanistan a long time ago, so I don’t think the big problem is their decision to leave when they did,” Democratic strategist Basil Smikle said. “What voters look at is, can you make good decisions in times of crisis, at times when the lives of American soldiers and citizens abroad are online?”
Smikle added: “This is probably the only narrative of this moment that can be extended to the medium term.”
Right now, Biden and his advisers would be happy to alleviate the immediate crisis.
Only after we achieve this will we really know how much political damage has been done.
The Memo is a column reported by Niall Stanage.