Leer en Español
This Wednesday President Biden held his first press conference of 2022. As has become commonplace with Democrats, what the president did was to deliver a speech that was completely detached from reality. While Americans’ concerns are growing and his approval rating is at the lowest level since he took office, Biden devoted his first press conference to repeating that things are going well. He even went so far as to assert that he has probably “outperformed what anybody thought would happen.” The only way that sentence would make sense is if it refers to the fact that many Americans did not imagine the situation would be this bad in just a year.
It was only until the round of questions came that the president was forced to step out of his fantasy speech and finally faced, to some extent, reality. Whenever the president decides to answer questions, many of us remember why he doesn’t do it that often. Amid the confusions, whispers and long, uncomfortable silences, he gave disastrous answers that will surely plunge his approval ratings further and drive more voters away from the Democratic Party in the midterm elections.
When asked why he has not been pushing China for greater transparency and information, he simply said that he has. When asked why he is taking the country to the left he replied that he is not Bernie Sanders. After being asked why the electorate has deep concerns about his “cognitive fitness,” he just said, “no idea.”
This was a lousy press conference with a prepared speech to try to give the idea that things are going well and that those things that are going badly are not the fault of the administration but of Covid. Biden and most of the journalists present focused on Covid and Russia. But the average American is concerned about inflation reaching historic levels, crime, what is happening in education, empty shelves and attempts to change the electoral system. Of that, of the real concerns of Americans, almost nothing was said.
It seems to me that a big defeat is coming for the Democrats in the mid-term elections.
Vanessa Vallejo. Co-editor-in-chief of El American. Economist. Podcaster. Political and economic analysis of America. Colombian exile in the United States // Vanessa Vallejo. Co-editora en jefe de El American. Economista. Podcaster. Análisis político y económico de América. Colombiana exiliada en EE. UU.