Tuesday, March 29, 2022

Telling It Like It Is: Negative Polling 'Muricans- on Ukraine & Inflation - Really Don't Deserve Biden

 

         "Uh, lemme see. Ukraine bad. Inflation bad.. Biden in office. It gotta be his fault!

"Why do voters seem determined to believe things that aren’t true? One can attribute some dissatisfaction to the relentless “sky is falling” media coverage. But let’s face it: Voters are grumpy, frustrated and tired after covid and annoyed about gas prices. They might know Biden spent months trying to pass his agenda but didn’t get what he wanted. And so confirmation bias is likely setting in for a lot of Americans, telling them everything must be bad... 

But if they don’t know jobs have been created, how can Democrats expect them to know that Republicans voted against covid funding, food assistance, and funding for states and cities to keep cops on the beat (all in the American Rescue Plan)? Or that most Republicans voted against infrastructure spending?" - Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post, 'What's A White House To Do About Clueless Voters?'

It isn't possible to say it any other way: Most of the poll respondents giving Biden low polling 'marks' - specifically in a just released NBC/WSJ poll (71% express "little confidence" and 55% "disapproval" of his handling of war in Ukraine) are miserable brats, FOX addicts and nincompoops.  For sure they don't deserve Joe Biden as president.  The results issued last night on NBC News infuriated us, but showed the deplorable level to which reason, sound mental judgment and yes- political intelligence - have evaporated.  As I predicted would happen (following the Afghan withdrawal) if too many continued to go to FOX News for answers.

What exactly is it these negative polling losers want from Biden, say that would change perceptions?  The answer is likely nothing would satisfy these imps, wallowing in their still pandemic-incited adversity and blaming Biden for it.  Take these Ukraine invasion polls, showing this 71 percent expressing little confidence. WHY?

What do these delirious twits want? What? The actions of this president are circumscribed.  You can't just dispatch troops,  MIG -29 fighter jets (from Poland) or an aircraft carrier laden with cruise missiles to the Black Sea.  Nor can you try to establish 'No fly' zones over Ukraine which would entail invading the same airspace,  close contact with Russian fighter jets, potential misfires ....and tactical nukes exchanged.  Followed by all -out nuclear war.  

Do these ignorant  cretins even know or recall that the Russians  reserve the right to employ tactical nuclear weapons if at anytime they feel overwhelmed by conventional armed forces?   


See, for example, the WSJ piece from yesterday: Putin’s Warnings Amplify Nuclear Fears  noting:


When Russia unveiled previously secret details of its nuclear- weapons doctrine for the first time in 2020, it confirmed something U.S. war planners had long suspected: Moscow would be willing to use atomic arms to keep from losing a conventional war.


Don't think Biden - U.S. is doing enough for Ukraine? Then read this from the WaPO;


Russia warns U.S. to stop arming Ukraine


Three weeks ago The Hill tried to shed more light on the disconnect of brain and poll response, pontificating:

 

  "Americans normally rally around the president when there is a foreign policy crisis, but a combination of Biden’s fumbling of the Afghanistan withdrawal and a complete inability to restrain Putin seems to have left the public with little confidence. Biden has been viewed as a weak leader — and weak relative to Trump — in polling that goes back to 2020. Putin’s dismissive attitude toward Biden hardly improved that perception. Any American admiration for strong leadership is accruing to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, not Biden."

 As for the claim of "Biden's fumbling of the Afghanistan withdrawal",  I already skewered that B.S. back in August, e.g.

  • Don't Blame Biden For Taliban Takeover In Afghanistan

    • As for claim of  "the total inability to restrain Putin" - what do these asswits expect Biden to do?  Smuggle a Navy SEAL team in to kidnap or kill him?  Dispatch a CIA K-group to poison his borscht with potassium cyanide? 

      And look, anyone who would weight or poll Trump  as "stronger" over Biden now doesn't even have the IQ of an ape.  In truth, if Trump had been at the helm we'd all have been blown up 3 times over in a nuclear holocaust. Biden has orchestrated a unified front of  27 NATO countries to punish Russia with severe economic sanctions. And these are causing a world of hurt, even inciting Putin's oligarchs to abandon him.  Biden has also delivered over $1 trillion worth of Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, Switch-blade drones and Javelin anti-tank weapons to the Ukrainians.  In addition to other weapons and munitions, they have used this arsenal to hold ground and even beat back Russian advances, i.e. in a suburb of Kyiv.  Indeed, the Ukrainians have the Russkies on the ropes in an asymmetric war, e.g. the WSJ piece yesterday, p. A13:

      Ukraine’s Asymmetric War

      Noting the advantages being gained, i.e. to mount attacks on Russian supply lines, disrupt planned air sorties, wreak general havoc. All accomplished with limited supplies and manpower, but with those resources applied much more tactically, skillfully.

      MSNBC's falling ratings in tandem with FOX's climb shows better than any other indicator how American brains have been gutted and left for Right wing fodder.  Mainly because these defunct brains aren't processing what's happening. Which is what is reflected in the polls that keep dinging Biden. As our Dutch friends Franz and Jane recently told us: "We thought Americans had more sense than to give such stupid poll responses!"  

      To which Janice replied: "Then you don't know these Americans who get most of their news off social media, FOX News and dumb friends."

      The lame responses to do with Biden's handling of the Ukraine war are matched only by the disdain for Biden on the economy, and especially inflation. This despite the fact - as I have noted - the inflation is directly related to the pandemic's impact on supply chains, followed by renewed demand for goods by too many.  But rather than appreciating Biden for putting more money into their hands - via the American Rescue Plan and other assistance-  they want to blame him for inflation!

      Such as one enclave of swing voters in Phoenix highlighted in an WSJ piece last Friday.  They, like the morons dinging him on Ukraine, really don't deserve him as president. I guess they'd rather have "macho" man and orange traitor Trump whom they actually believe would be better for the economy. (A slim 34% of Americans think Biden is doing a good job handling the economy) One wonders what they're drinking or smoking.

      One of the dolts in Phoenix when asked to expand on her negative polling actually emitted this brainless nonsense: "Well, it has to be on Biden! I don't recall anything like this in the last administration!"  

      Can we please help this forlorn woman's brain by amplifying some  neurons in her temporal lobes?  The Covid pandemic did not strike until the last year of Trump's term (2020).  Then, the assface made a mess of things by refusing to address supply problems even then (e.g. in terms of masks, respirators etc.) and let many other basic support systems falter.  The true fact?  (Associated press article in Denver Post Sunday p. 1A): 

      "Biden inherited from the Trump administration a budget deficit that was equal in size to 14.9 % of the entire U.S. economy.  Thanks to Biden's policy plans and programs - including the American Rescue Plan - the upcoming budget year will be BELOW 5% of the total U.S. economy -putting the country finally on a sustainable path."

        How many Americans - many of whom are now glued to FOX just for spurious infotainment- even know this?  I warrant not one in 50. How many know - or can process (from basic economics) - that these lower deficit totals will be easier to manage even if interest rates are high? 

      How did such lower deficit totals manifest?  Did FOX News tell them that they reflect the solid recovery in hiring that occurred - in large part - because of Biden's $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package?  That the added jobs translated into additional tax revenue, even with higher inflation?   Thus, the government collected nearly $300 billion in higher revenues compared to 2020?  Did FOX tell them that?  Of course not!  All you got from FOX was "Biden is stoking inflation with reckless spending"- from the likes of Maria Bartiromo, e.g.

                                           "B-Biden Bad!  B-Biden Bad! Right, Tucker?"

                               "Right, Maria! Now repeat it again for our dumb viewers..."

      Do the obsessive FOX viewers even know that the print side of NewsCorp (The WSJ) also has echoed the positives?  I.e. in yesterday's piece   (p. A2, Economy Gets Tech-Spending Boost) by David Harrison who writes:
       

      American businesses are ramping up technology investment and other capital spending as they emerge from the pandemic. If sustained, that investment boom could boost productivity and living standards and counteract inflation pressure. Private nonresidential business investment grew 7.4% in 2021 from the previous year after adjusting for inflation, the fastest pace since 2012 and a strong bounceback from the 5.3% decline in 2020.



      In a way it's sad, it's pathetic, but also understandable. Too many Americans are at loose ends and feeling a total loss of control over their lives.  We get it.  Perhaps again,  the best theory is from author William Davies ( 'Nervous States: Democracy And The Decline Of Reason') who notes the peculiar effects of over -stimulation (say by doom watching or scrolling- especially on social media) resulting in terrible decisions owing to neurochemical misfires.  He specifically cites cases where the "desperation for control" leads to self-sabotage, and even deliberately seeking to sabotage one's own prosperity.  (This is even apart from forgetting the roiling upheaval that marked every hour of every day of Trump's reign.)

      This seems to be the case now with these negative polling (on Biden) Americans. Like deranged lemmings ready to hurtle over a cliff they are so beset by a feeling of impotence they'd ditch Biden (and the Dems) if they could and go back to the Reeps and Trump.  They actually desire a change, any change- no matter it leads them and the nation to utter desolation and destruction.  This is a deadly syndrome which I already wrote about as it pertains to what happened to the Germans of the Weimar Republic, e.g.'  

      We have to hope these peevish, unsettled, distracted Americans - this deranged and misled majority - snap out of their stupor before it's too late.  That is, before the midterms! As Eugene Robinson reminds us in his WaPo column  

      That’s no party. That’s the Republican Hot Mess.:  

      "Yes, this is an election year, and the Hot Mess (GOP)  could take control of one or even both houses of Congress. At a time of overlapping crises at home and abroad, that is a gamble the nation should not take — and an outcome Democrats and independents must do everything in their power to prevent."

      See Also:

      by Robert Becker | April 4, 2022 - 5:37am | permalink

      Excerpt:

      Here are four self-evident truths, notable because the party allegedly in power remains oblivious to them – indeed, to the less conscious engines of human behavior:

      1) Mandated choices, especially by media-plied (and lied to) voters, are driven more by emotions than reason, logic or facts (even to verify minimal job competence, let alone simple truths);

      2) Today’s slick 24/7 media profits by maximizing irrational, often negative responses, for the right – fear, outrage, and anxiety; Obama managed to induce positive feelings of hope and optimism;

      3) Electoral “campaigns” no longer have beginnings or ends, thus “elections” don’t legitimate winners, just provide rather old-fashioned hurdles for non-stop politicking to leap or knock over. When losers don’t concede, and certified results are defied, even slandered, the paramount distinction between order and anything goes disorder vanishes.

      4) Sustainable leadership means running campaigns that leverage unconscious or gut instincts (likability, TV appeal, drama and entertainment, passion for novelty (new horses) along with rejection of baggage-laden old-timers.

      Biden Democrats are in epic denial on these matters, refusing to shift political operations despite what barbaric Trump, Trumpism and FOX TV make uncomfortably clear: irrationality, grievance, and divisive cheap shots capture more coverage than reason, evidence, and reality. Can a party favoring reason out-slug a party aiming low and addicted to lying, law-breaking, slander, and misdirection? Can Dems not learn to appeal equally to reason and emotion?

      And:

      by Robert Becker | March 14, 2022 - 6:06am | permalink

      Excerpt:

      The puzzler I raise today: what does Biden’s curious 25% popularity falloff say about him, those polled, the presidency, and the world? Something lurched with surprising suddenness, but not the ever-predictable, right-leaning centrist: he governs as he campaigned, cautiously as the iconic, modest moderate. He remains loyal to getting things done (however compromised), talking up bipartisanship (a pipe dream), climate change as challenge (but not looming catastrophe, say, like Ukraine), even that negotiation, reality and reason still matter (increasingly in doubt).

      Disturbingly more than ever, politics comes down to performance and misdirection, even magic thinking, thanks to dirty money, incessant media propaganda, and entombed electorates

      And:

      by Michael T. Klare | April 5, 2022 - 5:22am | permalink

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