{"id":30196,"date":"2023-11-28T12:03:50","date_gmt":"2023-11-28T20:03:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=30196"},"modified":"2023-11-28T12:03:51","modified_gmt":"2023-11-28T20:03:51","slug":"team-biden-goes-from-denial-to-panic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/11\/28\/team-biden-goes-from-denial-to-panic\/","title":{"rendered":"Team Biden Goes From Denial to Panic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"President<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

President Joe Biden speaks on the terrorist attacks in Israel alongside Secretary of State Antony Blinken from the State Dining Room at the White House on October 7, 2023 in Washington, DC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0(Photo by Samuel Corum\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The outlook is now grimmer than ever, but the big divide between Biden\u2019s low popularity and public support for the Democratic Party overall was clear a year ago. What now?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

NORMAN SOLOMON<\/a>JEFF COHEN<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nov 27, 2023 Common Dreams<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the weekend, Politico published the latest in a tidal wave of stories about President Biden\u2019s dwindling prospects for re-election. Under the headline \u201cThe Polls Keep Getting Worse for Biden<\/a>,\u201d the article pointed out that Biden is trailing the presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump in a large majority of the latest polling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trend is dire, Politico<\/em> reports: \u201cThe president\u2019s standing in head-to-head matchups with Trump is falling: Among the latest surveys this month from 13 separate pollsters, Biden\u2019s position is worse than their previous polls in all but two of them.\u201d He continues to slip in key swing states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The outlook is now grimmer than ever, but the big divide between Biden\u2019s low popularity and public support for the Democratic Party overall was clear a year ago, despite the hype giving Biden credit for midterm election results in November 2022. Back then, the New York Times reported<\/a> that one House Democrat offered a more candid assessment: \u201cBiden\u2019s numbers were \u2018a huge drag\u2019 on Democratic candidates, who won in spite of the president not thanks to him, the lawmaker said on the condition of anonymity to avoid antagonizing the White House.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our RootsAction.org team had no reason to avoid antagonizing the White House. Immediately after the 2022 election, we launched the Don\u2019t Run Joe campaign. Last winter, it included TV ads in New Hampshire<\/a> and other early primary states as well as in DC. We also placed full-page ads<\/a> in print editions of The Hill newspaper, widely read on Capitol Hill; one depicted congressional Democrats as having their heads in the sand<\/a>. A steady flow of news releases<\/a> went out, citing data on Biden\u2019s electoral vulnerabilities. A mobile Don\u2019t Run Joe billboard<\/a> circled the Capitol and White House<\/a> when Congress reconvened in January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But elected Democrats, loyal boosters and allied organizations stuck with the party line. Apparently, they couldn\u2019t imagine being independent enough to call for a candidate who could champion a progressive agenda and be a stronger contender than the anemic Biden in the 2024 race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ironically, we were often told that shining a critical spotlight on Biden\u2019s re-election chances or his corporate militarism would help Donald Trump or another Republican to win in 2024. But the opposite has been the case. Biden\u2019s amen-corner enablers\u2014going along to get along rather than risk disapproval from the White House\u2014have been unwitting helpers of the upcoming GOP ticket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bleak poll numbers might actually understate the problem, as they measure only voter discontent and not activist discontent. For months next summer and fall, Democratic activists will be needed to win over undecided voters and mobilize occasional voters. But many activists who worked hard to elect Biden over Trump in 2020 now have little enthusiasm for the president, due to his policies on climate<\/a>, racial justice<\/a>, Gaza<\/a> and other vital concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden\u2019s amen-corner enablers\u2014going along to get along rather than risk disapproval from the White House\u2014have been unwitting helpers of the upcoming GOP ticket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Biden formally filed as a candidate seven months ago, Don\u2019t Run Joe transitioned into Step Aside Joe<\/a>. The campaign has continued to be adamant that Biden should voluntarily be a one-term president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe truth remains that a president is not his party\u2019s king and has no automatic right to renomination,\u201d a statement<\/a> from Step Aside Joe said in April. \u201cSimply crowning Joe Biden as the 2024 nominee is unhealthy for the Democratic Party and the country. In the face of clear polling that shows he is ill-positioned to defeat a Republican nominee, Biden is moving the Democratic Party toward a likely disaster in 2024. As the Democratic standard bearer, Biden would represent the status quo at a time when \u2018wrong track\u2019 polling numbers are at an unprecedented high.\u201dBut Joe Biden and his coterie of backers continue to insist that he wear a crown. The fascistic forces behind Donald Trump are surely delighted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NORMAN SOLOMON<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His new book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, was published in June 2023 by The New Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Bio ><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JEFF COHEN<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeff Cohen is an activist and author. Cohen was an associate professor of journalism and the director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College, founder of the media watch group FAIR, and former board member of Progressive Democrats of America. In 2002, he was a producer and pundit at MSNBC. He is the author of “Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media” – and a co-founder of the online action group, www.RootsAction.org. His website is jeffcohen.org.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Bio ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Joe Biden speaks on the terrorist attacks in Israel alongside Secretary of State Antony Blinken from the State Dining Room at the White House on October 7, 2023 in Washington, DC. \u00a0(Photo by Samuel Corum\/Getty Images) The outlook is now grimmer than ever, but the big divide between Biden\u2019s… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1510],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30196"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30196"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30197,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30196\/revisions\/30197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}