Biden’s first year in office hasn’t been a total disaster. But it wasn’t good either

Poor old Joe Biden. It’s not a great time to be the president. A year into the job he’s been aiming for since the early days of his decades-long career in politics, the 79-year-old commander-in-chief isn’t faring well.

A new poll released on the one-year anniversary of his presidency puts Biden’s approval rating at just 40 per cent. Even by modern-day standards (by which, of course, I mean the dismal approval ratings seen by former president Donald Trump), it’s not good.

A miserable red line charting Biden’s approval rating is on a consistent downward trend from the day he took office to one year into his presidency. The unforgiving line drops at the US’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan (agreed upon by Trump but later orchestrated by Biden), continues falling through the spread of the Omicron variant of coronavirus, and refuses to curve upwards as the president battles on with his ill-fated Build Back Better bill.

Has Biden just been unlucky, taking the Oval Office at a time when America couldn’t have been more divided? Or do people truly get the leaders they deserve?

Of course, it’s a little of both. Mere weeks after horn-clad lunatics waving the Stars and Stripes bellowed for the heads of lawmakers, Biden assumed office tasked with uniting a nation fractured by divisive narratives and conspiracy theories. No easy task, even for a man known for being keen on bipartisanship.

He was also given the role of pulling together an increasingly fragmented Democratic party, which had an identity crisis in the wake of Trump’s 2016 victory and has since appeared rudderless as progressives and moderates duke it out.

But Biden epitomises the type of leader you get when you’ll vote in almost anyone just to get the last guy out. Let’s not forget that Biden received the most votes of any presidential candidate in history (unlike Trump’s crowd-size boast, this one’s actually true), despite a largely uninspiring campaign.

Indeed, his greatest appeal in 2020 was simply being ‘not Trump’. And while that strategy was stellar when it came to defeating the twice-impeached former president, it’s not so appealing now that Biden is in office.

Biden’s declining approval rating should serve as something of a wake-up call for Democrats, many of whom are already shuddering their way towards midterms. The president may not have had a wildly successful first year in office, but unity counts for a lot. It’s time internal differences were set aside to create a party that actually backs Biden – right now, he’s all they’ve got.

Yours,

Harriet Sinclair

US news editor (west coast)