The headlines about the polls are right, of course. President Joe Biden’s approval rating is in the toilet, right down there with presidents who stumble into wars, hostage crises, gas shortages and other calamities. Or worse.
Biden has done none of those things, thankfully.
We stumbled out of a war, not into one. Fewer troops are in harm’s way. The economy, while not as strong as the administration’s cheerleaders relentlessly claim, is by no means foundering the way it was when both inflation and unemployment were in the double digits, not to mention America being held hostage.
Yes, the president has been seen closing his eyes at inappropriate moments. And, more seriously, the administration has come to be seen as unreliable when it comes to the pandemic, the proof being the growing divide between the governors and the public, on the one hand, and the administration on the other. It is one thing to have governors against you; the public is another matter.
But the underlying reason we can even think of getting rid of our masks is that the pandemic has become more manageable in the year since Biden became president. No, he didn’t cure it, and he didn’t stop it, but enough people got vaccinated so that our hospitals no longer face the prospect of turning people away — “rationing care” being the euphemism — that so terrified us for two years.
