Joe Biden: polls of approval and favorability

[David Horn]

(01-22-2022, 08:05 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Agree that Biden hasn't been the cheerleader for the young.  Thing is, he has identified the right positions on the right issues.  I'm still hopeful that the steady obstruction of the Republicans will cost them in the midterms.  If you are going to solve the problems we are facing, it is clear you have to give the Democrats a few more seats in the Senate.  If he gets that, Biden looks very different.

Today's youth are damaged -- many to the extreme. Think about it. They need outrageously expensive educations to have any hope of being their parents, but the payoff isn't there anymore -- not for most of them. Their more blue-collar brethren aren't doing any better either, though they managed to avoid the crushing and unavoidable debt from student loans. It's hard not to be myopic when your own personal problems are inches from your face. Yet they are the missing numbers needed for change, and Svengali is othewise engaged.

Bob Butler Wrote:Yes, in prior crisis nobody had trouble about getting behind change.  Democracy, not being on the wrong side of colonial imperialism, slavery, enabling the industrial revolution over a government controlled by agriculturalists, letting the government regulate the economy and containing expansionists powers all attracted the youth of the time.  This time, the need seems less pressing to a rural population who doesn't see the difficulties as clearly.  At the time Covid was politicized, it was more an urban problem.  Prejudice is desired in the rural areas.  Attempts to overthrow democracy weren't as obvious.  The environment still seems wild and exploitable enough.  Trump's criminality was not as obvious.  It is still not clear that the rural folk will see the problems, but two votes in the Senate might be possible?

As the Bard noted, "Wherein comes the rub!". We're among the last cohorts who experienced a true Civics education in secondary school. Massachusetts and New York were among the last states to degrade education in favor of mythic social goals (yes, one of liberalism's unintended consequences), and now the results are clear. Today's youth (and even older cohorts in less progressive areas) never were given the tools to appreciate the complexities of democracy -- and it shows. So Biden is actually faced with a unique challenge: being both a conciliatory and inspirational leader. This would be hard for a leader less grandfather than cousin to the ones he's trying to reach, all the while not seeing this as a critical need.

And let's agree: if the urban/suburban young are hard to reach, the rural folks are the proverbial bridge too far.