Nothing is going as expected: Where are Joe’s supporters?

Where are all the Joe Biden supporters today? I mean, Biden supposedly received more total votes than any presidential candidate in U.S. history – even more than Barrack Obama in 2008. In fact, Biden reportedly received almost 13 million more votes than Obama. And not only that, more people somehow voted in the 2020 election – more than ever in the history of America – and that was in the middle of a once-in-a-century pandemic.

So, where are the Biden supporters today? The ones defending his administration’s policies and touting the accomplishments of his leadership? Many of Biden’s speeches and appearances are scarcely attended by his supporters. Often, the public is not even invited.

And it’s not as if he’s connecting some other way with voters, such as with media appearances. In his first year in office, Biden has held fewer press conferences and interviews than Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush.

But it’s not like you can say, “Well, he’s busy, and these are challenging times. He doesn’t have time for more interviews, press conferences and the like …” because Biden has spent roughly 553 days away from the White House. In fact, he has taken more vacation time than any other president at this point in their term. At the rate he’s going, Biden would become the most well-vacationed president in American history.

Now for Biden’s part, he says that “there’s a lot of major things” he’s done, but “what we haven’t done is we haven’t been able to communicate it in a way” that the American people can understand. (He told this to Jimmy Kimmel during an interview.)

We apparently aren’t smart enough to understand how rampant inflation, rising food prices, rent increases, surging costs at the gas pump, higher interest rates, and rising unemployment are “good” for us (well, according to Biden, that is).

This is why Biden’s job-approval numbers are so low (as Biden explains). He says his administration hasn’t been able to communicate all the “major things” they’ve done. What’s interesting is that while his communication skills in this country are supposedly constrained, he has no difficulty communicating his administration’s accomplishments to the people of Mexico.

According to Gallup, public support from Mexicans in Mexico for Biden’s leadership and administration is at 52%. In the U.S., where a historic number of Americans in 2020 supposedly voted for Biden, his approval numbers have dipped below 40%. Let that sink in: The president has more support in a foreign country than in his own.

The irony is that the reason his poll numbers are higher in Mexico is the same reason that his poll numbers are so low here in the U.S. Sixty percent of Mexicans say that migrants who travel through Mexico to reach the U.S. are a burden on their country because they take jobs and benefits that should belong to Mexicans. A majority of the Mexican people want to deport such migrants, and as long as the U.S. border with Mexico is open, these migrants are less of a burden on the Mexican people.

Meanwhile, Biden’s poll numbers, in part, are lower in the U.S. because the U.S. border with Mexico is wide open. In fact, 72 percent of Americans are concerned about illegal immigration’s direct threat to our country.

But back to the point: Where are the Biden supporters today in our country? Jay Leno told us in 2020 that he was voting for a “decent man” in Joe Biden. Bruce Springsteen told Rolling Stone magazine, “I think if we get Joe Biden, it’s gonna go a long way towards helping us regain our status around the world.”

NBA world champion Steph Curry and his wife, Ayesha, said in 2020 they were voting for Biden “to ensure that our kids live in a nation that is safe, happy, healthy and fair.”

Is that what we have under a Biden administration, a country that is safe? Crime is rising. Healthy? More people died from Covid with a vaccine under Biden than died under Trump without a vaccine. Fair? We left thousands of Americans behind to die in Afghanistan. Have we regained our status around the world? Iran is closer than ever to enriching uranium, Russia launched a war against Ukraine, China is threatening Taiwan, and North Korea is launching missiles into the Pacific Ocean again.

Is Joe Biden a “decent” man? He claims to be a devout Catholic, and yet he’s devoutly pro-choice. He’s watching the purchasing power of Americans be eroded by rising inflation, as gasoline, food and rent skyrocket, and there are shortages in everything from cars to baby formula – and Biden is doing all he can to exacerbate it all.

You and me. We know better, though. He’s not a “decent” man. Our status around the world has been diminished, we’re not safer, happier or healthier under a Biden administration, and our country is definitely not more fair because none of this had to be this way.

If you voted for Biden, what can we say? Alexander Pope famously wrote, “To err is human, to forgive divine.” So, we forgive you, and more importantly, we hope you can forgive yourself.

Maybe you miscalculated, but your silence now is your complicity, and it’s time to stop justifying why you did what you did, and let’s start working together.

Louis R. Avallone is a Shreveport businessman, attorney and author of “Bright Spots, Big Country, What Makes America Great.” He is also a former aide to U.S. Representative Jim McCrery and editor of The Caddo Republican. His columns have appeared regularly in 318 Forum since 2007. Follow him on Facebook, on Twitter @louisravallone or by e-mail at louisavallone@mac.com, and on American Ground Radio at 101.7FM and 710 AM, weeknights from 6 - 7 p.m., and streaming live on keelnews.com.