By 2023 standards, Biden is actually kind of popular
World leaders everywhere are having a rough time of it these days
Imagine if a 2024 Presidential poll showed that Joe Biden is not just trailing Trump nationally and in key swing states, but that if the election were held today Donald Trump would win Massachusetts, Maryland and Rhode Island.
That’s a nightmare Justin Trudeau is living at the moment. Sadly, the Prime Minister of Canada has no chance of winning Massachusetts, Maryland or Rhode Island next year.
That triangle-shaped island off the east coast of Canada, and the larger triangle-shaped land mass next to Quebec and shaded blue, is my home province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
For much of the 21st century, the Conservative Party of Canada was about as popular in Newfoundland as the Democratic Party in Wyoming, or The Marvels in a movie theater. Following a dispute with Stephen Harper’s Conservative federal government over offshore oil revenues, former premier Danny Williams went scorched-earth on the Tories and salted the earth so no Conservatives would ever grow there again.
Which just goes to show you, nothing lasts forever. If current trends hold, the Conservatives are poised to pick up five of Newfoundland and Labrador’s seven federal seats in the House of Commons.1
Of course, there likely won’t be a federal election any time soon, and I’m not sure how accurate these riding-by-riding predictions really are. (The Green Party winning nine seats would be truly shocking.) But the ruling Liberals are in a dark, dark place right now:
Across the pond, Britain’s ruling Conservative Party might have it even worse:
These days, a poll showing Rishi Sunak’s government breaking the 20% barrier is good news. Because another one has them at 19%.
On the continent, it’s the same thing. Emmanuel Macron’s approval rating is 29% with seventy percent of French voters dissatisfied with his performance, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s SPD is on the verge of falling to fourth place in popularity.
Whatever is keeping Joe Biden’s approval ratings low, it seems to be an international phenomenon.
What is causing this malaise? Honestly, that’s for another post, and maybe a subject for someone smarter than me.
Depending on your guiding ideology, you can probably come up with a dozen or so reasons for Western leaders’ sagging popularity: inflation, immigration, the war in Ukraine, the war in Israel, housing shortages, high gas prices, COVID-19, Russian propaganda, drag queen story hour, too many streaming services, the Buffalo Bills not knowing how many players are allowed on the field…I could go on.
I started kindergarten in 1979, so I barely remember the seventies, thank God. But am I right in saying that if 2020 felt a lot like 1968, 2023 really has a late-seventies malaise period feeling about it?
Same energy:
The two they likely won’t win are in St. John’s, the province’s largest city by a wide margin, and for decades a Tory stronghold while the rest of Newfoundland and Labrador voted Liberal. What was it I said about nothing lasting forever?
I was there and aware of the 60s and the 70s. To me, 1968 was the year of the Great American Mass Nervous Breakdown. The 70s are the one decade I was alive in that could go away (other than in that pre-HIV time, recreational sex was far more popular and available, so there's that).
I would categorize 2022 and 2023 as 1968 and 1969, 1969 being the first year of Nixon, while things got progressively worse with him throwing gas on the fire. These are two years that - like those - are so chaotic no one can predict with any accuracy what the news may be next week.