6467

I do think there is some truth to what he’s saying, though. The infrastructure bill wasn’t touted nearly enough, and several Democrats were taking shots at it. I get that they were trying to push for a larger/better bill, but I think there’s the possibility that it led to collateral damage and so when it finally did pass, the infrastructure bill wasn’t seen as the achievement it was.

That’s just the reality of a coalition that makes up the Democrats, though. The party just isn’t a monolithic bloc marching in goosestep like the GOP is, there’s internal disagreements and fights that spill out and of course the media loves to cover that kind of drama.

6468

I agree with this. It certainly didn’t help that the Senate passed the bill on 8/10 and then it languished until the House passed it on 11/5. That was three months where BBB was claiming most of the headlines. If BIP had been a quickly passed bill it would have gotten much more attention, I think.

6469

The Squad and others have national reach and were on quite a lot of media shitting on it.

Sure CNN isn’t “Leftist media”, but CNN will have AOC or Bernie on saying shit fairly often.
After all “Dems in Disarray” is their absolute favorite story ever and it played into that narrative perfectly.

6470

We literally all saw it happen, in this very thread dude.

So no man, it’s not absurd at all.

6471

Yes it’s up everywhere. In Canada we hit 4.8%. The reasons why are fairly clearly and the way to combat it is clear also but politically challenging.

6472

I don’t think it led to significant collateral damage because there was no way the average voter was going to remember or care by now anyway. They only care about things that directly affect them. That some bridges and roads might not crumble to dust now is completely lost on them.

6473

See, I feel like this isn’t true.

You could affect that perception of those people through messaging.

6474

You might be right. I would maybe argue that with better messaging, they would be more aware of how it benefited them. Maybe not “see look this bridge is not going to fall down now!” but rather “these 1500 jobs were created by the infrastructure bill”.

6475

I think most people go off vague impressions and those impressions stick with them.

They don’t watch the news constantly. They aren’t policy wonks. Hell most of them don’t understand how Congress works. They see something on Facebook about how Biden isn’t doing something and that’s the end of it until something disrupts it and gives them a new feeling.

6476

You may be underestimating non-policy matters. I think the more stressed people are, the more they yearn for a strong leader of their own culture. Obviously, both of those two factors mean different things to different Americans. But I think the attacks on Biden as not being strong, not being a winner etc. are eating away at support.

Still, I am far from sure how that would play out if he were to face off against Trump or a Trump-like.

6477

Entirely possible.

Maybe Paine was wrong and Hobbes was right, but I’d rather believe in Paine.

6478

I get the perception of Biden as struggling. COVID is all around us, inflation I gather is high, BBB languishes for all the sound and fury spent on its attempted passage, and you could if you were inclined to be uncharitable describe the Afghan pullout as a debacle. Not saying I agree with all this, and it does undervalue the things he has accomplished, but I can see it.

What I don’t get is how this redounds to the advantage of a likely opponent who advocated injecting yourself with disinfectant to fight COVID and who incited a coup attempt to salvage his own ego (to pick two items off his extremely deep ‘greatest hits’ playlist).

There is really only one party to vote for right now, if you believe in legitimate democratic (small ‘d’) governance. In a rational world, Biden would be vulnerable to primary challenges while the GOP would be electorally impotent, and, perhaps, a new centrist party would be coalescing to fend off one-party rule by the Dems. We are not in a rational world, of course.

6479

We all saw the wide influence of posters QT3 that made a comment about the BIF being a GOP bill significantly contribute to the decline in Biden’s popularity? Wow!

So by this then have you reduced your premise to simply the fact that one or more posters on QT3 expressed such a notion? Because I’m not really disputing that.

6480

or Reagan. I have hope Biden can win again in 2024, though I fear our votes might not count.

I think we assume too much of our institutions. Our institutions will not save us.

6481

It’s not the influence of the posters on QT3 dude.

It’s the influence that caused them to harbor those beliefs.

The people who put those ideas in the heads of posters here, did the same thing to OTHER people.

You seen to have this nonsensical view that only the right wing has any influence on anyone’s thoughts in America… Which is nonsensically untrue, especially when you look at our forum here and essentially ALL of the outside sources posted are from left leaning sites.

6482

LOL WUT?

No, I have a view that leftist opinions of the infrastructure bill are not a major factor in Biden’s current unpopularity. You have offered zero proof it is a factor.

6483

WTF on this too.

So these qt3 posters only had the opinions they did about the BIF because leftist voices planted the idea?!

Okay, now I’m going to ask you to quote these people so we can ask them how they arrived at those beliefs.

6484

Another WTF?!

Really? All? The damn liberal media!

6485

As I had mentioned earlier the media basically ignored the infrastructure bill and ran 24/7 inflation stories instead. Tons of democrats even those on the left touted it in speeches and appearances that weren’t as click generating as amplifying contrary voices. To somehow blame our media operating as our media does on alleged trash talk from unspecified leftist sources is completely absurd.

6486

When democracy fails in this country, I’m putting much of the blame for its demise on the media. Mainstream, social, you name it. The way they’ve been beating the “failed President Biden” drum so hard is seriously alarming to me.