Biden Can't Cool Down American Politics

Original Title: 拜登降不了美国政治的火

The Forbidden Flourish

The following article is originally from FUTURE UTOPIAN Author Future Utopian

FUTURE UTOPIAN.

Biden Calls for Cooling Down American Politics

The current American political scene is indeed overheated.

Let's not even mention the assassination attempt on Trump. The motives of the attacker are still unclear, yet many media outlets are already claiming it's because people can't stand Trump as president.

But looking at the data, America is becoming increasingly polarized.

A polarized political environment is not conducive to anything. America needs a leader who can guide them to seek common ground while reserving differences, and overcome divisions.

America is in a difficult situation now. Internally, today's American political arena is the most divided and chaotic in history. The huge ideological differences between the two parties have seriously affected administrative efficiency, and government functions are increasingly dysfunctional.

But Biden doesn't seem like a leader who can lead America out of division.

After the presidential debate, Biden and his team began a series of damage control efforts.

They said Biden had a cold on the day of the debate, had just taken a long flight, and was still jet-lagged, leading to his poor performance.

After the debate, Biden held a fundraising event in North Carolina. With a teleprompter and enthusiastic audience, Biden shed his senile debate persona and passionately shouted, "I won't give up, I want to do it for four more years."

However, no matter how Biden and his team make excuses for him, or how they argue from multiple angles that Biden still has firm voter support, it cannot change the fact that Biden lost to Trump in this battle.

War reports can deceive, but battle lines don't. Poll data shows that Biden's support rate slightly declined after the presidential debate on the 27th, while Trump's support rate slightly increased, leading Biden by a narrow margin.

In fact, Trump was very restrained in this debate, not interrupting, not attacking Biden too much for his frequent slurred speech and inexplicable mumbling. This should have been due to special instructions from his campaign team.

When the two clashed in 2020, Trump kept interrupting Biden's speech, disrupting order, leaving a very bad impression on voters.

Obviously, Trump learned from last time's lesson.

But Trump doesn't seem to have changed his habit of boasting. In the debate, Trump often exaggerated his achievements, saying some overly exaggerated truths.

Trump is still "Trump-like", and Biden? Still the same old Biden, either forgetting to take his medicine, or taking it but miscalculating when it would take effect.

In this debate, Biden actually only needed to do one thing: stay awake, not show the appearance of an elderly person, tell voters that age is not his problem.

But Biden messed it up. Throughout the debate, he seemed half-asleep, often incoherent, sometimes when Trump was speaking, he just stood there with his mouth open, staring blankly at the camera, showing no signs of thinking.

I actually think some of Biden's rebuttals were good. When Trump talked about the success of his tax cut policy, Biden didn't deny Trump's words. Instead, he sharply pointed out that Trump did cut taxes, but only for the rich. Trump originally wanted to boast about reducing the burden on the middle class, but with Biden's comment, this statement backfired on him.

But come on, this is a debate, not a speech. Biden didn't show the aggressiveness a debater should have. It felt like he was just rigidly reading a script. Although Trump exaggerates, at least he's improvising, which better reflects a person's active thinking.

After the debate, seven Democratic Senate heavyweights asked Biden to withdraw from the election and give the position to younger candidates below, after all, the Democratic Party still has quite a few promising new faces.

But Biden refuses to admit he's old, clearly stating he won't withdraw.

If Biden withdraws now and is replaced by a younger candidate with similar propositions, he could gracefully step down with his greatest achievement of saving the American economy. This would be an abdication system.

But Biden refuses to admit defeat. The country he fought for must be continued by him.

This is very selfish, because Biden is now obviously overwhelmed.

Watch more videos of him attending events, and you'll find that Biden often loses his sense of direction and wanders aimlessly.

He often can't clearly express his thoughts, referring to Harris as "the first black president", saying non-existent words. This is not the behavior of a clear-headed leader.

Most importantly, Biden is now powerless to resolve the political division in America.

A major internal problem in America is political polarization.

Biden says Trump condones white supremacy and is biased towards violent incidents against blacks; Trump says Biden has made the border as easy to enter as a bus, allowing drug dealers and killers in, threatening the safety of ordinary Americans.

This kind of "you must choose me or my opponent will make your life unbearable" rhetoric is political polarization.

Political polarization stems from different groups' fear of another group. The underlying basis of this fear is the binary opposition thinking of "you die, I live", and politicians elevate this thinking to an ideological level.

Political polarization has caused the two parties' positions on many issues to polarize, seriously affecting the passage and implementation of any bills and administrative measures.

An NBC survey data very intuitively reflects America's political polarization and Biden's predicament. In the graph, from top to bottom represents each president since 1945, the green data is the opposition party's support rate for him, the orange data is the support rate from the president's own party.

The larger the gap between the two data points, the more controversial that president is, and it also indirectly reflects how polarized that president's reputation is.

Starting from Bush, the last three presidents - Obama, Trump, Biden - clearly have a higher support rate difference between the two parties compared to the previous bunch of presidents. This is political polarization.

Biden's difference is second only to Trump's, and being comparable to Trump already says a lot.

For a president, this is a bad thing. For a president to legislate and get things done, he must go through Congress and Parliament, which requires the president to reach consensus between the two parties.

If consensus can't be reached, the president will be at an impasse, having to wait for Congress and Parliament to finish arguing before doing anything, severely affecting efficiency.

The current U.S. Congress is the least efficient in nearly fifty years, with fewer bills passed, a historically low number of measures passed, and a historically low number of bills sent to Biden.

There are too many such cases: Ukraine aid bill, border bill, debt ceiling bill, each experiencing a long debate period.

It can be said that Biden has failed to unite Congress and coordinate the differences between the two parties. This is not only a problem of leadership, but also lays hidden dangers for his next term.

Obama is a precedent. During his tenure, the two parties began intense polarization. Obama's first term was very smooth, passing many important bills including Obamacare, but he also failed to curb the growing contradictions between the two parties.

Although Obama was successfully re-elected, in his second term, the Republican Party regained the majority of seats in Parliament and Congress, controlling the legislative body. How could they indulge Obama?

In those four years, Obama, like Biden now, spent his time wrangling with the Republican Party. The number of bills passed significantly decreased compared to his previous term.

At present, Biden is visibly failing. Even if he really gets elected, he will face the most divided government in American history. He can barely speak clearly, how can he coordinate the huge contradictions between the two parties?

Now the Republican Party will still control Congress for two years. Although the Senate is still Democratic, there will be elections this year. If the Republican Party also controls the Senate, Biden in his second term will be busy and sweating yet accomplish nothing.

If Biden isn't up to it, does the Democratic Party have anyone else? Yes, even several.

California Governor Gavin Newsom is a good candidate. His support rate is around 39%, while Biden's is currently 48%. He is a firm supporter of Biden.

Vice President Kamala Harris also has a high support rate. She could step up too.

There are still four months until the election. Four months seems short, but the UK just finished an election that only took two weeks, and France also just finished an election that took about ten days, even with two rounds.

So if Biden withdraws and fully supports a Democratic rising star to run, transferring votes to the new candidate, it's possible for the Democratic Party to make a comeback and defeat Trump.

But Biden currently shows no intention of withdrawing. Even though anyone can see his thinking is no longer adequate for the presidency, he still insists on running.

Why won't Biden leave? I think it has a lot to do with Trump.

Trump and Biden actually have the same goal - they want to make America great again, but their methods of achieving this vision are worlds apart.

This is also a manifestation of political polarization. Biden wants to cut taxes, Trump wants to raise taxes. Biden likes immigrants, Trump hates immigrants. Biden sees Russia as America's biggest threat, Trump sees China as America's biggest threat.

What Biden least wants to see is Trump becoming president, because this could lead the entire country down an opposite path. In Biden's view, this is accelerating America's decline.

Biden has said more than once in speeches and interviews that Trump will destroy American democracy, and his mission is to stop Trump.

Judging from Biden's performance in his first term, he hasn't been able to, or perhaps never intended to, cool down American politics.

Intense ideological opposition will continue to shape America's domestic and foreign affairs, as well as America's future.

The Forbidden Flourish