Joe Biden is not perfect. No one is. But dammit, he does the best he can under the circumstances.
Don’t take our word for it … take it from Associated Press White House and economics reporter Josh Boak, who took a good, long look at Joe Biden’s struggle to make inroads with the American people by using perhaps his greatest strength: his empathy.
No, really:
Biden tries to put himself in the scuffed shoes of a worker and asks Ivy League educated aides to do the same. He repeatedly tells them that real people must be able to easily apply for the government resources being created for them. https://t.co/t4iMNudGVJ
— Josh Boak (@joshboak) February 15, 2023
But here’s the rub for Biden: A majority of voters in Alabama and across the U.S. don’t believe he cares about people like them. Nor do they trust his ability to manage a sprawling federal government that often moves at a sluggish pace.
This perception has made it harder for Biden to sell his plans for the economy and make his case to voters around the country that he deserves a second term in an all-but-declared reelection campaign.
“If you go and you walk in some of these folks’ yards, the kids are running outside and they’re running in sewage,” says Mitch Landrieu, the White House infrastructure coordinator. “These are the people that the president wants to touch.”
For all of that, however, 53% of voters in the midterm elections said Biden didn’t care about people like them, according to AP VoteCast, a sweeping survey of the electorate. That belief about Biden — a president known to commiserate with grieving families and offer to phone children who want puppies — is a reflection of how people judge leaders through a rigidly partisan lens. About 9 in 10 Republicans say Biden is indifferent to them; roughly that many Democrats see him as empathetic.
It’s hard enough to be empathetic. But to be empathetic when the Republicans you’ve declared to be evil and anti-democracy and pro-death, well, it’s damn near impossible. Poor Joe. He so rarely gets cut any slack!
don't you stupid peasants understand? HE CARES. pic.twitter.com/iYQawH8MkB
— T. Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) February 15, 2023
How’s that for a headline?
AP bringing the heat pic.twitter.com/msS4LhdPpI
— David Rutz (@DavidRutz) February 15, 2023
The residual heat from the pile of smoldering garbage, anyway.
HOLY CRAP THIS AP HEADLINE:
"Biden’s empathy shapes policy, but some voters don’t feel it"
Really? Empathy?
This is from a wire service, not a PR firm. pic.twitter.com/vbapY3aDvM
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) February 15, 2023
Honestly, a PR firm might’ve been a little less blatant than the AP. Good Lord.
what empathy? biden won't even acknowledge the existence of one of his grandchildren.
— Ryan (@alwaysonoffense) February 15, 2023
Biden literally makes up different stories for how his own son died to appeal to different audiences. That isn’t empathy, it’s sociopathy. https://t.co/e6muKfOVyk
— coketown (@coketown_) February 15, 2023
That’s a great point.
Wild.
Biden ran as “Mr Empathy” but what has he done to show it since?
❌Leave Afghanistan to terrorists?
❌ Raise taxes on the poor to buy rich people electric cars?
❌ Create a border humanitarian crisis – and not visit?
❌ Ignore the Ohio train derailment?What “empathy?” https://t.co/z7ceL97poG
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) February 15, 2023
Yeah my guy showed a ton of empathy by hiding for 3 weeks while people fell off the wheel wells of departing airplanes in Kabul. https://t.co/tsastfb8tS
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) February 15, 2023
Joe Biden’s “empathy” has a legit body count. You’d think that Boak and the AP would consider that before painting Biden as some kind of underdog who’s only crime is trying to do right by the American people.
But then you’d remember that this is the AP we’re dealing with and that they haven’t practiced actual journalism in quite some time.
I hope the White House sends you a nice bottle of wine or a gift card for this, @JoshBoak https://t.co/fA8pIIsWwb
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 15, 2023
Pathetic.
Such bullsh*t.
— SarahLee (@sarailola) February 15, 2023
Fact-check: true.
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