The State of the Union Contradiction

That’s the contradiction stalking his Presidency as he enters his third year and plots a likely re-election campaign. The disconnect is clear enough in the polls. His job approval rating average has climbed to 44.2% in the RealClearPolitics average, which should be better with all of that supposed good news. Gallup has it at 41%. Mr. Biden’s RCP average job approval on the economy is 38%.

The latest Washington Post/ABC poll is even worse for the President. Some 41% of Americans say they’re worse off financially than when Mr. Biden became President, while only 16% say they’re better off. Most people—62%—say Mr. Biden has accomplished either not very much or little or nothing. That includes 22% of Democrats.

And here’s the really bad news for Mr. Biden. Some 58% of Democrats say they’d prefer a different party nominee for President in 2024, and he even loses a head to head matchup with former President Trump 48%-44%.

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Polls are only snapshots in time, and few voters are focused on the 2024 choices. Mr. Biden could rise if the economy ducks a recession, inflation subsides, and Ukraine pushes Russia out of most or all of its territory.

But it’s worth asking why a Presidency as successful as Mr. Biden and the media claim hasn’t persuaded the public. Part of the answer is polarization, with partisans automatically opposing a President of the other party. But that would explain about 40 percentage points of his disapproval, not the other 16%.

Mr. Biden has contributed to that polarization with the partisan agenda of his first two years after he campaigned as a unifier. He jammed through Congress trillions of dollars in new spending with narrow majorities. His Administration uses regulation to impose the progressive priorities of racial division and climate alarmism, often without proper legal authority. The Supreme Court rebuked him on vaccine mandates and a national eviction moratorium, and it will likely do so again on student-loan forgiveness.

The President’s governing rhetoric has also been as divisive as Mr. Trump’s. He said a Georgia voting law was “

Jim Crow

2.0” and Republicans are the equivalent of Bull Connor. Republicans believe in “semi-fascism,” and those who want to use the debt ceiling as leverage to reduce spending represent “chaos and catastrophe.”

This may rally Democrats but it turns off a majority. That may be why White House sources were leaking before Tuesday’s speech that Mr. Biden would avoid such rhetoric and personally edited the drafts to that effect. We’ll see how long Biden the Unifier 2.0 lasts.

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The President’s biggest problem is that all of his legislative victories haven’t delivered the benefits he promised. The $1.9 trillion Covid bill in March 2021 added so much cash to the economy that it helped to trigger an historic inflation. The result is that most Americans haven’t had a raise in their income after inflation in two years. This takes a shine off the low unemployment rate every time people hit the grocery store. They can see that the $1.7 trillion Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 had nothing at all to do with reducing inflation.

Americans also observe a fraying social consensus that has them worried about the country. Crime may not be as high as it was in the 1990s, but it has risen sharply in big cities. The record migrant surge across the border would be less worrisome if Mr. Biden seemed to care about stopping it. The fentanyl scourge isn’t his fault, but its breadth betrays a troubling decay in values.

As for foreign policy, Americans can see that the world is becoming more dangerous and its rogues more brazen. Mr. Biden has done a good if often belated job of arming Ukraine, but he failed to deter

Vladimir Putin.

China has become less bellicose of late but no less aggressive in its actions, as its spy balloon provocation shows. Iran continues to advance its nuclear program despite U.S. and allied protests.

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All of which is to say that there’s ample reason for voters to be skeptical of Mr. Biden’s expansive claims of presidential success. He’s lucky the opposition Republicans can’t get their act together or he’d be in far more trouble.