We all like to zero in on each day’s national political polls to see how President Biden is doing (particularly lately). But we need to check each day’s ratings for reasons other than ghoulish curiosity.
The fact is that each day’s ratings for a president directly impactsn his power and ability to deliver on his agenda.
In recent years, we have become much more like England in that a president needs, essentially, a daily vote of confidence in order to perform. But this vote comes not from the House of Commons as in the United Kingdom nor Congress in the United States, but instead from the likes of polling companies such as Gallup, Rasmussen, Reuters, and
McLaughlin.
Each day’s ratings are the American equivalent of a vote of confidence or no confidence.
In the UK, prime ministers can be forced out of office or elections can be required if the ratings drop too low.
In America we serve for a set term, irrespective of the polling, but the president’s power is often severely attenuated by drops in the polls.
In fact, given the propensity of Congress in recent years to impeach a president, this daily vote of confidence might eventually force his resignation if the latest data is not favorable towards him.
But, for now, the impact of a drop in the polling is not so drastic.
In fact, poor polls are more like a slight impairment of your immune system in that such a decrease in health would make you vulnerable to opportunistic and episodic infections. Politically, this means polls impact your ability to pass your policy agenda such as a universale health care program or amnesty.
So, we would be wrong to attribute Biden’s recent legislative reversals simply to the defects in the quality of his proposals.
If
Biden's popularity were still intact, the proposals would look much more attractive and would very likely pass the House and Senate. Instead, his dismal ratings are the source of all his ills.
It's funny how it works; The lower a president’s ratings drop, the more Congress sees him as ideologically extreme or incompetent -- or in Biden's case, senile.
But the real culprit in a president's failed agenda and subsequent diminished popularity is that his ratings are down. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, and thus the cycle of cause and effect continues onward.