With jobs up and inflation down, how are Democrats disappointed in Biden?

Let’s see, unemployment is at its lowest rate since 1969 and inflation, which is up all over the world, has fallen for the sixth month in a row in our country. Congress must believe we have no actual problems to address, or else lawmakers would surely not be wasting time on The Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act, or taking a vote meaninglessly denouncing “the horrors of socialism.”

“Jobs are up, wages are up, inflation is down, and COVID no longer controls our lives,” President Joe Biden told the Democratic National Committee last week, a message he reaffirmed at Tuesday’s State of the Union. And all of these assertions are accurate, too.

Yet as the “Biden boom” continues, Americans could hardly be more dissatisfied. Most people, including most Democrats, see the state of our union as shaky and blame him.

A new ABC News/washington Post poll shows that a record 41% of Americans say they’re worse off financially than when the president took office. Just 42% approve of the job Biden is doing, and 58% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents polled prefer another candidate to Biden in 2024.

In fact, 62% of those polled said they’d be disappointed or downright angry if he were re-elected, compared with the 56% who said they’d feel that way if Donald Trump were returned to the White House.

That’s because 26% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents would be unhappy if Biden were re-elected, compared with the 20% of Republicans and Republican leaners who’d frown or fume over a second term for Trump.

And there you have it: In an evenly divided country, Republicans are less willing to walk away from someone who led an insurrection, made a mockery of any values, much less family values, and reduced their agenda to rubble.

They are less willing, that is, than Democrats say they are to abandon someone who has brought us through a pandemic, who has stood up to Russian President Vladimir Putin and stood by Ukraine. Biden has restored our country’s standing not just as what Madeleine Albright called “the indispensable nation,” but as a place where the president no longer reminds anyone of that bully from second grade, the one who mocked anyone with a disability and punched girls in the stomach.

On a political level, Biden avoided midterm disaster, and in an unmoored time, steered past a never-ending parade of provocations with self-deprecating humor.

Of course, most Republicans see nothing to like; for them, everything is theater, and every actor is Nicolas Cage.

But for you in Biden’s own party to say you’d be angry if he were re-elected? That makes me wonder if you know what’s been avoided these past couple of years, and what’s at stake next year.

Remember the six minutes in 2020 when you were ready to ditch boring old Joe for exciting Andrew Cuomo because he was so charming in those daily COVID briefings? Politically speaking, Democrats are ever eager to sneak away from the date who wants to hear about their hopes and dreams to dash off with someone more exciting but less likely to get them home safely.

In case you’re still wondering, I’m not among those disappointed in the president.