The Myth of Approval Rating

 The current Afghanistan situation hasn't impacted Joe Biden's approval ratings a whole lot. As per realclearpolitics website poll of polls, it stands at a healthy 47%. That's not too bad. Joe Biden is in politics since 1972, before most of his critics were born or were running around in diapers. 

He knows these approval ratings are transactional. His reelection is a good 3 years away and the closest elections - the midterm Congressional elections in more than a year away. Joe Biden knows very well that. BUDHA (The old man) hasn't lost his hair and grown gray hairs for nothing. Biden is in politics for 50 years now. With the experience of being a 8 term Senator and a 2 term Vice President he has taken a decision which his predecessors Obama and Trump talked about but never dared to implement - withdraw from Afghanistan. 

Trump, the darling of many in India (not sure why BJP supporters are big fans of Trump, who on the other gives a shit about BJP or its supporters) not only promised to withdraw from Afghanistan if reelected, he set a date of May 1, 2021. If Trump was reelected and withdrew from Afghanistan its Right wing devotees in USA as well as India would be heaving paens of praise upon him. Talk of hypocrisy !

I was not surprised at Joe Biden's 47% approval rating at this juncture. All politics are local. Americans who are more concerned about their domestic matters, generally give their President a passe in their international faux pases they make. That explains why George Bush Jr. got reelected in 2004 in spite of his Iraq fiasco. Obama's bungled Benghazi incident a few months before the election in 2013 didn't help Mitt Romney defeat him. Reason - luckily for both Bush in 2004 and Obama in 2012 the economy was doing good enough for Americans not to worry about what was happenings in Iraq or Libya.

This I am saying based on my observations by virtue of living in the United States for quarter of a century - by following its politics from up close rather than sitting in Bhubaneswar or Bangalore, armed with access to Google and Wikipedia. Economy matters a lot to the Americans. That's why George Bush Sr lost to Bill Clinton in 1992 in spite of being a Iraq War in 1991. As President Bush presided over a recession ridden economy going into his reelection, Bill Clinton's slogan "It's Economy stupid" got the better of him.

So, writing off Joe Biden at this juncture is both premature, preposterous and at best fallacious. To borrow Bill Clinton's slogan in America "it's economy stupid". Biden has set up his domestic agenda by passing his ambitious $3.9 trillion Infrastructure Bill - more than the annual GDP of every other country in the world except China, Japan and Germany. He will be tested by his economic performance and management of Covid crisis down the road (which will get much better in 2022  as number of people vaccinated grows, investments in infrastructure will create jobs). 

So, my dear friends. Not so fast. As Modi will not be punished in May 2024 for his mishandling of Covid crisis in May 2021, don't expect American voters to punish Biden in November 2024 for his Afghanistan withdrawl in August 2021. A week is a long time in politics, 2024 is eons away.