Helping Fareed understand why Biden’s Approval Numbers are so Low

Helping Fareed understand why Biden’s Approval Numbers are so Low

In every disaster throughout American history, there always seems to be a man from Harvard in the middle of it.
Thomas Sowell, Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, Stanford, Chicago Hoover Institution Economist

A few weeks after, according to reports, the Biden administration secretly met with various media companies to request more favorable coverage (“Media Companies ‘Meet in Secret’ with Biden White House to discuss more favorable economic coverage,” The Daily Caller, Brianna Lyman, Dec. 7, 2021), Fareed Zakaria, the Harvard trained host of CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” usefully “confessed” on Twitter (Dec. 20, 2021) that he finds it “puzzling” that “President Biden’s popularity is so low.” In fact, Biden’s approval at the time was about 45% but, according to Quinnipiac, it has fallen to a pathetic 33 percent (“Quinnipiac Poll shows Biden with 33% approval”, Brett Samuels, 1/12/22). In fact, Fareed’s bewilderment is what is actually bewildering to normal common-sensical people who live outside the bubble.
On the home front, it couldn’t be that Biden pretends he has FDR-like majorities in congress while he attempts to ram things through that terrify half the population (“This Democrat thinks Biden has fundamentally misunderstood his mandate,” Chris Cilliza, CNN, Nov. 7 2021). It couldn’t be that on his first day in office, he undermined our energy independence by ending the “Keystone pipeline” (“Killing Keystone XL: How Biden Destroyed American Energy Independence,” Eric Scheiner and Ben Graham, The Daily Signal, Dec, 28, 2021). It couldn’t be that he has shown weakness toward Iran’s quest to obtain nuclear weapons (“The Biden Team Knows its Iran Policy is Failing,” Anthony Ruggiero, FP News, Dec. 31, 2021). It couldn’t be that when campaigning” he promised to “shut down the virus, not the economy,” but that after he was elected, he did the very opposite (“Biden’s Covid Death Milestone. Indeed, more Americans have died of the virus in 2021 than in all of 2020,” Wall Street Journal, Editorial Board, Nov. 25, 2021). It couldn’t be that Biden promised a return to normalcy after the alleged chaos of the Trump years but delivered massive chaos and incompetence (“Biden promised competence and order. Chaos and uncertainty are winning,” Jonathan Lemire, Politico, 12/19/ 2021). It couldn’t be that Biden laughed and walked away when he was asked why he has not pressed China on the origins of the Covid virus and has never demanded in public that China over the origins of the virus (“Biden laughs at reporter that asked why he isn’t pressing China on COVID origins”, Ian Schwartz, RealClearPolitics, Dec. 15, 2021). It couldn’t be that Biden reacts with anger and refuses to respond to questions about his son Hunter’s laptop (“Joe Biden Storms off when asked about FBI seizing Hunter’s Laptop,” Baxter Dmitry, News Punch Oct. 19, 2020). It couldn’t be that the Biden-administration shows contempt both for the law and the American people when it lies that the southern border is secure, even as people can see with their own eyes on the local news that children and adult men “flood into the United States illegally, by the tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands” (“DHS Secretary Mayorkas Insists: The Border is closed.’ Susan Jones, March 22, 2921).” It couldn’t be that Biden assigns Kamala Harris to deal with the problem at the southern border so that she could, so to speak, write a sociology paper for class on the root causes of illegal immigration (“All This ‘Root Causes’ Immigration Talk by Kamala Harris Is a Cop-Out,” Ruben Navarrette Jr., June 10, 2021). It couldn’t be that inflation, which is especially destructive to the poor, is at a 40 year high (“US Inflation Surges to Near 40 Year High testing Biden,” AFP, Dec. 10, 2021). It couldn’t be that Biden regularly turns his back on reporters and walks away refusing to answer questions (“Biden refuses to take questions after dismal jobs report. Biden has developed a reputation for failing to engage with reporters”, Brian Flood, Fox News, Oct. 8, 2021). It couldn’t be that when criticized Biden regularly blames everyone but himself and snaps at reporters when, rarely, they ask him a pointed question (“President Biden blames everyone but himself, Oxford Leader, Sept, 8, 2021). It couldn’t be that Biden is constantly so rambling and incoherent that even a New York Times columnist “begged” him not to run for re-election (“Alarmingly Incoherent’: NY Times Columnist Begs Biden Not to Run for Re-Election,” Joseph Curl, Daily Wire, Dec. 16, 2021). It couldn’t be that his vice-president has supported such ridiculous policing policies that homicides and crime, including assassinations of police, are spiking across the country to the point that even former “Defund the Police” Democrats are now calling to reverse course (“Behind London Breed’s stunning ‘defund the police’ turnaround in San Francisco,” Michael Shellenberger, NY Post, Dec. 15, 2021). One could continue indefinitely but that should suffice for present purposes.

On the international front, it couldn’t be that Biden was shown to be “callous and dishonest” for his response to his disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal that saw 13 American military people murdered, over 100 more injured, and 169 Afghan’s killed (“Joe Biden revealed as ‘callous, dishonest’ for botched Afghanistan withdrawal, Paul Murray, Skynews, Nov. 16, 2021). It couldn’t be that after leaving a massive amount of US military equipment behind for the Taliban terrorists government, the Biden administration is sending the Taliban millions of dollars in US aid (“Biden Admin to Send the Taliban Millions in US Dollars After Arming them with $83 Billion in US Military weapons,” Jim Hoft, The Gateway Pundit, Oct 10, 2021). It couldn’t be that after this stopped during the Trump years, North Korea has restarted its ballistic missile program and has been firing missiles, including, reportedly, hypersonic missiles, towards Japan (“North Korea Preparing For “Long-Term Confrontation” With US”, NDTV.com, Jan. 20, 2022; “North Korea test-fires long-range missiles, officials say,” The missiles allegedly hit a target 1,500 kilometers away,” Christine Theodorou and Ivan Pereira, abcnews.com, September 13 2021). It couldn’t be that fleets of Chinese fighter planes now under Biden regularly invade Taiwan’s air space while China makes threatening statements to Taiwan (“Record number of China planes enter Taiwan air defence zone,” BBC News, 5 October 2021). It couldn’t be that just as Russia annexed Crimea during the Obama-Biden administration (“Eight Years of Obama’s Weakness towards Russia,” Andrew Kugle, The Washington Free Beacon, February 26, 2018), Russia is again massing an invading army on Ukraine’s border and, as we speak, Ukraine officials have stated that they are “shocked” that Biden appeared to give a green light to a Russian invasion (“Ukraine shocked at Biden ‘green light to Putin’ incursion,” Matthew Chance, CNN, Jan. 20, 2022).

Although intellectuals perform an essential role in civilizational and cultural advance, they one of their occupational hazards is that they overestimate their ability to solve real-world societal problems. Although Fareed, on his CNN show, condescendingly gives his devotees in the audience quizzes and reading assignments of books by his favorite “liberals” as if he is teaching children, wisdom is, unfortunately, not found on multiple choice tests. Everything works out splendidly in the classroom, in fact, so splendidly that our “intellectual” elites simply cannot let reality intrude upon their whimsies. As philosopher/mathematician A.N. Whitehead points out in The Function of Reason, solving “real world” problems requires a qualitatively different kind of intelligence, not that of a Plato, a philosopher or abstract theorist but that of a Ulysses, a doer, perhaps even a coarse businessman who is literally incomprehensible to “intellectuals” that are much more comfortable in their safe-spaces with flowery platitudes. One does not acquire actual worldly wisdom in the classroom (although one might acquire it by opposing it). The real lesson of Fareed’s bewilderment is that one of the things most bookish intellectuals find impossible to understand is their own limitations:

Intellect is not wisdom.
Thomas Sowell, Intellectuals and Society