"Bi-Partisan Consensus-Builder" Joe Biden Blames GOP For Lackluster Presidency

 It should be clear to most that the reason Joe Biden has low poll numbers is not only did he not push for things his party's base wanted (Medicare For All, student debt forgiveness) but he failed on things he said he would do ($15 minimum wage, $2,000 stimulus checks). And that's not even going into how his Administration threw up their hands after a tepid COVID-19 vaccine rollout, his photo op that passed as troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Russian saber-rattling and soft support for Ukrainian Nazis that led to a new war in Europe or the inflation that came as a result of that mess.

Nevertheless, it wasn't supposed to be a problem for Joe Biden. Out of all of the Democratic primary candidates for 2020, he was the one who could reach across the aisle and work with the GOP to get things done (never mind that this was also the claim of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama when they either campaigned or got elected).

Of course, we know how this song ends. The Democrats claim to want to play fair, only to have their hand slapped away from Republicans at just about every turn (military budgets and tax cuts notwithstanding) and then finally, when it hardly even matters, they start talking about the opposition party as if...they are the opposition party:

A fired-up President Joe Biden spoke to a friendly crowd of union supporters Tuesday, hoping to put a positive spin on his economic record amid inflation not seen in decades and blame Republicans for blocking his domestic agenda.

[SNIP]

The President acknowledged inflation is "sapping the strength of a lot of families," as the price of gas and food skyrockets -- an issue being made worse by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But even as he sought to emphasize his administration is fully focused on the problem, the President conceded he is left without many options to fight the price hikes, particularly in a narrowly divided Senate that has blocked the bulk of Biden's domestic agenda.

"The problem is Republicans in Congress are doing everything they can to stop my plans to bring down costs on ordinary families. That's why my plan is not finished and why the results aren't finished either," Biden said.

Make no mistake: Joe Biden did this to himself. For whatever reason, he told his donors that "nothing will fundamentally change" after they address COVID (which they really didn't) and proceeded to govern in that fashion. No bold ideas or initiatives. No using the power of the Executive Office to challenge the status quo. Not even an attempt to put things back the way they were when he was Vice President under Obama. The GOP really didn't even need to attack the guy as some radical socialist; they could have just trotted out a version of the old Ronald Reagan metric: "Are you better off now than you were two years ago?"