{"id":227,"date":"2025-01-11T03:38:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-11T03:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=227"},"modified":"2025-09-27T23:34:42","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T23:34:42","slug":"wsj-its-bidens-policies-stupid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=227","title":{"rendered":"WSJ: “It\u2019s Biden\u2019s Policies, Stupid”"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the Journal op ed columnist Bill McGurn.<\/p>\n

"The president\u2019s real messaging failure is that Donald Trump had a better message."<\/a><\/p>\n

You knew it was coming. Ever since election night, Democrats from Nancy Pelosi<\/a> on down have been blaming Joe Biden<\/a> for costing them the White House. Last weekend Team Biden hit back. On Sunday the Washington Post reported that the president still believes \u201che could have defeated Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which raises the question: Were Democrats and the press more dishonest before the election, when they routinely reassured the American people Mr. Biden was sharp as a tack? Or are they now, after the election, when they insist Mr. Biden\u2019s decision to run for re-election\u2014which most supported at the time\u2014doomed Democratic chances for holding the White House?<\/p>\n

\n

Missing from the back and forth about Mr. Biden\u2019s decision to run is the slightest recognition that his policies were the source of public dissatisfaction with him. …  They created problems like inflation. And they damaged the Democratic Party\u2019s credibility when its leaders tried to tell the American people that if only they were smart enough, they would appreciate how good they had it.<\/p>\n

As if to underscore the point, when Kamala Harris<\/a> ran on the exact same agenda, the policies proved just as unpopular.<\/p>\n

Public disenchantment with the president began when he insisted the humiliating pullout from Afghanistan was \u201can extraordinary success.\u201d…<\/p>\n

The dishonesty continued when his homeland security secretary insisted \u201cthe border is secure.\u201d…<\/p>\n

Probably the most infamous example of Democratic deception concerned inflation. First there was denial. Then the American people were told it was transitory. Then they were told it was licked. \u201cBidenomics is working\u201d wasn\u2019t a winning appeal to workers who saw that their paychecks weren\u2019t going as far.<\/p>\n

***********************<\/p>\n

Now it is all unraveling, and everyone\u2019s dumping on Mr. Biden for not getting out sooner. Mr. Biden doesn\u2019t see it that way, of course. He insists that the party\u2019s mistake was ousting the only man who had ever beaten Mr. Trump.<\/p>\n

But Democrats aren\u2019t mad at Mr. Biden for staying in the race. They\u2019re mad because he exposed how all those now turning on him, Mrs. Pelosi included, reassured Americans that the president was at the top of his game when they knew otherwise.<\/p>\n

*********************<\/p>\n

If Mr. Biden\u2019s policies were working, the American people might have given him the benefit of the doubt and maybe even elected Ms. Harris. But they didn\u2019t. And rather than reconsider the policies, Democrats complain that Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris had a poor messaging strategy, that Mr. Trump was far better at taking advantage of new media\u2014e.g., his interview with podcaster Joe Rogan\u2014to get his message across.<\/p>\n

Which misses the obvious: Mr. Trump won because he had a better message\u2014because of better policies that yielded better results when he was president.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the Journal op ed columnist Bill McGurn. "The president\u2019s real messaging failure is that Donald Trump had a better message." You knew it was coming. Ever since election night, Democrats from Nancy Pelosi on down have been blaming Joe Biden for costing them the White House. Last weekend Team Biden hit back. On Sunday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=227"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7043,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions\/7043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}