(CNN) Presidents get into trouble when they are seen as controlled by events rather than the other way around. This is the situation now facing Joe Biden.
The President is confronted by a slew of intractable domestic and global crises he has no power to quickly fix, a bunch of political crunches caused and exacerbated by his own choices and a deepening sense of a White House under siege.
Rising gasoline prices and inflation, a global supply chain backup that could empty Santa’s sled, and a pandemic Biden was elected to end but that won’t go away dominate a testing political environment.
The economy seems to have forgotten how to get people back to work.
Biden has been in Washington nearly 50 years, so he may be more sanguine than most about the boom and bust cycle of presidencies that has been rendered more extreme by social media and corrosive national polarization.
“With his approval ratings slipping fast, the President faces a political imperative to impose his authority amid a nagging national sense that a lot is going wrong.”
Democrats already fear midterm elections next year will be a Republican rout.
And ex-President Donald Trump is prowling, gleefully painting a horror show about Biden’s struggles to fuel the sense of chaos in which his demagoguery thrives ahead of a potential 2024 campaign.
Even the White House admits things aren’t going great.
“This is a really tough time in our country. We’re still battling Covid, and a lot of people thought we’d be through it, including us,” press secretary Jen Psaki admitted on Friday.
Successful presidents are able to rebound … READ MORE.
