PRESIDENT Joe Biden might not have lifted our spirits up as much as Barack Obama’s lofty oratorical skills splendidly did, nor did he arouse strong emotions that made us angry, curse, laugh like the showman Donald Trump cunningly did.
But, Biden ignited in us one thing that we all need most during this most difficult time in our nation’s history: HOPE.
The 46th president of the United States, making history with two women behind him — Vice President Kamala Harris and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi — made most Americans feel proud and positive about what lies ahead amid the coronavirus pandemic.
More importantly, Biden made most of us feel, this author included, that his bold vision and plan for America with benefit us all, ordinary hardworking Americans.
According to the latest CBS News national poll, conducted among a statistically random sample of Americans who watched the speech, 78% felt optimistic, 13% felt pessimistic, while 9% felt neither.
In general, 85% of those who viewed the televised address overwhelmingly approve of his speech. Fifteen percent disapprove.
The poll revealed that speech viewers found Biden to be “presidential” (89%), caring (89%), inspiring (84%), and bold (80%).
Seventy-five percent said Biden’s plan would most likely help them, 13% said it would hurt them, while 14% answered the plan would not have much effect on them.
There was overwhelming support for Biden’s plan for creating jobs: 85% like the plan, while only 15% dislike.
Biden’s high speech approval rating runs parallel with the way the President has been handling the coronavirus pandemic, which has been the top priority of the Biden Administration. Some 83% of respondents say things are getting better in the United States, 6% say things are worse while 11% answer that nothing has changed.
The CBS News report pointed out: “As we’ve seen with previous presidential addresses to Congress and State of the Union speeches, those who watched tonight are more likely to be from the president’s own political party.”
“In the latest CBS News national poll, 34% of Americans nationwide identified as Democrats. Among those who watched tonight’s speech, that figure is 54%, helping boost approval of the address,” the report stated.
Corollary to this, the report cited: “Former President Trump received a high approval rating for his first address to a joint session of Congress in 2017, among a viewing audience who leaned more Republican than the country as a whole.”
When asked how they felt seeing “for the first time ever, there were women in both the Vice-President’s (Kamala Harris) and Speaker of the House’s (Nancy Pelosi) seats with the President tonight,” a big majority (73%) said they felt proud, 6% not proud, and 21% said it did not matter.
More insights from the CBS News report on a survey conducted from April 21-24, just before Biden’s speech:
“Approaching one hundred days in the presidency, President Biden maintains fairly strong approval ratings for what look like fairly straightforward reasons: Most Americans like the way he’s handling the country’s top priorities, with especially strong marks on the pandemic and vaccine rollout; his major legislative pieces are popular so far. And then, more stylistically perhaps, a majority of Americans pick words to describe him like “presidential,” “focused” and “competent.”
At the same time they also say they’d generally like politics for the next four years to be “steady,” and “normal” (even though, we should note, they don’t expect it to be) more so than they want it “shaken up” or even “exciting.”
Specifically, most view the recent stimulus package as helpful to the economy, and infrastructure, too, is very popular. Spending more on roads, bridges, and broadband find widespread favor, in principle, and Mr. Biden’s proposal overall nets majority backing.
The removal of troops from Afghanistan also meets with broad approval. A range of items from his handling of the economy to race relations, to foreign policy, get majority nods. All told, on a lot of metrics for both policy and approach, there’s resonance — at least with those open to it.
But there are clearly challenges ahead for Biden, leading a nation that remains polarized and going through large-scale challenges. Three-fourths of Americans feel the verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial was the right one, but far fewer expect race relations, generally, to improve in the coming months.
The president’s handling of immigration, in particular, finds lower approval than other items. And while most do feel he’s reaching out for bipartisanship in Congress, aside from some backing on the pandemic and infrastructure, Republicans’ rank-and-file mostly oppose him, describe him negatively, and most still will not say he legitimately won.
Politically though, there is still plenty of resistance from the nation’s Republicans. Biden gets only about half the overall Republican approval that Obama got in early 2009, just before the party splits on presidential approvals got even more polarized, where they’ve remained for years.
Part of this is that most Republicans still do not say Biden was the legitimate winner of the election, and six in 10 of former President Trump’s voters now want to see their congressional representatives oppose Biden at every turn.
This isn’t just politics. That particular group who wants opposition — while constituting a minority of Americans — also has very different views on issues from most Democrats, moderates and independents, as well.
For instance, most of them think efforts at racial equality are making American society worse; they say illegal immigration should be the top priority, as opposed to the pandemic or even the economy.”
(To be continued…)
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The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of the Asian Journal, its management, editorial board and staff.
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Gel Santos Relos has been in news, talk, public service and educational broadcasting since 1989 with ABS-CBN and is now serving the Filipino audience using different platforms, including digital broadcasting, and print, and is working on a new public service program for the community. You may contact her through email at [email protected], or send her a message via Facebook at Facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos.
