A couple of numbers from FiveThirtyEight‘s polling roundups:

56% of Americans polled disapprove of US president Joe Biden.

56.1% of Americans polled disapprove of former (and hoping to be future) US president Donald Trump.

Those two are their respective parties’ 2024 presidential nomination front-runners, and it’s not even close.

US vice-president Kamala Harris, who’s best positioned to replace Biden on the Democratic ticket if he drops out or dies in office, is just a wee bit less unpopular than those two with a disapproval rating of “only” 51.3%

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who’s running against Biden for the Democratic Party’s nomination, is less unpopular yet — but more so with Republicans (23% unfavorable) than with Democrats (41% unfavorable).

On the Republican side, second-placer (so far) Ron DeSantis bests Trump with an unfavorable percentage of “only” 48.6%. Former US vice-president Mike Pence is even less popular than Trump or Biden at 58.5%.

I’m not old enough to remember people actually wearing “I Like Ike” buttons, and I’m just old enough to have trouble remembering who it was — it may have been Dick Morris — who said in the early 2000s that if your unfavorable rating is above 35%, you shouldn’t bother running for president.

This year, the only “serious” “major party” candidates who seem to be getting under that wire are on the Republican side: Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley (34.2%) and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott (24.7%). And one suspects that if either gets any traction, those unfavorable ratings will spike upward.

Looking at Gallup statistics, I see that the average disapproval rating for elected presidents upon taking office from Eisenhower to Obama was 11.3%, and that average was dragged way upward by Bill Clinton (20%) and George W. Bush (25%).

Even the likely retrospectively most unpopular president overall of the Eisenhower-to-Obama era, Richard Nixon, entered office with a stunning disapproval rating of only 5%!

Something has changed in recent years, and that change manifests in two important ways.

First, politicians in general are obviously becoming a LOT less liked and trusted. I don’t think that’s because politicians are worse now than they were in, say, 1952. I think it’s because people are paying closer attention.

Second, these days, it’s hard to make a case that voters are voting for the politicians they like best for the nation’s higher office. Instead, they’re mostly voting against the politicians they hate the most, and for politicians they hate just a little bit less.

The predictable result is that these days, instead of running on their own policy proposals, presidential candidates run on claims about their opponents. Trump is an “insurrectionist.” Biden runs a “crime family.” Ignore my IDEAS, folks! Focus on how naive, stupid, or dastardly my OPPONENT is.

Which explains why, policy-wise, it’s hard to tell one president from the next without a scorecard.

I can’t help but think of this phenomenon as a huge neon sign reading “TERMINAL DECLINE” flashing brightly over any polity it shows up in.

That sign means it’s time to stop worrying about WHO’S next, and start thinking about WHAT COMES next.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

For the second time in as many months, US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), 81, experienced an … episode … on August 30, suddenly freezing, going silent, and appearing to have broken contact with the external world while talking with reporters.

Dr. Brian Monahan, the US Capitol’s attending physician, declared McConnell “medically clear” the next day, noting that “occasional lightheadedness is not uncommon in concussion recovery.” McConnell sustained a concussion after falling in March.

But among the aging American political class, McConnell’s far from alone when it comes to recent public displays of something that most people think looks like senility. Two other names (not the only ones) that come to mind are US Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), 90, and US president Joe Biden,  80.

All this has people talking about things like age limits, term limits, and “competency tests.” Which is fine, I guess, but it seems to me that we may be better off with wandering attention spans, sudden descents into sleep, etc., than we would be with these people still at the top of their games.

“In that moment of amnesiac innocence,” Australian blogger Caitlin Johnstone writes of McConnell’s latest freeze-up, “you’d never be able to tell from looking at Mitch McConnell how many people he’s helped kill. …. All you’d see is a man. A cute, harmless, befuddled old man.”

How many people HAS McConnell helped kill? It’s hard to envision any answer which doesn’t include the word “million.”

As a member of the US Senate since 1984 and its GOP faction’s leader since 2006, he’s been one of the main political figures behind deadly US military interventions around the world. He’s openly backed, and whipped Republican support for, these wars of choice, and worked hard to defeat even half-hearted congressional attempts to rein them in.

In a world where justice meant anything, McConnell would probably be living out his golden years in a senior citizens’ complex back in Kentucky — specifically, FMC Lexington, a federal prison  for inmates requiring constant medical attention.

Barring that — or, better yet, eliminating his job entirely — perhaps we’re better of with him in Washington. If he retires, he’ll almost certainly be replaced by someone just as evil, but still possessed of relative youth and mental acuity.

Every time Mitch nods off or freezes up at a meeting, or misses a vote to get a hip replacement or botox injection, there’s at least a chance of innocent lives being spared.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

As I write this on the morning of Tuesday, August 29, forecasts predict that the storm known as Idalia will make landfall as a Category 3 Hurricane early tomorrow, about 50 miles to the west of my home outside Gainesville, Florida, then come right at me.

Any or all of those elements (when, where, how strong) could suddenly change, but two things almost certainly won’t:

First, within hours of the “all clear” signal, media and politicians will start clamoring for the President of the United States to board Air Force One and fly directly to wherever the devastation is worst and first responders are most overworked, because REASONS.

Secondly, not too long after, the President of the United States will board Air Force One and fly directly to the center of the chaos, because POLITICS.

Runways will be diverted from supply deliveries to accommodate the presidential visit.

Hangars will house Secret Service agents and press pool members instead of specialists arriving to save lives, restore power, etc.

Roadways will be commandeered for the presidential motorcade and police escort instead of cleared for ambulances and other rescue vehicles, trucks full of water and food, etc.

The president will arrive, get his picture taken with his arms around  survivors in front of their wrecked homes, shake a few other politicians’ hands, promise millions or billions in aid, then jet back to DC, after which people will finally get back to handling a bad situation.

None of that is necessary, but it  happens every time.

How much airspace was restricted,  for how long, between Los Angeles and Honolulu last week so that Joe Biden could fly in, glad-hand, mug for the cameras, and fly out? How many tons of badly needed supplies were delayed? How many cops, firefighters, and medics were distracted from helping people in need so a politician could be seen “doing something?”

I’m not a big fan of presidents in general, but I’ll be tempted to vote for the re-election of the next president who sees a large-scale disaster and resists the temptation to visit.

President Biden, after Idalia has her way with my area or some other, please just let us all know how much you care in a short television address, explain why you’re staying out of the way, then go play a round of golf or something. We’ll all be better off for your decision to handle things that way.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY