A month to forget: the August crises break Biden's popularity

WASHINGTON.- The United States celebrated Labor Day last Monday, or Labor Day, a holiday that in addition to commemorating the workers from the rest of the world, which celebrates May 1, marks the informal end of summer and the return to normal life, with a return to the classroom included. For the White House, it was the end of the most traumatic months of Joe Biden's presidency, which is knocking on the doors of autumn with his popularity in the doldrums: for the first time, more Americans disapprove of his management than those who approve of it.

The chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, the furious rise in coronavirus infections due to the delta variant and the reluctance of many Americans to get vaccinated ended up burying the “summer of joy” that Biden had predicted in early June, when the United States seemed to have left behind the worst of the pandemic, and put an end to the honeymoon that usually accompanies the start of a new government.

Before the arrival of summer, more than half of the country approved of Biden's performance, according to the average of RealClearPolitics polls. The rejection of his work as president barely exceeded 41%, giving the White House ample political room. With the vaccination campaign underway, Biden and his team were preparing to give air to their domestic agenda, centered on their ambitious infrastructure plan. At the end of July, the White House celebrated a "historic bipartisan agreement" to implement that plan, which included new investments of more than 500,000 million dollars.

After a tough summer, Biden reaches the fall with an approval of 45.3% of Americans, and a rejection of his work of 49.5%, according to RealClearPolitics.

The delta variant of the coronavirus had begun to increase infections and create a fourth wave in the second half of July. The vaccination campaign, which at the beginning of the year aroused global envy and attracted tourists traveling to get vaccinated, had begun to show its limitations a few weeks earlier: the United States failed to reach the goal set by Biden of reaching July 4, the Day de la Independencia, with at least 70% of the adult population vaccinated. The health authorities were already warning of a “pandemic of the unvaccinated”, and the resistance of around a third of the country to be immunized.

Delta's advance over the summer was aggressive. At the end of August, the United States had already registered an average of more than 170,000 infections per day, a level similar to that of the beginning of the year, before Biden took office. Hospitals in several states began to receive more and more patients – again – with five states, Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Florida and Arkansas having more than 90% of their intensive care beds occupied earlier this month.

The summer marked a reversal of fortune on both sides of the Atlantic: The European Union, which got off to a slow and troublesome start with its vaccination campaign, overtook the United States in the number of vaccines administered per person. Portugal, Spain, Belgium, Denmark, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, Norway and Greece are some of the European nations that have more people fully immunized than the United States, where, despite the abundance of vaccines, only 53.2% of the population has already completed the treatment.

The rebound in infections, which seems to have begun to subside, put a brake on the reactivation of the economy. In August, the United States created 235,000 new jobs, well below market expectations, which expected triple. Biden said his plans had created a "lasting" revival, but he acknowledged the brake.

“There is no question that the delta variant is the reason why the jobs data is not stronger. I know people were looking for, and I was hoping for, a higher number,” he said in a White House speech.

Along with the advance of the delta variant in states with a low proportion of the population vaccinated, the deterioration in Afghanistan caused the worst political crisis of the Biden presidency. Despite having arrived at the White House with the promise of leading a competent and predictable government, the stealthy Taliban advance on Kabul and the fall of Ashraf Ghani's government led to a chaotic withdrawal that included the death of 13 soldiers in a terrorist attack. during the final evacuation.

Biden defended his decision to end the “eternal war” and the majority of the country supported that decision, but the devastating images of the withdrawal from Kabul and the return of the Taliban to power flooded the televisions and newspapers of the United States for two weeks. endless.

The White House relies on Biden's domestic agenda and the recovery from the pandemic to reverse the decline in the president's image. Two new fights looming on the horizon will once again put the agility of his government into play: the United States has embarked on a new fight over access to abortion –for many, the mother of all cultural battles–, and the White House he must get Congress to raise the debt ceiling next month, a discussion that ten years ago, when Biden was Barack Obama's vice president, brought the country to the brink of default.