LIFE IS GOOD FOR THE WRONG PEOPLE

At his Substack, which is called Everything Is Horrible, Noah Berlatsky offers the theory that President Biden's approval ratings are low because ... well, everything is horrible:

The US since at least 2016 has been facing a crisis of democracy. One of our two major political parties has embraced fascism with terrifying religious fervor, and the effects of that are frightening and difficult to escape. The Supreme Court gutted abortion rights. LGBT people are facing escalating attacks, up to and including threats of terrorist violence. Red states have launched all-out assaults on local schools, banning books by Black and LGBT authors and letting teachers know that their jobs and even their safety is in peril if they try to do their jobs. Frightening Republican politicians run for office regularly, insisting that the US is a sewer, and promising to "fix" things by unelashing a wave of bigotry and cruelty. Meanwhile, there are more and more extreme weather events—storms, drought, floods, skyrocketing temperatures. And then there's the steady, horrific drumbeat of mass shootings.

... Things feel bleak. And when things feel bleak, people tend to say that the president isn't doing a great job. Which means Biden's approval ratings are terrible.

But everything isn't horrible for everybody. If you're a right-winger, you like the fact that the GOP is openly embracing fascism and bigotry. You like the assaults on abortion rights and LGBT rights. You like book banning when the books being banned are books you don't approve of. And you don't care about extreme weather because you're certain that climate change is a hoax.

But if you're in that category, you've hated Biden from the beginning, and the fact that many aspects of American life are going your way doesn't change that. So America consists of people who might be favorably disposed toward Biden, but many of them don't like the way things are going, along with people whose lives are pretty sweet, but they hate all Democrats, so Biden will never get any credit. No wonder Biden's numbers are low.

Admittedly, right-wingers don't think everything is good. In fact, they say that everything is horrible, even though their lives aren't horrible at all. I wrote about this paradox in March:

For years they've warned that "we won't have a country" if some calamity isn't averted -- Islamic terrorists have to be stopped, the border has to be sealed, Joe Biden's inauguration has to be prevented. They think COVID, COVID vaccines, or both are a liberal/Chinese/Deep State/Big Tech attempt at genocide. They think there's a war on Christianity. They think the World Economic Forum wants to destroy U.S. sovereignty. They think liberals want there to be only "one gender." They think every acronym poses a mortal danger -- CRT, ESG, DEI, SEL, CCP. And the right-wing movement is full of people who devote many of their waking hours to doomsday prepping -- preparing for the complete breakdown of civilization.

But:

Deep down, they know that life is pretty sweet for people like them. No one's really coming for their guns -- they have plenty, and it's easy to buy more. No one's really coming for their red meat or their big-ass SUVs. No one's forcing them to be gay or bi or trans. Politically, they run half the states. They run the Supreme Court and will control it for decades. They run the House, and they have an excellent chance of taking the Senate and the White House next year.

Earlier this month, David French wrote about this happy-catastrophizer phenomenon after watching a right-wing congressman say this in a Fourth of July Twitter message:

Hey guys, Congressman Andy Ogles here, wishing you a happy and blessed Fourth of July. Hey, remember our Founding Fathers. It’s we the people that are in charge of this country, not a leftist minority. Look, the left is trying to destroy our country and our family, and they’re coming after you. Have a blessed Fourth of July. Be safe. Have fun. God bless America.

French unpacked the message:

Can something be cheerful and dark at the same time? Can a holiday message be both normal and so very strange? If so, then Ogles pulled it off. This is a man smiling in a field as a dog sniffs happily behind him. The left may be “coming after you,” as he warns, but the vibe isn’t catastrophic or even worried, rather a kind of friendly, generic patriotism. They’re coming for your family! Have a great day!

Life is actually very good for these people, even though Fox News and the rest right-wing media keeps feeding them reasons to be angry at Democrats. Life isn't so good for the rest of us, so some of us become disillusioned by Biden and other Democrats. And that's why Biden's numbers are low.