Bad News for Biden

The big news on the economic front last week was the dismal jobs report in the United States that came out on Friday.

Expectations were that we would see around 500,000 net new jobs created.

The Labor Department reported that nonfarm payroll jobs increased by just 194,000 for the month.

What makes this all the more disappointing is it comes as the additional federal unemployment payment of $300 per month ended early in the month.

You can get a better perspective of how U.S. jobs growth has trended since the beginning of 2020 in this chart.

The Biden administration is blaming the poor job numbers and Biden's sinking poll numbers on Covid and the 20% of Americans who are not vaccinated.

A Quinnipiac poll released last week showed that Biden's approval rating had dropped to 38% and it is filled with bad news for Biden.

Among Independents, only 32% approved of Biden's job performance. 60% disapproved.

94% of Republicans disapprove of Biden's performance. On the other hand, Biden is only drawing 80% approval from Democrats.

Here are the full numbers on a range of demographic groups.

Source: https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3824

Two numbers that jumped out at me in these poll numbers were the fact that 69% of white non-college voters and 51% of Hispanics disapproved of Biden's job performance.

At one time you would have thought it would be impossible for a Democrat to poll this low with these groups.

If you look at specific policy issues you can see that Joe Biden is not just having trouble with his handling of the economy in the eyes of the voters.

He is below 50% on every issue polled.

Source: https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3824

In July, when Biden had a Real Clear Politics poll average of in the low 50's, and a net approval score of +10 points, I wrote that it would not surprise me if Biden soon starting sinking fast in the polls.

At that time, Biden was already receiving negative marks on issues such as the border, immigration, crime and gun violence.

However, he had majority support on Covid, the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and the economy.

I predicted at that time that I believed there were clouds on the horizon with all three issues that should concern Biden's advisers. If these issues turned against Biden his poll numbers would fall fast.

This is what I wrote in July in "Sinking Fast?".

Storm clouds are already gathering on the horizon that could result in Biden's approval rating sinking fast.

Biden has a 63% approval for his handling of the Covid response. Cases are rising and there is increasing talk of reimposed mandates, booster shots and other measures. What happens to that approval number if cases numbers continue to rise?

55% approve of his handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal. The Taliban is already capturing large swaths of the country. What if Afghanistan is overtaken by turmoil and terrorists?

53% feel positive about the economic recovery. However, inflation risk seems to be everywhere. Biden and his advisors are saying this is temporary. What if it is not?

Little did I know how correct I would be.

We all know about the disastrous manner that Biden handled the troop withdrawal in Afghanistan.

Cases and deaths have surged from Covid despite Biden's claims during the campaign that he was going to shutdown the virus rather than the economy.

Despite all of his talk, and the fact that almost 80% of the age 18+ population has been vaccinated, Covid deaths under Biden now exceed deaths that occurred while Trump was President.

Source: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/oct/8/more-americans-have-died-covid-under-biden-trump-j/

This fact probably surprises a lot of people since the media is not highlighting the death count every day as it did when it wanted to push Trump out of office.

Desperate people do desperate things.

This explains why Biden is mandating vaccines, pushing boosters and soon will be telling every parent to vaccinate their children.

Biden told us he would follow the science.

He is doing anything but following the science. He and his advisers are only concerned about one thing with their Covid "strategy'---POLITICS.

80% are vaccinated, cases and deaths are up and the answer is to mandate even more to be vaccinated?

In what universe does this make sense if someone laid out this scenario a year ago?

Of course, notice who the vaccine mandates apply to. 

Don't you think if this was really about the science it wouldn't apply to just those who were working. It would also apply to those on welfare benefits and food stamps as well? Wouldn't it also make sense for it to apply to anyone entering the country's southern border illegally?

The FDA advisory panel voted 16-2 that boosters should only be administered to those over age 65 and those who were immunocompromised. The FDA and CDC ignored the advisory panel (and science) and authorized the boosters for anyone at "significant risk" which includes all health workers, educators and those in essential services. The reality is that anyone can walk in and get a booster shot. No one is going to turn anybody away. After all, who is not at risk of infection right now?

We are soon going to start vaccinating children as young as 5 year of age? Never mind that there have only been 221 deaths of children between the ages of 1 and 14 ( no one has suggested vaccinating anyone under age 1 (YET) since the beginning of the pandemic.

That is in a population of 57.5 million children in that age group in the United States. 

Source: https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/1446202920106668034/photo/1

The mortality risk for children 14 and younger with Covid since the beginning of the pandemic? 

.000005554

The mortality risk for all other causes?

.000785582. That is 141 times higher if you do the math.

At the same time, three Nordic countries have suspended use of the Moderna vaccines in young people due to concerns about potential heart inflammation from the vaccine. "Young" as under age 30 in Sweden and Norway.

Source: https://www.wymt.com/2021/10/07/some-european-countries-suspend-moderna-shots-those-30-under/?outputType=apps

Sweden suspended the use of Moderna for those recipients under 30, Denmark said those under 18 won’t be offered the Swiss-made vaccine, and Norway urged those under 30 to get the Pfizer vaccine instead.

Is the science different in Sweden and Norway than in the United States?

Why would the Pfizer vaccine be any different? It uses the same mRNA technology.

If you doubt politics is not involved consider as well the revelation that Governor Gavin Newsom's 12-year old daughter has yet to be vaccinated against Covid despite the fact that the Democrat Governor of California has already issued an executive order that all K-12 school children in the state have to receive the Covid vaccine to attend school as soon as it is approved.

Newsom stated that his daughter had a series of other shots to get as the reason she had not yet gotten the Covid vaccine.

The CDC guidelines does not recommend any vaccines other than an annual flu shot for those between ages 7 and 11.

At ages 11-12 the CDC recommends the following for pre-teens.

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/hpv/parents/about-hpv.html?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fhpv%2Fparents%2Fwhatishpv.html

Newsom is saying that he believes that his 12-year daughter has more risk in contracting a sexually transmitted disease (HPV) or meningitis and it is more important for her to get a Tdap booster or a flu shot compared to the Covid vaccine that he has deemed so important that he has mandated it for every child in his state?

What more do you need to know about the politics of this?

You get a better understanding of why Biden is doing what he is doing when you see what has transpired in Florida.

According to Biden and the media, Governor Ron DeSantis has done everything wrong in that state. He has opposed lockdowns, school closures, mask mandates, vaccine mandates and everything else. He has also promoted vaccine availability as well as early Covid treatment.

Two months ago we were told Florida was going to be in a crisis mode by now. Schools with no masking and no vaccine mandates in the state would lead to a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions.

Have you noticed you haven't heard much about Florida lately?

Daily cases in Florida have fallen by 94% since mid-August with no mandates or heavy-handed interventions.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/florida-covid-cases.html

Hospitalizations are down 77%.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/florida-covid-cases.html

I should point out that why others were predicting disaster in Florida as they were about to open their maskless schools and DeSantis was saying "NO' to all mandates,  I wrote on August 1 that I expected Florida's case and hospital counts to peak and turn down in the near future. I made this prediction by looking at previous patterns of Covid waves in other countries. 

There seems to be a pattern with Covid in which cases surge for 45 days when a major outbreak begins until it turns down.

You can observe this pattern in the UK in the wave last Winter as well as the recent so-called Delta variant wave.

You can see the same pattern in India where the Delta variant is reported to have originated.

Experts have no real answers on what happened in either instance.

Let's look at Florida which is having the highest number of cases reported in the United States right now.

Cases were running at the lowest levels since the pandemic began in the week of June 15-June 22 when cases started an upsurge.

This would suggest Florida is very close to the peak if the UK and India patterns hold. We should start to see decreasing cases in Florida soon irrespective of government interventions if the prior pattern repeats itself.

As I predicted, the peak in Florida was reached two weeks later and has now fallen without respect to policy interventions.

Florida and many other places have shown the ebbs and flows of the virus despite our interventions.

The virus has proven it will do its thing despite most everything we have tried to do to combat it. The pandemic will end at some point just as all other pandemics in human history have.

What is weird about Covid is that almost all other pandemics have run their course in 18 months or less. Why has this pandemic gone on longer? Have our interventions actually extended the time frame? Who knows?

There is one thing I do know.

Biden has made a simple political calculation that it is better for him politically (most particularly with his base voters) to do something than do nothing. Biden is making a political bet that cases are going to fall at some point nationally just like they have in Florida. He can then claim that his mandates worked even if they have no effect. Who is going to be able to dispute it in the end?

He also has the advantage of effectively rolling over the unvaccinated minority because it is always easy for a majority to trample on the rights of a minority. That is the primary reason our Founders adopted a  republican form of government in our Constitution and included a Bill of Rights. Very few seem to be thinking about that these days.

Our Founders knew that democratically reached decisions might reflect the the will of the people at a given moment but could very well be unwise when viewed from longer term perspectives. It is too easy for democratic decisions to be wrong, unjust, impractical or to trample on individual and minority rights. For that reason, our Constitution did everything it could to safeguard against strict democratic majority rule.

Biden's political calculation is that he can get away with his authoritarian vaccine mandates because a substantial majority (78% of age 18+) have already taken the jabs. For those who have taken the vaccine, the Rubicon has been crossed. There is no retreat. They are in the boat and there is no going back. Most are going to believe that everyone should be in the same boat with them. Biden is counting on the majority to not consider the broader issue of individual choice and rights. (Hat tip to Sundance at The Last Refuge for this general insight on the attitudes of those vaccinated).

He may get away with it. The stakes are pretty high when you are threatening people with their jobs and livelihoods.

We will see how it unfolds over the next several weeks. Health care workers and educators seem to have rolled over and complied. This is not a big surprise because these groups are generally liberal and are not independent-minded. Those in the military know the consequences of not following orders.

I am more interested in seeing what we see with the police and firefighters and the signals we saw this weekend in the airline industry (specifically Southwest Airlines) that may involve pushback against the vaccine mandates.

Truck drivers are another group that could cause massive problems if they organize and push back against the mandates. If the truckers park their trucks and stop deliveries our economy and our lives are going to be disrupted in a huge way.

The latter groups I have mentioned are much more independent-minded and are likely to not be as willing to see individual rights and freedoms eroded.

Biden is making a big bet that is hard to understand. He's got almost 80% vaccinated. I just don't see the next 5% uptake having that much effect compared to the potential disruption and division he is creating.

If the current vaccines don't work with 80% they are not going to get the job done with 85% or 90%. We are going to know one way of the other in six months whether they work or not. That is science. Either the vaccines stops the pandemic or the virus burned out on its own. If we are in the same place today in six months, I think it is pretty clear that the vaccines had no effect or they actually made the problem worse.

That is why this is not a move based on science but on politics.

Even if what comes next with Covid is not more bad news for Biden, we will have witnessed a episode that will be a low point for individual freedom and minority rights in the United States of America.

That is something I am confident of.

It is hard to imagine that history is going to look kindly at what was done during this time.

If that is not the case, that will be very, very BAD news about what the future of individual rights and freedom will be in the United States of America.