New Delhi: US President Joe Biden’s approval ratings dipped below 50 per cent for the first time since he took office eight months ago.
The fall in Biden’s popularity ratings, which hit its “lowest level” so far as it dropped by 7 percentage points Wednesday, is read as a consequence of his administration’s sudden withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, which led to the collapse of the Ashraf Ghani government earlier this week, and his administration’s failure to contain a fresh Covid spike fuelled by the Delta variant.
Biden’s approval ratings first dropped to 49.9 per cent Monday. They further declined to 49.3 per cent — according to the FiveThirtyEight polling averages, and 49.6 per cent — according to RealClearPolitics. His disapproval ratings were at 44.5 per cent and 47.2 per cent respectively.
However, Biden’s popularity rating is slightly higher than those of his predecessors for the same time period, the FiveThirtyEight survey polls showed. For instance, on the 211st day in office, Donald Trump’s average approval rating was 37.8 per cent, Barack Obama’s was 52 per cent, and George W. Bush’s 52.3 per cent.
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What’s going wrong
Analyzing the factors behind Biden’s declining rating, FiveThirtyEight said it was “too soon” to ascertain the impact of his handling of Afghanistan on his popularity, but noted that approval of his handling of the pandemic has “already taken a hit”.
Earlier this week, Biden defended his decision to pull out US troops from Afghanistan and slammed the Afghan government for its inability to fight the Taliban and letting the insurgency take over the country.
“We gave them every chance to determine their own future. What we could not provide was the will to fight for that future,” Biden said in a statement Monday as his administration ends its longest war — two decades in Afghanistan that ousted the Taliban regime which lasted from 1996 to 2001.
President Biden also said the United States will evacuate every American out of Afghanistan, even if that required extending the 31 August deadline for a complete US troop withdrawal.
“Americans should understand that we’re going to try to get it done before Aug. 31. If we don’t, we’ll determine at the time who’s left,” Biden said in an interview with the ABC news.
According to ‘Ipsos Snap Poll: Afghanistan’, conducted Monday, 75 per cent of Americans supported the decision to “send in additional troops to secure key facilities in Afghanistan until the withdrawal is complete”, and about the same number said America should evacuate Afghans who helped the US forces.
In the 18-65 age group, 68 per cent of respondents voted that the war “was going to end badly, no matter when the U.S. left,” and 61 per cent wanted the US to complete its withdrawal of troops on schedule, while 51 per cent said that “it would have been worth it for the United States to leave troops in Afghanistan another year”.
Meanwhile, 50 per cent wanted to send troops back into the country to fight the Taliban.
The survey also found that 56 per cent of Republicans and 73 per cent of Democrats agreed that the “rapid collapse of the U.S.-trained Afghan forces and government is evidence why the U.S. should get out of the conflict”.
(Edited by Manasa Mohan)
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