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EDITORIAL: Biden’s polls, the virus and the teachers unions

The latest polls show President Joe Biden more underwater than Donald Trump when it comes to his disapproval rating. On the plus side, he’s held in higher esteem than Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell.

According to realclearpolitics.com polling average, 52.6 percent of Americans have an unfavorable viewpoint of the man in the White House, while 42 percent give him a favorable mark. Mr. Trump’s numbers are 51.7 and 41.8, respectively. Mr. Biden’s unfavorable rating was eclipsed only by Kamala Harris (53 percent), Ms. Pelosi (57.7 percent) and Mr. McConnell (59 percent).

Progressives will argue that the president’s dismal numbers reflect his inability to ram their radical agenda through Congress, but that would be wildly inaccurate. The vast majority of Americans go about their day-to-day lives without regard to the constant partisan bickering among Beltway insiders. With COVID raging, inflation at 30-year highs, grocery store shelves half empty in places and teachers unions again threatening to close schools, frustration is understandably mounting — and the occupant of the Oval Office pays the price.

Mr. Biden’s problem is an acute lack of leadership. He has been far too quick to appease his party’s hard left and woefully leaden at reacting to events on the ground, seemingly caught off guard by every new development, from Afghanistan to soaring prices to virus variants. Mr. Biden might take a step toward rebuilding his standing by articulating a more realistic outlook on COVID, one suggested last week by members of his former health advisory board, who urged the administration to “adopt an entirely new domestic pandemic strategy geared to the ‘new normal’ of living with the virus indefinitely, not to wiping it out,” The New York Times reported.

Although some of the experts’ recommendations should be non-starters — a vaccine passport, for instance, would never pass constitutional muster — the idea that the country cannot be “in a perpetual state of emergency” due to COVID-19 would be a step in the right direction. The president could also boost his standing by confronting the shameless teachers unions — particularly in Chicago — intent on exploiting the pandemic at the expense of the nation’s kids.

“If the president firmly and uncompromisingly stood up for Chicago, where the teachers (last) week refused to work,” Peggy Noonan of The Wall Street Journal wrote on Saturday, “it would be some kind of moment. It would startle the nation’s parents into real appreciation. Someone is helping.”

Big Education is among the Democratic Party’s most important financial benefactors, and angering such a powerful interest would be risky for Mr. Biden. On the other hand, leadership sometimes requires upsetting your patrons because it’s the right thing to do.

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