It was a hot summer, 42 years ago, when Jimmy Carter delivered what became know as “The Great Malaise Speech.” At the time, the nation was besieged with “stagflation,” a stagnant economy with high inflation. Energy prices soared. Carter had demonstrated he was wholly inept in domestic and foreign policy matters.

Carter used the speech to list complaints he had heard from “business and labor, teachers and preachers, governors, mayors, and private citizens” at a Camp David summit, followed by a national town hall tour. He read a long list of complaints he received, starting with this: “Mr. President, you are not leading this nation — you’re just managing the government.” Actually, he was not leading or managing. He followed the list of complaints with a lecture on what the complainants needed to do in order to resolve our national problems — starting with the “restoration of American values.”

Arguably, he was correct about the degradation of our values, but his message conveyed, “It is your problem, not my problem.”

Whatever ground he intended to gain with his national address was overshadowed weeks later by the Iran hostage crisis — the takeover of our embassy in Tehran, where 66 Americans were held hostage for 444 days. They were wisely released moments after Ronald Reagan was sworn into office in 1981.

Having spent time with Jimmy Carter on several occasions during the Reagan years, I found him to be a person of good character who suffered a dearth of leadership skills and was completely ill-equipped to lead the nation out of its domestic and foreign woes.

Carter’s speech was a long time ago, but to put it into perspective, Joe Biden had already finished his first term as a senator before Carter took office.

Now, little more than six months into Biden’s first term, he is challenging Carter’s record for ineffective leadership, as another Great Malaise is on our horizon.

To be fair, Carter was a Naval Academy graduate who was on the forefront of our nuclear submarine development, and he was a business manager and governor before he entered the White House at age 52.

Biden, on the other hand, avoided military service with five student deferments through college and law school, where, despite plagiarizing the work of others, he graduated near the bottom of his class. He then avoided military service with a “medical deferment” so he could get his political career underway. Five decades later, Biden entered the White House almost an octogenarian, having accomplished little of legislative merit in all those years, and, demonstrably, non compos mentis.

It appears that Biden’s socialist Democrat Party surge since entering office is losing some appeal beyond his most vociferous partisan leftists.

Thus, it is no surprise that approval ratings for Biden and his puppeteer, Kamala Harris, have plummeted across multiple reputable polls.

Daily tracking at Rasmussen Reports now indicates at least half of likely voters disapprove of Biden’s record as president.

In a Morning Consult-Politico poll, more than 47% of registered voters now view Harris unfavorably, while 45% view Biden unfavorably. Harris’s unfavorable rating was worse in an Economist-YouGov poll.

Gallup polling has Biden at 50% approval, down from 57% approval when he entered office.

According to a Monmouth University poll, Biden’s net approval rating of +24 has nose-dived to just +4.

An ABC News/Ipsos poll finds the nation’s optimism on the direction of the country has dropped 20 points since May. More than 55% of the public say they are pessimistic about our country’s direction — up from 36% in May.

All notwithstanding, as reported from the leftist echo chambers, The New York Times declared, “President Biden enjoys widespread job approval, as Americans’ optimism about the future continues to climb…” Or as CNN puts it, “Joe Biden’s approval rating simply hasn’t moved in six months.”

Actually, given the relentless Leftmedia propaganda in Biden’s favor, it is remarkable that the “Pollaganda Effect” — media polls reflecting nothing more than what the MSM tells people — has not sustained Biden/Harris ratings. But what Americans are actually experiencing in their daily lives is defying Leftmedia puffery.

Of course, the polling trends may not last if the Biden/Harris great malaise does not set in. But the indicators are not good for Democrats retaining the House and Senate after the 2022 midterm elections. Therefore, the Left has put Biden’s agenda into high gear. As political analyst Byron York notes: “Biden’s decline in support among independents will encourage more independence [for centrist Demos]. That is why you see so many Democrats urging Biden to hurry up and push his agenda through Congress as quickly as possible, before his ratings decline more. The president is politically weaker today than he was three months ago, and he will likely be weaker still three months from now.”

Finally, I note a related poll — one on race relations. Thanks to the Demo hate-hustlers, according to Gallup’s “Ratings of Black-White Relations,” “U.S. adults’ positive ratings of relations between Black and White Americans are at their lowest point in more than two decades of measurement.” Meanwhile, “Majorities of Americans rate relations between Hispanic and White people, Black and Hispanic people, Asian and White people, and Black and Asian people as good.” Of course, Demo partisans thrive on Americans hating each other.

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776