Top Democrats Warn Biden Campaign is 'Too Zen' Despite Terrible Polls and Trump's Rise
© Sputnik / Pavel Bednyakov / Go to the mediabankUS President Joe Biden speaks during a news conference following his meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping, ahead of the G20 leaders' summit, in Bali, Indonesia
© Sputnik / Pavel Bednyakov
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Lots of top-level Democrats are seriously concerned about Team Biden's unusual calmness ahead of the 2024 election amid plummeting approval numbers and emerging challenges from the GOP and Donald Trump.
Democratic heavyweights consider President Joe Biden and his reelection team "too complacent" and "unimaginative", as per Axios.
"Someone wants to light a fire under the a**es of some of these people," a top Democratic strategist told the media outlet referring to a recent leak to The Washington Post about a private meeting between Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama.
The WaPo reported on January 6 that Obama had discussed the structure of Biden's reelection campaign directly with the incumbent president insisting that the campaign needs to be empowered. The former president recalled, in particular, how his top presidential aides, including David Axelrod and Jim Messina, left the White House to manage reelection operations in Chicago. In contrast, Biden's closest aides remain at the White House while making decisions concerning his 2024 campaign.
© AP Photo / Brynn AndersonIn this Nov. 2, 2020 file photo, former President Barack Obama speaks at a rally as he campaigns for Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden at Turner Field in Atlanta.
In this Nov. 2, 2020 file photo, former President Barack Obama speaks at a rally as he campaigns for Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden at Turner Field in Atlanta.
© AP Photo / Brynn Anderson
The newspaper also noted that Obama grew "animated" when discussing Trump's potential return to power, citing an individual familiar with the conversation. Reportedly, Obama urged Biden aides and allies to be more assertive as Trump gets closer to grabbing the Republican nomination.
Per Axios, the Biden campaign is projecting "calm confidence" about the outcome of the 2024 race, whereas top Democrats fear that the president's entourage has become "too calm" and "too Zen."
"There has been broad anxiety among the Democratic political class ... given the magnitude of the threat," former Obama adviser David Axelrod told the media outlet.
New York Magazine reflected the Biden campaign's mindset on its December cover saying: "The Calmest Democrats in the Country: despite terrible polls and panicked pundits the mood inside Biden headquarters is chill."
Indeed, Joe Biden's approval rating is in free fall. The president ended 2023 with just 39% job approval, as per Gallup, while none of his government figures has an approval rating over 50%.
But that is not all: the president is bleeding support from the Democratic Party's traditional base – progressives, young Americans, and non-whites. The unfolding Israel-Hamas war and Joe Biden's support for Tel Aviv appears to be alienating American Arabs and Muslims, who have traditionally been considered loyal to the Democrats.
Per the media outlet, Team Biden believes that they would manage to sort the Israeli-Palestinian conflict out prior to the election. However, nobody knows how the situation will unfold, given that Tel Aviv has taken a tough stance against Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, and Iran. Conservative Israeli media has hinted that Team Biden is getting nervous about the Benjamin Netanyahu Cabinet's resolve to continue the war against Hamas for months.
What's more, Axios has somehow failed to mention the Ukraine conflict which the Biden administration appears to be "losing": Team Biden has so far failed to convince House Republicans to provide $60 billion in aid to Ukraine as the latter has nearly completely run out of money. The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft does not rule out that the Kiev regime won't receive funding for a long period of time which would force the Biden administration to seek ways to "freeze" the conflict.
For his part, Scott Ritter, a military expert and ex-Marine Corps intelligence officer, told Sputnik that the Ukrainian Army may crumble in mid-2024, as the 600,000-strong Russian contingent is steadily improving its positions along the entire front line, and increasingly supplied with ammo and military equipment.
Apparently, top Democrats are well aware of numerous troubles brewing for Biden's domestic and overseas policies.
"The disconnect behind Bidenworld and some Democratic elites was crystallized by a conference call the campaign hosted Wednesday for Democratic surrogates and pundits, some of them household names," Axios wrote, citing growing anxiety among seasoned Democrats and White House alumni.