Biden’s first year in office hasn’t been a total disaster. But it wasn’t good either

Biden epitomises the type of leader you get when you’ll vote in almost anyone just to get the last guy out, writes Harriet Sinclair

President Biden’s approval rating has been on a consistent downward trend from the day he took office (AP)

Poor old Joe Biden. It’s not a great time to be the president. A year into the job he’s been aiming for since the early days of his decades-long career in politics, the 79-year-old commander-in-chief isn’t faring well.

A new poll released on the one-year anniversary of his presidency puts Biden’s approval rating at just 40 per cent. Even by modern-day standards (by which, of course, I mean the dismal approval ratings seen by former president Donald Trump), it’s not good.

A miserable red line charting Biden’s approval rating is on a consistent downward trend from the day he took office to one year into his presidency. The unforgiving line drops at the US’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan (agreed upon by Trump but later orchestrated by Biden), continues falling through the spread of the Omicron variant of coronavirus, and refuses to curve upwards as the president battles on with his ill-fated Build Back Better bill.