Student Opinion – The president is desperate to make his party look better for November

The Democrats’ hot girl summer is over. After gaining momentum just a few months ago with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, falling gas prices and several legislative victories, the Democrats have been zapped back to reality.

Here in economic recession autumn, inflation is still raging, and the majority of Americans aren’t confident in the economy, despite the president’s denial of both the presence of a recession and his responsibility for inflation. The inflation report published Oct. 13, the last report to be announced before Election Day, showed that inflation is still hot. Apparently, the James Taylor concert hosted by the White House to celebrate the Inflation Reduction Act didn’t work — I’m shocked.

Democrats and President Joe Biden know the infamous proverb, “It’s the economy, stupid,” and they are doing everything they can to distract from consumer sentiments ahead of Nov. 8.

Now, as races tighten and Republicans gain steam, Biden is throwing the kitchen sink at the midterm elections hoping to save his Democratic majorities in Congress from the brink of losing. If you don’t think any of these moves are purely political, then I would also like to talk to you about your car’s extended warranty.

Biden’s student loan forgiveness gathered lots of mixed attention as the president forgave hundreds of billions of dollars in student loan debt with the signing of a pen. Then, after backlash from the roughly 80% of Americans without student debt, he changed course and added limits to who could receive forgiveness, pulling the rug out from under 700,000 people.

As the president-elect in 2020, Biden said debt forgiveness “should be done immediately,” yet he just so happened to wait until two months before the midterms. What a coinky-dinky.

Did Biden suddenly realize he could forgive $300 billion-plus in student loan debt with an executive order? No. He was saving that card for when his young, college-educated voter base would become apathetic about voting in
the midterms.

The president even more recently pardoned those convicted of marijuana possession under federal law — again, just a month before the midterms. If their being in prison was such a problem to the administration, then why would the president wait so long to pardon them? He has had the power to do so since he was inaugurated in January 2021 but made those convicts wait an extra year and a half in prison to make Democrats look better come election time.

Now enter “total disaster,” as the White House called it.

OPEC+, an alliance of 23 oil-producing countries that controls the market on oil, announced it would be cutting oil production by at least 1 million barrels per day, meaning gas prices look to be going back on the rise just in time for Nov. 8. In a “not politically motivated at all” – wink, wink – move, Biden is tapping 15 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to release into the U.S. economy in the hopes of keeping prices low.

Biden, beholden to the verified-on-Twitter population of his voter base, refuses time and time again to utilize American energy capabilities. Instead, he has turned our SPR designated for emergencies into a political tool, bringing the reserve to the lowest level since 1984. It’s a good thing there isn’t international turmoil happening right now.

Of course, Biden is not the first president to use political power to benefit their party in the midterms – it’s almost a requirement of any president. That still doesn’t let him off the hook for manipulating what he believes to be major problems to benefit himself and his party for votes. Were the country better off, he wouldn’t have to make these symbolically-timed gestures, but that’s what he’s resorted to.

Will it pay off for Democrats? Only Nov. 8 will show, but it should be a big red flag that the president is pulling these decisions out of his bag of tricks.

Browder is the opinion editor for the Liberty Champion