‘Bring Back Fireside Chats’: MSNBC Guest Claims Biden’s Low Ratings Were Caused By ‘Under-Communication’

‘Bring Back Fireside Chats’: MSNBC Guest Claims Biden’s Low Ratings Were Caused By ‘Under-Communication’

Harold Hutchison on October 28, 2022

MSNBC contributor Anand Giridharadas said Friday morning that President Joe Biden’s low approval ratings are due to his failure to communicate his accomplishments.

“I think, first of all, I think it is true that Joe Biden has under communicated. That’s sort of one of the I think criticisms that I would make,” Giridharadas, a former New York Times columnist, said during “Morning Joe.” “But in many ways, he has over delivered relative to anybody who would follow Joe Biden’s presidential — political career prior to the presidency.”

Only 39% of adults who responded to a Reuters/Ipsos poll approved of Biden’s job performance. A Politico/MorningConsult poll showed only 35% of respondents approved of Biden’s handling of economic issues, while a NBC News poll revealed 38% of respondents supported Biden’s performance with regards to the economy and only 29% of respondents to a Fox News poll approved of how Biden’s handled inflation.

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“I think the reality is, he needs to now narrate this. One of the problems we have on the political left is that we think things are self-explanatory. We think that if you do the right thing or have the right thing in your heart, people will get it,” Giridharadas said. “One of the arguments of ‘The Persuaders’ is, there’s nothing underneath the dignity of good leaders to overcommunicate, to narrate, to explain the work of selling these things to people is never over. And right now, it has been a bewildering era, the last seven years in particular have been a time of extraordinary stress and kind of trauma if you’ve lived in the Trump era, as we all have.”

“So I think it’s incredibly important for the President to saturate the communication. He likes FDR, I’m told. Bring back the fireside chats. Let’s update the fireside chats for 2022, right?” Giridharadas continued. “Drop them Friday afternoon, 3:00 P.M., 4:00 P.M., TikTok version, YouTube version, Twitter version, different lengths, a modern, multimedia approach, but communicate us through this era.”

Giridharadas also urged Biden to increase his rhetorical attacks on Republicans. Biden accused Republicans of embracing “semi-fascism” in an Aug. 25 speech at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser and declared Trump’s supporters a “threat to democracy” during a Sept. 1 speech in Philadelphia.

“Don’t just leave Republicans spewing bile about race, CRT, all this made-up, ginned-up stuff. Respond to it. Explain why Rupert Murdoch would rather turn us all against each other than pay slightly higher taxes,” Giridharadas said. “Explain why this country has sought to expand freedom, extend freedom to more and more people, explain why, frankly, this Republican faction right now, this minority faction that wants to end liberal democracy in this country, explain the heritage of this faction.”