Walmart supermarket conversation that will worry Joe Biden

As any Australian who’s been to the States will know, it’s surprising – almost confronting – how relaxed most Americans are about talking. To anyone.

In bars, on the Subway, on the street. There’s no stranger danger here.

Yet I was still taken aback that someone would spontaneously decide to go into full rant mode in my direction while I was minding my own business sifting through some steaks in the supermarket.

The quiet rage of this Walmart customer, in suburban New Jersey, does not bode well for US President Joe Biden’s prospects at crucial elections coming up in four months.

The Democrats are currently in the best position politically they might be in for many years.

Their man is in the White House and the party, by a whisker, controls both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

All that could change in November’s midterm elections. The indications are that the Republicans will take the Senate and possibly the Reps severely curtailing what Mr Biden can achieve in office.

One of the hot button issues in the US right now, as in Australia, is inflation causing soaring prices.

Searching for a supermarket bargain is what brought me to a Walmart in New Jersey.

Walmart rant

New Jersey is noticeably less flash than parts of nearby New York, and its residents perhaps even more forthright.

As I tried to find a reasonably priced cut of beef – and work out what the Australian equivalent was of “New York strip” and “fillet mignon” – another shopper sidled up to me.

“Look at the prices on these,” he said angrily gesturing at the steaks and sizzles, chops and roasts. The costs of which would all add up to a hefty bill for upcoming July 4 Independence Day barbecues.

“They’re ridiculous.”

There’s no doubting they’d gone up. Mince that was $US5.77 a pound in April was now $US6.23 a pound; butter that had been $US3.58 a pack was now just shy of $4; a previously $1.48 block of cheddar was $1.98.

“You know who’s to blame,” he said to me. I could tell it wasn’t really a question.

“Biden. That’s who.

“He’s flying off to Europe (to the G7 and NATO summits) talking to everyone, when he should be here sorting all of this out.”

Playing devil’s advocate, I asked if higher prices could really all be blamed on Biden? After all, inflation isn’t a problem only in the US. Perhaps Russian President Vladimir Putin and his invasion of Ukraine shattering trade routes and sending oil prices soaring was also a factor? And what of the sudden opening of wallets following the depths of the pandemic?

Even the storeyed Wall Street Journal has opined that “Biden isn’t to blame for inflation”.

But my fellow shopper was having none of it. That his steaks had gone up in price was the President’s fault and he alone was the one who had the power to make it stop.

Shelf prices not coming down was a dereliction of his duty.

That this shopper in New Jersey of all places was so irate is not good news for Biden; this is in no way Republican territory.

Of New Jersey’s 12 House of Representative congressional districts – similar to Australia’s electorates – 10 are in Democratic hands. Both its senators are Democrat. In 2020, New Jersey voted by 57 per cent for Biden. In the past 30 years only Barack Obama has polled better in this state of 9 million.

If people are grumbling in true blue Democratic New Jersey about Biden; think what they’re saying in Florida or Georgia – states the Dems have to perform well in if they are to retain both houses.

Polls are grim reading for President

Of course, one chatty, angry Walmart customer is not representative of all voters.

But other metrics are grim reading for the President.

Recent research by Bloomberg showed Biden’s approval ratings falling to a new low of just 39 per cent. A Marist poll showed him only a little better at 40 per cent. Although, at his nadir, former president Donald Trump polled lower.

The same research said the Republicans are favoured to take the house because of, yep, high inflation and petrol prices.

A poll by Ipsos for ABC USA showed inflation was an “extremely” or “very” important factor to how they will vote in November.

For the month of May, US inflation went up by 8.6 per cent, a 40-year high.

“This particular economic situation is tricky,” political science professor Gabriel Lenz of the University of California, Berkeley told ABC News.

“The best thing the president can do is to try to increase supply of various goods. But the president’s ability in the short term to do too much on that front is quite limited.”

‘Russia, Russia, Russia’

The Democrats have talked up a strong jobs market as well as low unemployment. And they hope if pump prices begin to fall while anger rises at the Roe Vs Wade decision that could swing people back to them.

But there is no doubting Biden finds himself in a world of pain – everyone is angry at prices and a good chunk of the left is angry at the Democrats for, in their view, not doing more over time to shore up the right to abortion rather than leaving it at the mercy of Trump appointed Supreme Court justices.

The President has warned voters there is no easy fix. He said at the NATO summit that fuel would remain high for “as long as it takes” for Ukraine to gain the upper hand with Moscow.

“The bottom line is ultimately the reason why gas prices are up is because of Russia. Russia, Russia, Russia.

“The reason why the food crisis exists is because of Russia,” Biden told the New York Times.

The problem for the President, and the Democrats, is if there are more angry Walmart shoppers who feel the reason why their bills have gone up is actually “Biden, Biden, Biden”.