Process or Results (or Neither?)

It would probably be good if Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in next year's presidential election.  Wild opinion, I know.  To this end, it's worth taking a minute to analyze what if anything Biden is doing to make the case for his re-election.  One way to run as the incumbent is to do a number of things throughout your presidency that achieve material results for the voting public, essentially making your case through your actual actions.  While there have certainly been positives to his presidency (NLRB, judges), Biden's actions regarding the things that most directly affect people have been subpar.  You might think I mean inflation, but it's hard to pin that (or the subsequent relief from it) directly on Biden's shoulders.  Rather, I'm talking about Biden's failures to a) pass something approximating the best version of his social agenda (see below), or to b) keep the makeshift welfare state constructed during the pandemic around to at least some degree.  On both of these fronts it's hard to make a comprehensive case that Biden has done enough to coast of the laurels of an economy that works for everyone.

The other way to make the case for his election is essentially to repeat what he did in 2020: outwork Trump on the campaign trail.  While I think this is a more likely path to success, initial reporting is not painting a great picture.  While there are still reasons to be optimistic (inasmuch as you can be optimistic about as mediocre of an outcome as four more years of Biden), I don't get the sense that the campaign's actions match the seriousness of their rhetoric.  That article contains a few passages suggesting a level of comfort and passivity within the campaign that cannot possibly be justified.  For example:

"This has some liberals, alarmed by Biden’s unpopularity, nervous that the campaign is moving too slowly. Several vented their worries to Politico recently that state-level hiring is well behind the pace of the Trump 2020 and Obama 2012 campaigns. Biden aides think this criticism entirely misses the point: They’re deliberately avoiding Obama’s pattern, which proved to be expensive."

"If the campaign has an unofficial motto, it might be “Calm the fuck down, trust the process, and vote for Joe Biden. One. More. Time.” His top advisers believe that the political-media complex is repeating all its mistakes of 2019 in underestimating Biden and misunderstanding just how low Trump has sunk in voters’ estimation. They’re convinced Biden will rebound in popularity as the election gets closer and its stakes become apparent to the average voter. They also fully expect that no matter what happens between now and Election Day, the race will be decided by the narrowest of margins, just like almost every recent contest." 

So what you have is a Democratic Party apparatus telling us to both look at the results (which are lackluster at best) and trust the process (which is both ill-defined and barely got Biden over the finish line in the first place).  Failing either of those things, I turn to the pundits to see what we're left with, which in a word appears to be "vibes":

"It is unlikely that during the next eleven months, Biden can convince a majority of the American people that, despite data suggesting that is the case, that the economy is just fine. However, that may not be necessary to win reelection. To win a close election, Biden does not have to deliver an economy that works for everybody and alleviates the concerns Americans have about their future. That is not possible for any president. What Biden must do is send a clear message that he is deeply concerned about the economy and that he cares just as much about what happens Appleton, Wisconsin or Tucson, Arizona or Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania as he does about events in Luhansk or the Negev."

Completely foreclosing the possibility of an economy that works for everyone...why, it's the centrist rally tweet made incarnate.  What's more is that even the notion of trying something appears to be anathema.  Indeed, it's never suggested that Biden should actually do anything other than manage his brand.  While he should do that, he needs to do much more, especially if this election is as important as all his supporters say it is.