President Joe Biden has proved so lackluster as president that even most self-identified liberal news outlets do not give him a positive assessment in their Facebook posts, a new study has found.
To add insult to injury, Facebook posts about Biden get less than half as much engagement as messages that feature former President Donald Trump.
The Pew Research Center analyzed Facebook posts by self-identified conservative, liberal, and nonpartisan news outlets during Biden’s most productive week to date: March 8-14, when he signed the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 “economic relief” bill.
It found 52% of self-identified liberals’ posts were completely indifferent to Joe Biden, while only 47% had a positive assessment.
Those who did not identify with any political ideology showed the current incumbent even greater indifference, with 78% of their posts about Biden being neither positive nor negative.
As expected, more than two-thirds of self-identified conservatives’ posts (67%) had a negative assessment.
Among those without a stated political ideology, only two percent of Facebook posts saw the Biden presidency in a positive light.
While overall posts skewed indifferent, negative analyses of the Biden administration outnumbered positive ones by 15 percentage points (36% negative versus 21% positive).
Pew found its results by analyzing the Facebook feeds of 25 major news outlets: 12 self-identified as conservative, 11 self-identified as liberal, and two professed no ideological orientation.
Despite the economic focus of the week Pew studied, conservatives and independents agreed that the uncontrolled U.S.-Mexico border needed greater attention. While 46% of social media messages posted by liberal news outlets focused on the economy, nearly one-third of conservative (32%) and independent (26%) posts focused on the issue of illegal immigration.
Biden, who won the Democratic presidential nomination as a compromise candidate with the greatest perceived electability, continues to earn his followers’ disinterest — especially when compared with his predecessor.
Facebook posts that mentioned Donald Trump earned more than twice as much engagement as those focused on Biden alone, Pew found.
Posts that mentioned Trump earned 19,800 Facebook interactions — the total number of reactions, shares, and comments for all posts. Facebook messages that did not mention the 45th president earned only 9,200 interactions.
Despite leaving office nearly six months ago, Donald Trump continues to dominate both conservative and liberal media on TV, radio, and social media. Nearly 40% of all news stories about Biden mentioned Donald Trump during the early days of the Biden administration. “Trump himself was mentioned in about half the stories about the new Biden administration,” a separate Pew Research Center study concluded.
That may well be ratings-driven, as all three major cable news networks have seen their ratings decline since Biden’s inauguration on January 20.
Pew also found that Biden received less negative media coverage than any president on record since it commenced the study under President Bill Clinton.
Despite glowing media coverage, Biden’s presidential approval rating slipped below 50% for the first time this week, falling to 48%. He has had greater contraction among his left-wing party base. While 83% of Democrats approved of the job Biden was doing in April, only 59% said that this week.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.