President Biden’s fall from political grace has been swift and steep. He began 2021 basking in the gratitude and approval of a solid majority of Americans and ended it only marginally less unpopular than former President Donald Trump.
What happened? Last week Biden blamed Republican obstructionism, marveling that not one voted for the $1.9 trillion bill Congress passed last March to fight the pandemic and speed the economic recovery. He’s also had to endure non-stop political sabotage by Trump, who in refusing to accept the voters’ thumbs down in 2020 has shredded yet another vital norm of American democracy.
Nonetheless, the White House missed an important opportunity in not making more of the president’s big bipartisan breakthrough — passing the first major infrastructure bill in decades. Instead, they attempted to use it as leverage in an unsuccessful bid to pressure dissident Senate Democrats into supporting the strictly partisan reconciliation bill.
