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    This Presidency Isn’t Turning Out as Planned

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    Joe Biden was Barack Obama’s vice president. His Treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, was Obama’s pick to lead the Federal Reserve. The director of Biden’s National Economic Council, Brian Deese, was deputy director of Obama’s National Economic Council. His chief of staff, Ron Klain, was his chief of staff for the first two years of the Obama administration and then Obama’s top Ebola adviser. And so on.The familiar names and faces can obscure how different the new administration, in practice, has become. The problems Biden is facing are an almost perfect inversion of the problems Obama faced. The Obama administration was bedeviled by crises of demand. The Biden administration is struggling with crises of supply.For years, every conversation I had with Obama administration economists was about how to persuade employers to hire and consumers to spend. The 2009 stimulus was too small, and while we avoided a second Great Depression, we sank into an achingly slow recovery. Democrats carried those lessons into the Covid pandemic. They met the crisis with overwhelming fiscal force, joining with the Trump administration to pass the $2.2 trillion CARES Act and then adding the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, the trillion-dollar infrastructure bill and the assorted Build Back Better proposals on top. They made clear that they preferred the risks of a hot economy, like inflation, to the threat of mass joblessness.“We want to get something economists call full employment,” Biden said in May. “Instead of workers competing with each other for jobs that are scarce, we want employers to compete with each other to attract work.”That they have largely succeeded feels like the best-kept secret in Washington. A year ago, forecasters expected unemployment to be nearly 6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2020. Instead, it fell to 3.9 percent in December, driven by the largest one-year drop in unemployment in American history. Wages are high, new businesses are forming at record rates, and poverty has fallen below its prepandemic levels. Since March 2020, Americans saved at least $2 trillion more than expected. And that’s not just a function of the rich getting richer: a JPMorgan Chase analysis found the median household’s checking account balance was 50 percent higher in July 2021 than in the months before the pandemic.It is easy to imagine the wan recovery we could’ve had if the mistakes of 2009 and 2010 had been repeated. Instead, we met the pandemic with tremendous, perhaps excessive, fiscal force. We fought the recession and won. The problems we do have shouldn’t obscure the problems we don’t.But we do have problems. Year-on-year inflation is running at 7 percent, its highest rate in decades, and Omicron has shown that the Biden administration wasted months of possible preparation. It is not to blame for the new variant, but it is to blame for the paucity of tests, effective masks and ventilation upgrades.The conversations I have with the Biden administration’s economists are very different from the conversations I had with the Obama administration’s economists, even when they’re the same people. Now the discussion is all about what the economy can produce and how fast it can be shipped. They need companies to make more goods and make them faster. They need more chips so there can be more cars and computers. They need ports to clear more shipments and Pfizer to make more antiviral pills and shipping companies to hire more truckers and schools to upgrade their ventilation systems.Some of these problems reflect the Biden administration’s successes. (Read my colleague Paul Krugman for more on this.) For all the talk of supply chain crises, many of the delays and shortages reflect unexpectedly strong demand, not a pandemic-induced breakdown in production. Supply chains are built to produce the goods that companies think will be consumed in the future. Expectations were off for 2021, in part because forecasters thought demand would slacken as people lost work and wages, in part because the fiscal response was massively larger than anyone anticipated and in part because when people couldn’t go out for meals and movies, they bought things instead. Overall spending is more or less on its prepandemic trend, but the composition of spending has changed: Americans purchased 18 percent more physical goods in September 2021 than in February 2020.Now the Biden administration fears that its supply problems will wipe out its demand successes. In recent remarks, Biden took aim at those who would lower prices by breaking the buying power of the working class. “If car prices are too high right now, there are two solutions,” Biden said. “You increase the supply of cars by making more of them, or you reduce demand for cars by making Americans poorer. That’s the choice. Believe it or not, there’s a lot of people in the second camp.”He’s right, but this is a practical fight, not just an ideological one, and the Biden administration is making its own mistakes. His administration is suffering right now from directly mismanaging Covid supplies. It did an extraordinary job in its first months, flooding the country with vaccines. Today, any adult who wants one, or three, can get the shots. But vaccines aren’t the only public health tool that matters, and there was every reason to believe the Biden administration knew it. The American Rescue Plan had about $20 billion for vaccine distribution, but it had $50 billion to expand testing and even more than that to retrofit classrooms so teachers and children alike would feel safe. Where did that money go?Getting the pandemic supply chain right would help ease every other supply chain, too. If Americans could move about their lives more confidently, they could buy services instead of things, and if companies could test and protect their work forces more effectively, they could produce and ship more goods.But the Biden administration hasn’t fully embraced its role as an economic planner. When Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, was asked about testing shortages in December, she shot back, “Should we just send one to every American?”Psaki’s snark soon became Biden’s policy. The administration is launching a website where any family can request four free tests. That’s a start, but no more than that. For rapid testing to work, people need to be able to do it constantly. But because the administration didn’t create the supply of tests it needed months ago, there aren’t enough tests for it or anyone else to buy now. Part of this reflects the ongoing failure of the Food and Drug Administration to approve many of the tests already being sold in Europe.The same is true, I’d argue, about masks. There’s simply no reason every American can’t pick up an unlimited supply of N95s and KN95s at every post office, library and D.M.V. Instead, people are buying counterfeit N95s on Amazon and wearing cloth masks that do far less to arrest spread. Now the Biden administration is moving toward supplying masks. But more needs to be done: How about ventilation? How about building the vaccine production capacity needed to vaccinate the world and prevent future strains from emerging? How about building capacity to produce more antiviral pills so that the next effective treatment can ramp up more quickly?For decades, Democrats and Republican administrations alike believed the market would manage supply. We live in the wreckage of that worldview. But it held for so long that the U.S. government has lost both the muscle and the confidence needed to manage supply, at least when it comes to anything other than military spending. So Biden’s task now is clear: to build a government that can create supply, not just demand.This may not be the presidency Biden prepared for, but it’s the one he got.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Biden Comes Out Swinging Against Republicans as His Agenda Stalls

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      The president pledged to use all of the powers of his office to thwart Republicans still under the thumb of Donald J. Trump.WASHINGTON — President Biden has begun his second year in office by lashing out at Republicans, embracing forceful new attacks meant to define a choice for voters between Mr. Biden’s Democrats and a Republican Party still under the thumb of former President Donald J. Trump.The sharp tone comes as Mr. Biden seeks to jump-start his agenda, which has largely stalled in Congress. And with midterm elections looming at the end of the year, the president faces a challenge that he has largely avoided so far: drawing Mr. Trump and other Republican leaders into a more direct clash of ideas.On Thursday, Mr. Biden delivered a fierce speech promising a reckoning with Mr. Trump and pledging to use all of the powers of his office to thwart the anti-democratic forces unleashed by the 45th president. It was the most searing example since Mr. Biden took office of his effort to contrast the two parties, lamenting “the Big Lie being told by the former president and many Republicans who fear his wrath.”A day later, he took another opportunity to focus on the differences between the two parties as he acclaimed news that the unemployment rate had dropped to 3.9 percent. He predicted that Republicans would accuse him of failing to address the economic pain caused by surging inflation in recent months.“Malarkey,” Mr. Biden said. “They want to talk down the recovery because they voted against the legislation that made it happen. They voted against the tax cuts for middle-class families. They voted against the funds we needed to reopen our schools, to keep police officers and firefighters on the job, to lower health care premiums.”“I refuse to let them stand in the way of this recovery,” he added. “Now my focus is on keeping this recovery strong and durable, notwithstanding Republican obstructionism.”For some of Mr. Biden’s Democratic allies, the change in tone is a welcome shift from the dominant theme of the president’s first year, when he more often focused on his desire to unify the country and struggled to negotiate with members of his own party.Now, they say, it is time for Mr. Biden to focus not only on his own achievements, but also on how the Republican Party threatens to reverse those efforts if it returns to power on Capitol Hill — something that has not been at the center of his presidency so far.“What Biden, the White House and Democrats writ large have to do is to force a choice that takes into account not just Republicans criticizing, but what’s their solution?” said Robert Gibbs, who served as President Barack Obama’s press secretary during the year leading up to the 2010 midterm elections. “That’s going to be crucial heading into 2022 and then ultimately setting the table for 2024.”Mr. Gibbs said Mr. Biden, then the vice president, would often advise Mr. Obama to keep the focus on their rivals in the other party.“What he used to tell President Obama is: ‘It’s hard when you’re compared to the Almighty. It’s easier when you’re compared to the alternative,’” Mr. Gibbs recalled.Mr. Biden has largely avoided drawing former President Donald J. Trump and other Republican leaders into a more direct clash of ideas.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesRepublicans are not shrinking from the fight. Mr. Trump issued a statement describing Mr. Biden’s speech as “the last gasps of a corrupt and discredited left-wing political and media establishment,” and vowing to fight back at the ballot box.The stakes are high. Mr. Biden and his party are at serious risk of losing their already bare majorities in the House and the Senate during the midterm elections, an outcome that would most likely rob the president and his team of any real hope of significant progress in Congress for the rest of his term.And the obstacles to progress are steep.During his first year in office, Mr. Biden has seen his policy efforts at home and abroad disrupted by Supreme Court rulings, supply chain glitches, lawmakers from his own party and, most of all, coronavirus variants that have extended — endlessly, it seems, to everyone’s dismay — the need for masks, vaccines and social distancing.Mr. Biden has had some major successes to highlight: He passed Covid recovery legislation at the beginning of his term, and he found agreement with some Republicans on a $1 trillion measure to invest in infrastructure projects around the country.But the virus is still rampant — a near-constant reminder of Mr. Biden’s campaign-year pledge to finally end the pandemic. His $1.8 trillion social policy legislation is struggling at best, and practically dead at worst. A voting rights bill he says will rectify an “existential threat” to the country faces the steepest of odds in Congress. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia is beating his chest on Ukraine’s border. Every day, there is evidence that climate change is getting worse.Democrats are hopeful that the president can begin to change those realities by March 1, when he will deliver his first State of the Union speech to a joint session of Congress, giving a formal assessment of the country under his leadership so far. “It’s your best opportunity to get in front of the American people and make your argument about what you can get done before the fall and what the choice is going to be,” said Jennifer Palmieri, a veteran Democratic communications expert who worked for Mr. Obama and Hillary Clinton.For that to happen, the Biden team needs to get a number of things right, according to people rooting for it to succeed.Coronavirus testing shortages have led to long lines throughout the country.Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesThe pandemic, which polls suggest is the single biggest drag on the president’s popularity, needs to begin to recede — at least in the daily lives of most Americans. And the administration needs to be seen doing more to address people’s frustrations, like the current shortage of Covid tests that have led to long lines and empty shelves at pharmacies.Administration officials note that Mr. Biden authorized the purchase of 500 million at-home tests that Americans will be able to request for free. The first tests will ship this month, they say, with more to follow.The economic rebound from the two-year pandemic may be one of the president’s best stories to tell on March 1. Job growth slowed somewhat in the second half of last year, but unemployment is so low that many employers are struggling to find workers. If he were giving the State of the Union address now, Mr. Biden could rightly claim to be presiding over a booming economy.Still, inflation has driven up prices and that is adding to a disconnect for many people: They do not feel as good about the economy as the numbers suggest they should. Republicans on Friday seized on lower-than-expected job growth to attack Mr. Biden’s policies.“Whether it’s anemic jobs growth, high inflation or a massive supply chain crisis, Democrats are doing a horrible job managing the economy,” said Mike Berg, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.Jen Psaki, the president’s press secretary, has repeatedly blamed people’s feelings about living in a pandemic for that disconnect.“It’s less about data and more about what people are experiencing in their day-to-day life,” she said last week. “It doesn’t look normal. They’re worried about there being labor shortages and there being canceled flights, or not enough teachers in school because of the spread of Omicron. We understand that.”Central to the administration’s response to those feelings is an effort to pass Mr. Biden’s social policy legislation, known as Build Back Better. The president argues that passage of the bill will lower prices for things like child care and prescription drugs, making people feel more secure about their financial futures.A provision in Mr. Biden’s social policy legislation would help families save money on child care.Virginia Lozano for The New York TimesBut the legislation has become mired in a dispute with Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, who objects to some of the plan’s provisions and how it would be financed. In the Senate, where Democrats control exactly 50 of the 100 seats, Mr. Manchin’s support is essential to the bill’s passage.The spectacle of the president locked in a desperate negotiation with a member of his own party has gone on for months, with little evidence of a resolution any time soon. White House officials say they are hopeful that lawmakers will be able to work something out with Mr. Manchin in the weeks ahead.In the meantime, Mr. Biden is eager to avoid another foreign policy spectacle like the hurried evacuation from Afghanistan that followed the president’s withdrawal of troops. But that is not entirely within his control.Mr. Biden has steadily ramped up threats of sanctions against Russia if Mr. Putin were to send troops across the border into Ukraine. Whether those threats will be enough to hold off Mr. Putin in the long run may help determine whether Mr. Biden has a positive story to tell by the time he addresses Americans in March.White House officials are beginning to think about that speech. In comments to reporters on Friday, Mr. Biden was — as usual — upbeat, dismissing concerns that the burdens imposed by the pandemic would never be lifted.“No. I don’t think Covid is here to stay,” he said, previewing the kind of message that aides hope he will be able to give in seven weeks. “The new normal is not going to be what it is now; it’s going to be better.” More

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      So You Lost the Election. We Had Nothing to Do With It.

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      Among Democrats, there is no question that the Democratic Party is sailing in rough waters. Yes, it assembled a winning national majority in the 2020 presidential election, but it has struggled to sustain itself at every other level of government.The Republican Party controls a majority of states and state legislatures, holds a modest advantage in the fight for control of the House ahead of the 2022 midterm elections and holds a substantial advantage in the fight for control of the Senate on account of the chamber’s rural bias. It also has a 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court and can more easily win the Electoral College — and thus the presidency — without winning a majority of votes, as it did in 2000 and 2016.Everyone, within the Democratic Party, can see the problem. The question is who, or what, is to blame. For the past year, the answer from many moderate Democrats — and a sympathetic coterie of journalists, commentators and strategists — is that progressives have sailed the ship aground with their views on race, crime, immigration and education, which alienate potential swing voters, including working-class and blue-collar Hispanics.Writing on this problem for The Atlantic, Ron Brownstein quotes the demographer and election analyst Ruy Teixeira, who argues, “The more working class voters see their values as being at variance with the Democratic Party brand, the less likely it is that Democrats will see due credit for even their measures that do provide benefits to working class voters.”In a similar piece, my colleague Tom Edsall quotes William Galston of Brookings, who also argues that progressives threaten to limit efforts to win blue-collar support and that “Some progressives, I fear, would rather be the majority in a minority party than the minority in a majority party.”It is true that some progressives — either Democratic lawmakers or affiliated activists — hold unpopular views or use unpopular language. It is also true that Republicans have amplified this to some electoral success. But missing in this conversation is one inconvenient fact: Progressives are not actually in the driver’s seat of the Democratic Party.It’s easy to think otherwise. Even the most sober version of this critique makes it sound as if the Democratic Party is in the grip of its most left-wing officials and constituents. But it isn’t — to the dismay and frustration of those officials and constituents.The president of the United States, and leader of the Democratic Party, is Joe Biden, the standard-bearer for a bygone era of centrist governance and aisle-crossing compromise, who made his mark in domestic politics as a drug warrior in the 1980s and a “law and order” Democrat in the 1990s.The speaker of the House is Nancy Pelosi, a long-serving liberal establishmentarian. Her leadership team — the majority leader, Steny Hoyer; the majority whip, James Clyburn; the assistant speaker, Katherine Clark; and the Democratic caucus chairman, Hakeem Jeffries — are similarly positioned in the center-left of the Democratic Party. The same is true of Chuck Schumer, the majority leader in the Senate, as well as the people who run the various organizations of the institutional Democratic Party.Although the share of progressives within the Democratic Party is much larger than the share of progressives writ large (12 percent of the party versus 6 percent nationally, according to the most recent political typology survey from the Pew Research Center), a large majority of Democrats are moderate to moderately liberal on most issues. That’s why — and how — Joe Biden won the nomination for president in the first place, easily beating his more left-wing opponents in the South Carolina primary and rallying much of the rest of the party behind him on Super Tuesday and beyond.In office, Biden has led from the center of the Democratic Party. His main legislative achievement so far, Covid relief notwithstanding, is a bipartisan infrastructure bill. The next phase of his agenda, the Build Back Better plan, now rests in the hands of the most conservative Democrats in Congress. He does not celebrate violent protests; he denounces them. He supports law enforcement and the criminal justice system — see his comments on the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict — and avoids most cultural battles. This is true, as well, of most elected Democrats in Washington.There was a battle for control of the Democratic Party, and the moderates won. They hold the power and they direct the message. But despite this victory, moderate Democrats and their allies can’t seem to take responsibility for the party’s fortunes. When faced with defeats — as they were last month when Terry McAuliffe fell to Glenn Youngkin in the race to succeed Ralph Northam as governor of Virginia — they blame the left. It’s the same song, each time. If progressives would just stop alienating the public, then they could make gains and put power back in Democratic hands. Somehow, the people in the passenger’s seat of the Democratic Party are always and forever responsible for the driver’s failure to reach their shared destination.Writing for his newsletter, the journalist Osita Nwanevu made a version of this point earlier in the year. Progressive politicians and activists may be occasionally off-message but in the main, “The simple truth is that most of the things moderate liberals tend to argue Democrats should be doing and saying are, in fact, being done and said by the Biden administration, Democratic leaders in Congress, and the vast majority of Democratic elected officials.”If, despite their influence, moderate Democrats are not satisfied with the state of their party, then they might want to turn their critical eye on themselves. What they’ll find are a few fundamental problems that may help explain the party’s current predicament.After all, 2020 was not the first year that Democrats fell short of their expectations. They did so in 2010, when moderates had an even stronger grip on the party, as well as in 2014 and 2016. Here, again, I’ll echo Nwanevu. Despite pitching his administration to the moderate middle — despite his vocal critiques of “identity politics,” his enthusiastic patriotism and his embrace of the most popular Democratic policies on offer — Barack Obama could not arrest the Democratic Party’s slide with blue-collar voters. For the past decade, in other words, “the Democratic Party’s electoral prospects have been in decline for reasons unattributable to progressive figures and ideas that arrived on the political scene practically yesterday.”Perhaps the problem, then, lies less with the rhetoric (or existence) of progressive Democrats and more with any number of transformations in the material circumstances of American life and the response — or lack thereof — from the Democrats with the power to do something. What was the Democratic Party’s response to a generation of neoliberal economic restructuring? What was its response to the near-total collapse of private-sector unions? What was its response to the declining fortunes of American workers and the upward redistribution of American wealth?The answer, for most of the past 30 years, is that the moderate Democrats who led the party have either acquiesced in these trends or, as in the case of the Clinton administration, actively pushed them along. And to the extent that these Democrats offered policies targeted to working Americans, they very often failed to deliver on their promises.As a result, as David Dayen of The American Prospect notes in “The Case for Deliverism,” “cynicism finds a breeding ground. People tune out the Democratic message as pretty words in a speech. Eventually, Democratic support gets ground down to a nub, surfacing only in major metropolitan areas that have a cultural affinity for liberalism.” These Democrats, in their failure to deliver, lend credence to the view that Washington is more a hindrance than a help. We can see this right now, as moderate and conservative Democratic resistance to the most ambitious parts of Biden’s agenda has bogged down the entire party and hurt its overall standing.Read in this light, the frequent focus on progressives as the cause of Democratic woes looks less like hard-nosed analysis and more like excuse-making. And my sense is that this excuse-making will only get worse as Republicans weaponize the institutions of American politics to entrench their power and lay the conditions for durable minority rule.Right now, the moderate Democrats who run the party have a narrow and slipping hold on Congress against an opposition that relies on structural advantages, which could be mitigated, or at least undermined, with federal power. They have failed to act, and there’s no sign, so far, that anything will change.If and when Democrats lose one or both chambers of Congress — and when we all face the consequences of their failure — I am confident that we’ll hear, once again, how it’s everyone’s fault but their own.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      There Is Another Democrat A.O.C. Should Be Mad At

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      Progressive Democrats in the House of Representatives can be forgiven their anxiety about whether Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona will support the more than $1.8 trillion Build Back Better plan. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, for example, rues the two senators’ outsize influence, while her colleague Rashida Tlaib of Michigan worries that Mr. Manchin and Ms. Sinema are “corporate Dems” led astray by special interests.But if disappointed progressives are looking for a Democrat to blame, they should consider directing their ire toward one of their party’s founders: James Madison. Madison’s Constitution was built to thwart exactly what Democrats have been attempting: a race against time to impose vast policies with narrow majorities. Madison believed that one important function of the Constitution was to ensure sustained consensus before popular majorities could prevail.Democrats do represent a popular majority now. But for Madison, that “now” is the problem: He was less interested in a snapshot of a moment in constitutional time than in a time-lapse photograph showing that a majority had cohered. The more significant its desires, Madison thought, the longer that interval of coherence should be. The monumental scale of the Build Back Better plan consequently raises a difficult Madisonian question: Is a fleeting and narrow majority enough for making history?In this Madisonian sense, Democrats are tripping over their own boasts. Even in announcing that the spending plan had been scaled back, President Biden repeatedly called the measure “historic.” No fewer than four times in a single statement, his White House described elements of the Build Back Better framework as the most important policy innovations in “generations.” Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, called the bill the House passed last week “historic, transformative and larger than anything we have done before.”Before the plan was trimmed from its original $3.5 trillion price tag, Democratic descriptions of it were even more grandiose. Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic majority leader, called the party’s initial proposal “the most significant legislation to expand support for American families since the era of the New Deal and the Great Society. If not quite Rooseveltian in scope, it is certainly near-Rooseveltian.” Ms. Pelosi said the legislation would “stand for generations alongside the New Deal and the Great Society as pillars of economic security for working families.”Madison might ask why legislation that will stand for generations should be enacted in months. The pragmatic answer, of course, is that Democrats may lose their majorities in the House and Senate next November. But that is part of the problem. Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson passed the New Deal and Great Society with enormous, broad-based legislative majorities. The policies were so popular that they commanded at least some bipartisan support.There is a reason Madison thought it should be that way. In evaluating public opinion, he saw two distinctions as essential. The first was whether the public’s views were based on reason or passion. The second was whether the views were settled or fluctuating.According to Madison’s political psychology, passions were inherently short-lived. That was why he could say in Federalist 10 that factions would not overtake a geographically large republic: In the time it took for them to spread, passions would cool and dissipate. By contrast, opinions based on reason could withstand the test of time.Madison encapsulated his theory of democracy in Federalist 63, which pertained to the unique role of the Senate in pumping the brakes on speeding majorities. He assumed that “the cool and deliberate sense of the community ought, in all governments, and actually will, in all free governments, ultimately prevail over the views of its rulers,” just as there would be unusual moments when the people would get swept up in passionate measures “which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn.”The most significant Madisonian fact is that majority rule is both a good idea and an inevitable one: public opinion both “ought” to and “will” win out in a republic. But, crucially, it will do so “ultimately,” not immediately. One original purpose of the Senate’s six-year terms was to give its members time between elections to resist public opinion. The different electoral clocks for representatives, presidents and senators require that public opinion cohere to prevail.In 1791, with the young Constitution in operation and nascent partisan alliances appearing, Madison wrote in a newspaper essay that the government owed deference to public opinion only when that opinion was “fixed” rather than fluctuating: “This distinction, if kept in view, would prevent or decide many debates on the respect due from the government to the sentiments of the people.”It is difficult to identify a case in American history of sustained, broad public opinion that did not ultimately manifest itself in public policy. Americans have been thwarted or delayed with respect to vague ideas like expanding access to health care. But they have also disagreed profoundly and deeply about what form those ideas should concretely take. When Americans have settled into an enduring consensus on particulars, they have almost always prevailed.One way proponents of particular policies encourage consensus is by appealing to public opinion. But according to Madison, the constitutional system judges majorities on their durability. A nearly $2 trillion bill that fundamentally alters relations between the government and the governed — even if in constructive and needed ways — should demonstrate broad and enduring support. A tied Senate and nearly tied House, acting in a space of months, cannot demonstrate that support on Madisonian terms.Democrats should not be overly faulted for failing to attract Republican support. At least since Democrats took the House in 2018, and arguably for longer, Republicans have been dogmatically uncooperative and uninterested in legislating.But the overuse of omnibus bills that throw every possible priority into a single measure make bipartisan support nearly impossible. Madison may have predicted the future of factions poorly. But his assumption was that coalitions would shift from issue to issue. A stand-alone bill on any one Democratic priority might well receive votes from across the aisle, as the recent $1 trillion infrastructure bill did. One reason for that bipartisan support is that isolating issues raises the cost of opposing them.In addition, the fact that one of the country’s two major political parties refuses to budge and — the decisive fact — feels no pressure from its constituents to do so is evidence that the Madisonian tests of durability and fixity have not been met. If majorities of the American people truly support the Democratic approach to social policy, the party’s candidates should be able to make that case on the campaign trail. The fact that they are trying to beat the clock instead suggests they know their support is fragile. Fragility is a poor foundation for major legislation.Polarization, especially when it falls along geographic lines, does not help. Madison, who foresaw that the enslavement from which he benefited might split the nation, warned against geographic fault lines. But to write off Republican politicians is also to write off broad swaths of voters who support them.Similarly, to blame Mr. Manchin for obstructing Democrats, as Representative Cori Bush of Missouri did in denying his authority “to dictate the future of our country,” is to ignore the fact that a 50-50 Senate gives every member of the body that power. A broader majority would deprive Mr. Manchin or Ms. Sinema of it. But because they serve as a moderating force that ensures wider support for legislation, disempowering them also risks increasing polarization.Devices like gerrymandering have the effect of exaggerating Republican support in the House. So does the geographic polarization reflected in the narrowly divided Senate. Consequently, Democrats’ slender margins in Congress may understate the degree of public support for their policies. But there is no constitutional means of registering public opinion other than elections. And it is equally unquestionable that the tragic flaw of many successful candidates for public office is exaggerating their mandates. The narrow majorities Democrats possess in Congress counsel caution instead. Mr. Biden’s mandate was largely for normalcy after four years of mania. It’s hard to make a case for being F.D.R. without a Great Depression.If progressive Democrats want to do more, they should demonstrate what Lincoln called “a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people.” If the people stand with them, Democrats will eventually — just not immediately — prevail.Greg Weiner (@GregWeiner1) is a political scientist at Assumption University, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of “Madison’s Metronome: The Constitution, Majority Rule, and the Tempo of American Politics.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      How Higher Prices This Holiday Season Could Cost Democrats, Too

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      Rising prices for gas and a holiday meal could come back to bite Democrats, who fear that inflation may upend their electoral prospects in the 2022 midterms.AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — Samantha Martin, a single mother shopping ahead of Thanksgiving, lamented how rising gas and grocery prices have eaten away at the raise she got this year as a manager at McDonald’s.Gas “is crazy out of hand,” Ms. Martin said as she returned a shopping cart at an Aldi discount market in Auburn Hills, a Detroit suburb, to collect a 25-cent deposit.Her most recent fillup was $3.59 a gallon, about $1 more than the price in the spring. Her raise, to $16 an hour from $14, was “pretty good, but it’s still really hard to manage,” Ms. Martin said. “I got a raise just to have the gas go up, and that’s what my raise went to.”Ms. Martin, 35, a political independent, doesn’t blame either party for inflation, but in a season of discontent, her disapproval fell more heavily on Democrats who run Washington. She voted for President Biden but is disappointed with him and his party. “I think I would probably give somebody else a shot,” she said.As Americans go on the road this week to travel for family gatherings, the higher costs of driving and one of the most expensive meals of the year have alarmed Democrats, who fear that inflation may upend their electoral prospects in the midterms. Republicans are increasingly confident that a rising cost of living — the ultimate kitchen-table issue — will be the most salient factor in delivering a red wave in 2022.Democrats’ passage in quick succession of the $1 trillion infrastructure law and, in the House, of a $2.2 trillion social safety net and climate bill, promise once-in-a-generation investments that Democratic candidates plan to run on next year, with many of the policies in the bills broadly popular.But, despite rising wages and falling unemployment, Democrats are also in danger of being swept aside in a hostile political environment shaped in large part by the highest inflation in 30 years, which has defied early predictions that it would be short-lived as the country pulled out of the pandemic.With control of Congress and many key governor seats at stake, Republicans are pointing to public and private surveys that show inflation is linked to Americans’ falling approval of Mr. Biden. And, given the wholesale gerrymanders drawn, particularly by Republicans, in the current round of congressional redistricting, the Democrats would face a high bar in keeping their paper-thin majority in the House of Representatives, even in a favorable environment. President Biden talking with an assembly line worker as he looks over an electric Hummer by General Motors during a plant visit in Detroit last week. Doug Mills/The New York TimesThe president’s recent tour of ports, bridges and auto plants — which was meant to promote the infrastructure legislation — was overshadowed in part by inflation anxieties. As he test drove an electric Hummer at a General Motors plant in Detroit this week, his message of a future of zero-emission vehicles was eclipsed by a present in which Americans are driving more miles in conventional vehicles, contributing to soaring gas prices.Representative Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat in a vulnerable House district, wrote to Mr. Biden this week that inflation was the most pressing concern of her constituents. A former C.I.A. analyst in Iraq, she urged the president to pressure Saudi Arabia to increase oil output.Ms. Slotkin, who won her seat in the midterm wave of 2018, is one of two Michigan Democrats in highly competitive districts that include the Detroit suburbs. In the Trump years, Democrats had mixed results in the populous region, advancing in white-collar communities but losing ground with their traditional union supporters.In an interview, Ms. Slotkin said that during a recent visit home, she heard constantly about the high costs of gas and groceries, and experienced them herself. “I buy groceries, I drive a ton,” she said. “Thanksgiving week is going to be more expensive by a long shot than last Thanksgiving.”[This Year’s Thanksgiving Feast Will Wallop the Wallet.]She acknowledged the political peril that rising consumer prices could pose for her party if it continues next year. “Kitchen-table issues affect Michigan and the Midwest more than any other national issue going on in Washington,” she said.In interviews with voters in suburban Detroit, including from Ms. Slotkin’s district and that of the second vulnerable Democrat, Representative Haley Stevens, residents almost universally acknowledged the pain of rising prices on their budgets. But it was unclear, from their accounts, that Democrats would suffer politically. Most voters ascribed blame according to their party leanings — as they do on almost all issues in an era of hyperpolarization.Margie Kulaga of Hazel Park, a Trump voter in 2020, said she paid 49 cents a pound, up from 33 cents a pound last year, for a 23-pound turkey that she had just bought from a Kroger market. Prices for meat and eggs have risen by 11.9 percent in the Midwest from a year ago, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.“I blame Biden, his whole administration,’’ Ms. Kulaga, 55, said. “I never used to cut coupons, but now I do.”On the other hand, Gloria Bailey, 63, a special-education teacher who lives in the suburb of Redford, is a Biden supporter who said rising costs should not be laid at his doorstep.“The coronavirus has affected a lot of shipments and deliveries and crops and drivers who bring the food to market,” she said.Container ships waiting to enter the Port of Los Angeles in October.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesThis month, Republicans broadly advanced in elections across the country, especially in Virginia, prompting forecasts of a similar tide in 2022. Glenn Youngkin won the Virginia governorship after emphasizing the rights of parents to control how schools operate and what they teach.But Mr. Youngkin’s chief strategist, Jeff Roe, said the “big takeaway” of the election was how the rising cost of living had significantly motivated voters, an issue that was little covered by the news media. He predicted it would drive Senate and House races around the country next year (many of which he and his firm have a hand in).Biden’s ​​Social Policy Bill at a GlanceCard 1 of 6A narrow vote. More

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      Democrats Work to Sell an Unfinished Bill

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      As President Biden and his allies in Congress work to whittle down the size of their ambitious domestic plans, Democrats must sell a bill without knowing precisely what will be in it.ALLENTOWN, Pa. — When Representative Susan Wild, Democrat of Pennsylvania, accompanied Jill Biden, the first lady, to the Learning Hub, a newly established early education center whose walls were covered with vocabulary words in English and Spanish, on a recent Wednesday morning, Ms. Wild’s constituents were frank about the many unmet needs in their community.Jessica Rodriguez-Colon, a case manager with a local youth house, described the struggles of helping families find affordable housing with rent skyrocketing. Brenda Fernandez, the founder of a nonprofit focused on supporting formerly incarcerated women and survivors of domestic violence, explained the challenges of ensuring homes were available for those who needed them.Dr. Biden had a ready answer: “It’s a big part of the bill,” she said, turning in her seat to Ms. Wild. “Right, Susan?”Ms. Wild quickly agreed. The sprawling $3.5 trillion social safety net and climate package that the House compiled last month would address everything raised during the discussion. It would devote more than $300 billion to low-income and affordable housing, provide two free years of community college and help set up a universal prekindergarten program that could help places like the Learning Hub, which serves about 150 children and families through Head Start, the federal program for preschoolers.But left unmentioned was the uncertainty about whether any of that would survive and become law. A month after the House put together its bill, President Biden and Democrats in Congress have trimmed their ambitions. Facing unified Republican opposition and resistance to the cost of the measure by a handful of centrists in their party, led by Senators Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Democrats are now working to scale back the package to around $2 trillion to ensure its passage through a Congress where they hold the thinnest of majorities.For Ms. Wild and other Democrats facing the toughest re-elections in politically competitive districts around the country, the ambiguity surrounding their marquee legislation makes for an unusual challenge outside of Washington: how to go about selling an agenda without knowing which components of it will survive the grueling legislative path to the president’s desk.Polls show that individual components of the legislation — including increasing federal support of paid leave, elder care and child care to expanding public education — are popular among voters. But beyond being aware of a price tag that is already shrinking, few voters can track what is still in contention to be part of the final package, as the process is shrouded in private negotiations.Representative Susan Wild, Democrat of Pennsylvania, during an interview in Allentown on Wednesday.Mark Makela for The New York Times“We don’t want to be having to come back to people later and say, ‘Well, we really liked that idea, but it didn’t make it into the final bill,’ — so it’s a challenge,” Ms. Wild said. “As the bill’s size continues to come down, you may be talking about something at any given time that’s not going to make it into the final product.”To get around Republican obstruction, Democrats are using a fast-track process known as reconciliation that shields legislation from a filibuster. That would allow it to pass the 50-50 Senate on a simple majority vote, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting a tiebreaking vote.But it would still require the support of every Democratic senator — and nearly every one of their members in the House. Democratic leaders and White House officials have been haggling behind the scenes to nail down an agreement that could satisfy both Mr. Manchin and Ms. Sinema, who have been reluctant to publicly detail which proposals they want to see scaled back or jettisoned.Congressional leaders aim to finish their negotiations in time to act on the reconciliation bill by the end of October, when they also hope to move forward on another of Mr. Biden’s top priorities, a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that would be the largest investment in roads, bridges, broadband and other physical public works in more than a decade.“As with any bill of such historic proportions, not every member will get everything he or she wants,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, wrote to Democrats in a letter ahead of the chamber’s return on Monday. “I deeply appreciate the sacrifices made by each and every one of you.”It remains unclear which sacrifices will have to be made, with lawmakers still at odds over the best strategy for paring down the plan, let alone how to structure specific programs. The most potent plan to replace coal and gas-fired plants with wind, nuclear and solar energy, for example, is likely to be dropped because of Mr. Manchin’s opposition, but White House and congressional staff are cobbling together alternatives to cut emissions that could be added to the plan.Liberals remain insistent that the bill — initially conceived as a cradle-to-grave social safety net overhaul on par with the Great Society of the 1960s — include as many programs as possible, while more moderate lawmakers have called for large investments in just a few key initiatives.In the midst of the impasse, rank-and-file lawmakers have been left to return home to their constituents to try to promote a still-unfinished product that is shrouded in the mystery of private negotiations, all while explaining why a Democratic-controlled government has yet to deliver on promises they campaigned on.“I try to make sure that people know what I stand for, what my positions are, what I want for our community,” Ms. Wild said in an interview, ticking off provisions in the bill that would lower prescription drug costs, provide child care and expand public education. “But if it’s not guaranteed, I also try to make sure people understand that, so they don’t feel like I’ve promised something that’s not going to happen.”“That doesn’t always work,” she added. “Because you might think that something something’s in the bag, so to speak, and then all of a sudden, the rug gets pulled out from under you.”Karen Schlegel, who is retired, waited outside, hoping to see Dr. Biden in Allentown on Wednesday.Mark Makela for The New York TimesKaren Schlegel, 71, who waited outside the center with a mix of protesters shouting obscenities and eager onlookers waiting for a glimpse of Dr. Biden, said she remained in full support of Mr. Biden’s agenda. She blamed congressional Democrats for delaying the president’s plan.“He would be doing better if he had some support from Congress,” she said, carrying a hot pink sign professing love for both Bidens. “They better get a hustle on.”Even Dr. Biden, as she trailed from classroom to classroom to watch the students engage in interactive color and shape lessons — and perform an enthusiastic penguin-inspired dance — avoided weighing in on the specifics of the bill.“We already started when Joe got into office, and that’s what we’re fighting for,” Dr. Biden told the group, pointing to the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill that Democrats muscled through in March as evidence of the success of their agenda. “I’m not going to stop, nor is Joe, so I want you to have faith.”For lawmakers like Ms. Wild, time is of the essence. Many Democrats are already growing wary of the prospects of beginning their re-election campaigns, before voters have felt the tangible impacts of either the infrastructure bill or the reconciliation package.They will have to win over voters like Eric Paez, a 41-year-old events planner, who wants Democrats to deliver and has little patience for keeping track of the machinations on Capitol Hill standing in their way.“I need to come home and not think about politicians,” Mr. Paez, said, smoking a cigarette and waving to neighbors walking their dogs in the early evening as he headed home from work near the child care center. “They should be doing what we voted them in to do.” More

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      John Yarmuth of Kentucky, House Budget Chairman, Announces Retirement

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      Mr. Yarmuth, the lone Democrat in his state’s congressional delegation and a key proponent of President Biden’s domestic agenda, said he would not seek re-election.WASHINGTON — Representative John Yarmuth of Kentucky, the lone Democrat in his state’s congressional delegation and the chairman of the House Budget Committee, announced on Tuesday that he would not seek re-election in 2022.Mr. Yarmuth, who is playing a leading role in shepherding President Biden’s sprawling domestic agenda through Congress, is the first senior House Democrat to say he will not run in the midterms, when Republicans are widely believed to have a good chance of wresting the majority.In a video circulated on social media, Mr. Yarmuth, who will be 75 at the end of the current Congress, said he was leaving because of “a desire to have more control of my time in the years I have left” and to spend more time with his family.He also faced the prospect that his Louisville-centered district could be redrawn this year, potentially leading to a more difficult re-election race, though Mr. Yarmuth told reporters later on Tuesday that he was confident the district “won’t change significantly.” Even if he were to prevail, he would face the loss of his committee chairmanship if Democrats lost the House.“I know that on my first day as a private citizen, I will regret this decision, and I will be miserable about having left the most gratifying role of my professional life,” Mr. Yarmuth said in the video. “But I also know that every day thereafter, I will find other ways to help my fellow citizens, and I will be more confident that the decision I announced today is the right one.”He has held his seat since 2006 and has been the only Democrat in the congressional delegation since 2013.Mr. Yarmuth is among the most high-ranking Democrats set to depart Congress at the end of 2022, joining a trickle of rank-and-file lawmakers who have decided to seek a different political office or vacate a district that is likely to change significantly once state officials redraw them using data from the 2020 census.“In Chairman John Yarmuth, the Louisville community and indeed all Americans have had a fierce and extraordinarily effective champion for their health, financial security and well-being,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said in a statement. With his retirement, she added, “the Congress will lose a greatly respected member, and our caucus will lose a friend whose wise counsel, expertise, humor and warmth is cherished.”In his role leading the Budget Committee, Mr. Yarmuth helped oversee passage of the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package in March, which he called the proudest moment of his congressional career. He has also drafted the $3.5 trillion budget blueprint that Democrats pushed through over the summer to pave the way for Mr. Biden’s signature domestic bill addressing climate change, expanding health care and public education programs and increasing taxes on businesses and wealthy individuals.Asked by reporters on Capitol Hill about the reaction to his announcement, Mr. Yarmuth said “it’s been overwhelming — I’ve been doing my best to keep it together all day.” More

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      The Democrats Are in Danger of a Midterm Rout

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      The Democrats are staring down real danger.They just aren’t getting enough done. They aren’t moving quickly enough on President Biden’s major campaign promises.The warning signs are all around.Democrats are still wrangling over their infrastructure and social spending bills. And the longer the fight drags on, the uglier it looks. Washington watchers are right — to a degree — to say that this is simply the way that large legislation is worked through. It’s a slog.In the end, I believe that the Democrats will have no choice but to pass something, no matter the size, because the consequence of failure is suicide. Democrats must go into the midterms with something that they can call a win, with something that at least inches closer to the transformations Biden has promised.But the budget isn’t the only issue.There is still a crisis at the border. In August, the Pew Research Center noted that the U.S. Border Patrol had reported “nearly 200,000 encounters with migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border in July, the highest monthly total in more than two decades.”That’s the largest number since Bill Clinton was president.The handling of Haitian immigrants was a particular blight on the administration, and the images of officers cracking their reins like whips will be hard to erase from memory.Furthermore, the Senate parliamentarian has advised Democrats against including a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers and other undocumented immigrants in their spending bill. It is not clear if Senate Democrats will try to get around the parliamentarian’s nonbinding ruling, but 92 legal scholars have called on them to do just that.As for police reform, negotiations on that legislation completely fell apart with customary finger-pointing as the epilogue.The president has said that, “The White House will continue to consult with the civil rights and law enforcement communities, as well as victims’ families to define a path forward, including through potential further executive actions I can take to advance our efforts to live up to the American ideal of equal justice under law.”But executive orders are severely limited when it comes to state and local policing, and any order one president issues can be rescinded by the next.Then there is the massive, widespread assault on voting rights rolling out across the country, what some have rightly referred to as Jim Crow 2.0.As the Brennan Center for Justice put it earlier this month, “In an unprecedented year so far for voting legislation, 19 states have enacted 33 laws that will make it harder for Americans to vote.”And yet, it is still not clear if there are enough votes in the Senate to pass voter protections, Senator Joe Manchin hasn’t agreed to change filibuster rules which would allow Democrats to pass the legislation on their own, and Biden has yet to throw his full weight behind the fight to preserve the franchise from Republican assaults.Not to mention that Covid is still killing far too many Americans. The surge of cases during Biden’s first year ate away at any optimism about the development and administration of vaccines.Democrats have been unable to deliver much to make their voters happy, and their major agenda items have been stalled in Congress for so long that many of those voters are growing impatient and disillusioned.As a result, many recent polls have shown Biden’s approval ratings plummeting to the lowest level of his young presidency: According to a recent Quinnipiac University poll, 38 percent of respondents approved of Biden’s job performance, but 53 percent disapproved.More than half disapproved of his handling of the economy, the military, taxes, and foreign policy, and nearly 70 percent disapproved of his approach to immigration reform and the situation at the Mexican border. Only his handling of Covid received a smaller disapproval rating, of 50 percent.As Quinnipiac University polling analyst Tim Malloy put it, “Battered on trust, doubted on leadership, and challenged on overall competency, President Biden is being hammered on all sides as his approval rating continues its downward slide to a number not seen since the tough scrutiny of the Trump administration.”Black voters continue to be Biden’s strongest supporters on many of these metrics, but even their support seems disturbingly soft.Maybe the Democrats will pass a massive spending bill and tout it well, and people will forget their disappointment on other issues and revel in the mound of cash the Democrats plan to spend. Maybe. There is no doubt that this country desperately needs the investments Democrats want to make. In fact, it needs even more investment than the amount Democrats have proposed.But even if they succeed in passing both the infrastructure framework and the social spending bill, those investments may come too late to discharge growing dissatisfaction. An unpopular president with slipping approval numbers is an injured leader with little political capital to burn.Biden is better than Trump, but that’s not enough. People didn’t just vote for Biden to vanquish a villain; they also wanted a champion. That champion has yet to emerge.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and Instagram. More

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      Biden Courts Democrats and Republican Leaders on Infrastructure

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      The meeting produced little progress, underscoring the political challenge for President Biden as he seeks to exploit the narrowest of majorities in Congress to revive the country’s economy.WASHINGTON — To hear the participants tell it, President Biden’s first-ever meeting with Republican and Democratic leaders from both houses of Congress was 90 minutes of productive conversation. It was cordial. There were no explosions of anger. More