“A lot of people are jaded,” desperate to see Washington “actually start to move some stuff,” said Yvette Simpson, chief executive of the progressive political action committee Democracy for America. Ever since Congress passed Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill earlier this year, Simpson said, “we’re flatlined. There’s no real significant change that we can see for anything else on the horizon.” If Democrats can’t break the logjam, she said, the party will pay for it in 2022. “I think it hurts the energy. I think it hurts the momentum.” In part, Biden and the Democratic Party are suffering from a hangover after sweeping Trump from office and emerging from the worst of the coronavirus pandemic. Doug Herman, who was a lead mail strategist for Barack Obama's 2008 and 2012 campaigns, described the moment as little more than a “natural dip” following the initial euphoria surrounding a new administration and a pandemic whose response “Biden nailed.”