But going forward, Pelosi will have to work her magic on a new flank. Listen to Bill Galston, a co-founder of the Problem Solvers Caucus, after the deal: “The Nine have finally broken the complete stranglehold that congressional leadership, on both sides, have had over the legislative process for a decade or more. But while the Nine won an important battle, the war is still to come.”

That doesn’t sound like a truce is being called, yet never have Democrats been more in need of all getting along to hold on to their slim majority in 2022—a prospect that is hard historically and harder still after a summer that’s been anything but the return to normalcy we expected. We’ve left Afghanistan after 20 year, but in deadly chaos. There are wildfires scorching California, floods in Tennessee, houses destroyed along the East Coast by Henri. Rather than return to pre-COVID times, we’re masked and wary of going indoors. Epsilon and Lambda variants have already emerged hard on the heels of Delta. If it keeps up, we’ll blow through the Greek alphabet like we ran out of American names for tropical storms. Biden didn’t cause all this but with Democrats in charge of all three branches of government, he owns it.