Instead of allowing Georgia’s weird election results and the wishes of progressives to define his presidency, Biden would have benefitted from taking a hands-on approach to shaping his agenda, and managing expectations. This would have required staking out realistic goals that, yes, would have disappointed progressives at the time.

Why didn’t he do this? The fact that Biden won the 2020 Democratic primary by surviving—not taming—the left probably led him to wrongly conclude that the same model was transferable to governing. It wasn’t. Surviving a primary campaign by employing strategic ambiguity is quite different from surviving a four-year presidential term that begins with a razor-thin majority.

In many ways, Biden’s reluctance to confront the left in his party mirrors what Republicans went through with the Tea Party, the Freedom Caucus, and, finally, with MAGA. Just as the GOP establishment thought they could placate and co-opt the right without confronting or conquering them, Democratic establishment leaders thought ignoring the problem would make it go away.