Biden’s miscalculations led him here

It is folly to think that the struggles that Biden and Democrats in Congress faced in getting the infrastructure bill and companion social-spending measure through Congress are a primary reason for his low job approvals and bleak midterm outlook. But taking on such a, shall we say, transformational legislative undertaking with some of the narrowest Senate and House margins in a century may not have been the wisest decision any president has ever made. Mandates for big change, along the lines of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, come from landslide victories, not just in the presidential election but in House and Senate elections as well.

A president who scores a massive electoral victory obtains clout, if not fear, among fellow party members on Capitol Hill, and usually brings begrudging respect from those on the other side of the aisle. Watching the excruciatingly slow and troubled journey of the infrastructure bill over five months makes it abundantly clear that there are plenty of congressional Democrats who do not fear the president. Taking on this infrastructure package in the way it was, joined at the hip for much of the trip with the social-spending measure, is one of the greatest legislative miscalculations by a president in modern times. That misjudgment is not something that can be blamed on AOC and The Squad, or on Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. That was a mistake made in the White House.