Biden’s championing of a bill initially designed to spend $6 trillion ate up his party’s legislative attention for nearly six months. Build Back Better declined in size but never ascended in approval, no matter the propagandistic efforts to claim its provisions were popular — just so long as nobody was asked how much the provisions they liked would actually cost.

It doesn’t really matter why Biden went down this stupid path. It doesn’t matter whether he had an idea about solidifying his party’s progressive base in the way Donald Trump solidified his party’s conservative base. Or maybe it was because third-rate newsmagazine historians and bestselling pop biography toadies came to the White House sucking their “PBS NewsHour” thumbs and swelling his head with comparisons to FDR and LBJ and whatever other three-initialed liberal gods they might have invoked to cloud what little reason Biden might have left.

What matters is the results.

He didn’t “fix” COVID. The country is experiencing inflation at a level 170 million people in this country (all those under the age of 40) have never lived through before. Cities are returning to the state of nature. And Biden’s party is going to have to go out there next year and see whether it can do anything to stave off the tsunami that will sweep it away 11 months from now on midterm Election Day.