So were the congressional results. He may have won, but House Democrats lost 13 seats and the Senate ended up with a 50-50 tie. The national mood was unmistakable: This was not a time for radicalism or a completely dramatic break from the recent past.

Indeed, Biden found himself in a perfect position to underpromise and overdeliver, which should be the dream of all politicians.

Instead, he overpromised and, even when he had a chance to deliver, he actively tried to slash the tires on his own delivery truck. That’s what happened when the politically feasible parts of his gigantic domestic-spending bill — the so-called “hard infrastructure” elements — were split apart from the left-liberal wish-list items and sailed through the Senate with 69 votes.

This was the most significant display of bipartisanship (outside an emergency situation, like the financial meltdown or COVID) in a generation. And Biden himself nearly torpedoed it.

He announced he supported an effort to hold the Senate bill hostage until Congress agreed to the left-liberal wish-list bill — now named “Build Back Better.” So for three months Democrats argued amongst themselves about this until finally it occurred to enough of them that they were being insane to surrender a victory on a major piece of legislation.