First came the sudden rise in inflation, which hasn’t made further public investment impossible but which has definitely reduced the free-lunch opportunities that seemed to be available last spring. With that disappointment has come political disappointment for Democrats, who briefly imagined themselves building a new majority while presiding over a 2020s boom, and instead seemed poised for a big reversion, a swift return to the gridlock that has characterized American politics throughout our long era of stagnation.

Then underlying both economics and politics is the disappointment of the vaccines themselves. They are a lifesaving weapon, they clearly protect most people from the worst outcomes, and some of the limits to their effectiveness have been imposed by partisan intransigence and social dysfunction, not anything inherent to the shots themselves. But medically they have also fallen well short of the initial hopes: Their strongest protection fades fast, they require boosters at a pace that makes near-universal uptake unimaginable, and they haven’t reduced transmission enough to actually crush Covid.