One year into Biden’s presidency, the country is calmer and still not okay. Calm was the campaign promise. Governing required more.
The gains:
- Vaccinations surged in the first half of 2021, preventing deaths and reopening much of the economy.
- A bipartisan infrastructure bill finally moved from speeches to asphalt, pipe, and fiber.
The failures:
- Build Back Better stalled under intra-party veto. Childcare, paid leave, and climate funding shrank or evaporated.
- Voting rights hit the filibuster wall. Procedure beat principle.
- Afghanistan ended in televised chaos, even if the strategic decision to leave was overdue.
The through-line is thin margins and thinner will. A Senate split made transformation unlikely, but the White House treated inevitability like strategy. The result was a year where competence returned but urgency faded. Normalcy came back as a mood, not a remedy.
What would count as course correction:
- Treat the filibuster as a tool, not a shrine. Carve exceptions for the franchise.
- Spend political capital where it changes lives within a year: housing supply, drug pricing, childcare, grid reliability.
- Stop promising unity as outcome. Promise delivery as evidence.
The country hired Biden to lower the temperature. He did. The fire still burns under the floorboards. Calm cannot be the goal when the structure smolders.