My new column:

Biden has always been close to the center of his party. Unsurprisingly, then, the basic political mistakes of his presidency have been party-wide ones. Expectations of liberal policy gains rose too high after January 2021, when Democrats gained control of the Senate by the narrowest possible margin. Biden and his team did too little to manage those expectations, but they didn’t produce them in the first place — and there were more Democrats urging boldness than realism. . . .