April 1, 2022: Bidens sophomore slump
For President Joe Biden, this was one of those weeks that demonstrated the limits of the powers of the presidency.\xa0\nPolitical scientists often like to rib pundits and the public for having a so-called \u201cGreen Lantern\u201d view of the presidency, a theory defined by Dartmouth\u2019s Brendan Nyhan as \u201cthe belief that the president can achieve any political or policy objective if only he tries hard enough or uses the right tactics."\nIn reality, presidents operate under enormous constraints that often make them seem feckless in the face of intractable problems.\xa0\nThe news at the end of this week makes it clear that Biden has entered the \u201clong slog\u201d period of his first term. The bold ambitions of year one have been downsized. And even with more modest goals, unifying Democrats in Congress has become tougher \u2014 and winning over Republicans harder \u2014 than ever. Many problems, like inflation, don\u2019t have readily available solutions. And even when Biden is able to act, like on immigration, his choices are politically perilous.\nListen to Playbook Deep Dive: The midterms will be won in the suburbs\nRaghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.