When President Joe Biden landed at Joint Base Andrews after attending the G-7 Leadership Summit in Geneva – an event that tested his ability to reintroduce the United States to the world stage as a trusted ally and formidable presence – he’s returned to an equally delicate diplomatic challenge at home: retaining the confidence of progressive Democrats who are fed up with his insistence on bipartisanship and making demands that risk scuttling the success of his first mandate.

“It is time for us to go our own way,” said Senator Ed Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, earlier this week. Flanked by Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, the two launched calls to end White House negotiations with Republicans and moderate Democrats on a significantly scaled-down version of the $ 2.5 trillion infrastructure package. dollars proposed by the administration.

Together, they made a demand – “an absolute and unbreakable guarantee that the climate must be at the center of any infrastructure deal we make,” as Markey put it – and echoed the warnings issued last week by Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent from Vermont. , and Senator Martin Heinrich, Democrat of New Mexico, that they would vote against a deal that would gut the climate provisions.

The failed infrastructure negotiations are just the latest in a string of high-profile disappointments for progressives, who after more than a week are still reeling from Vice President Kamala Harris telling Guatemalans considering migrating to United States : .”

His remarks, delivered after meeting Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei on his first trip abroad, echoed Biden’s stated preference to address the root cause of the migration crisis, which has sent a record number of Central Americans to the US-Mexico border in hopes of seeking asylum. . But for many, the terse warning has cast the shadow of the previous administration – “The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our border,” Harris said – and drew sharp criticism.

“It is disappointing to see,” said on Twitter Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, one of the most visible leaders of the progressive wing of the Democrats. “First, seeking asylum at any American border is a 100% legal method of arrival. Second, the United States has spent decades contributing to regime change and destabilization in Latin America. can’t help set someone’s house on fire and then blame them for running away. “

Since the president was sworn in, progressives have also been enraged by Biden’s refusal to support the elimination of filibuster to tackle his agenda and his refusal to use his executive power to write off debt. student loans. And as infrastructure talks run out of schedule, time is running out for voting rights legislation and a police overhaul – two top priorities for the liberal flank of the Democratic Party.

For a wing of the party that has propelled Biden to the White House and generates a significant amount of his energy amid a nationwide reckoning on racism and systemic inequality, the progressives’ relationship with the White House underscores tensions and frustrations. to be a defining movement with no real power – a position that begins to present challenges to the administration as it begins to demand more.

“It’s safe to say that Biden was not fully supported by the progressive wing of the Democratic Party to get the nomination,” said Barbara Perry, director of presidential studies at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia. “It usually fell to Bernie Sanders. But it was crucial for Biden to have their support to win the presidency. And he did.”

“They also gave him the benefit of the doubt in the first few months,” she said, noting that polls in the first two months of her presidency showed progressives overwhelmingly endorsing Biden’s work – with some fixing his rate. approval above 95%. .

But the blows are mounting for its progressive base – even the Justice Department under Attorney General Merrick Garland has caught the heat – and their legislative and political priorities appear further removed from becoming a reality as the mid-year elections approach. term of office next year, with nothing but a coronavirus relief package to show for the start of Biden’s term.

Justice Department officials revealed last week that they are moving forward with the defense of former President Donald Trump in a high-profile libel lawsuit brought against him by E. Jean Carroll, an author who has accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in a book published in 2019.

Also last week, Justice Department officials filed a statement in court saying they were required to respect the religious exemption enshrined in the Title IX Civil Rights Act, even though they support more than 30 LGBTQ students who say they have been discriminated against by faith. – colleges and filed a complaint against the Ministry of Education asking them to declare the religious exemption unconstitutional.

As disappointments mount – some beyond the control of the White House – Perry can’t help but wonder, “Is the bloom starting to fade from the rose?”

A recent poll shows that Biden still has leeway. According to a Monmouth poll taken in late May, 88% of Liberals still approve of the work Biden is doing, compared to 57% who approve of the work Congress is doing – figures reflected in an NPR / PBS NewsHour / Marist poll conducted around the same time , which showed that 85% of very liberal voters approved of the job he does, with 51% strongly approving. And the Pew poll, also from late May, puts Biden’s approval rating at 92% among Liberal Democrats.

“The question is what is energy for,” said Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a center-left Democratic think tank.

“Right now Joe Biden has to get his agenda through Congress and it’s pretty tough with these extremely thin margins of support,” Marshall said. “There isn’t much room here for Biden to appease those doctrinal voices to the left of the party. If he does, he risks losing the swing quarters where the winners in 2018 placed the Democrats in the majority in the House and helped them win back the Senate and beat Trump by a very wide margin. ”

While the question of turnout is certain to surface next year ahead of the midterm elections, Marshall says, Biden has already locked up progressive voters.

“The voters who are on the line are independents and moderate Republicans who quit the party because of Trump. University-educated commuters have become swing voters in the last election cycle,” he said. . “If you try to think about where you find majorities in the country, both in elections and in terms of government, you cannot afford to let the left wing of the party go on politics because that their policies alienate the very voters you must support majorities. ”

Progressives are quick to point out, however, that the president needs to capitalize more on his agenda if he wants a voter insurance policy in 2024 – something, they say, that will not happen by negotiating with the Republicans, especially given the Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s penchant for blocking Democratic legislation. McConnell, for example, said earlier this week that he would block a Supreme Court nomination if a position becomes vacant before the 2024 presidential election.

“The point is, Democrats aren’t trying to find common ground out of disproportionate respect or affection for Mitch Mconnell,” Marshall said. “That’s not the problem. The problem is the country, but the jury here is the voters. Not the ideologues, not the activists. The voters.”

“So what the president is doing,” he says, “shows he is making a good faith effort to reach out to the few moderate members of the Republican Party and not just follow in their footsteps like Mitch McConnell does. would if the shoe was on the other foot. “

It is certainly not the first time that a wing of an administration party has been disappointed with what it has to accomplish.

For Republican administrations, these disappointments have historically manifested in the form of Supreme Court appointments – in which a president appoints a judge to the court whose ideology veers to the left of what it was perceived to be. Such was the case when former President Richard Nixon appointed former Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, who eventually became one of the Court’s most liberal justices and wrote the opinion in Roe v . Wade. But for Democrats, whose party is less ideological and appeals to a larger camp, those disappointments usually come from presidents refusing to fully embrace their agendas.

“Democrats are a lot like they were in the 1960s, when John Kennedy was a moderate Democrat,” Perry says. “He was doing what Joe Biden did, which was trying to focus on the center because most of the time in American history that’s where the voters are. What are you going to win and then what’s the point of being extreme or being right or left of the center if you can’t get elected? Then you know you’re not getting any of your policies. ”

“But try telling that to people who are true believers on the right or the left,” she said. “There’s no point in saying to a progressive, ‘Look, Bernie Sanders was never going to win, so you better be thankful that Joe Biden won rather than a second term for Trump. “”

Case in point: In addition to firing shots through the arch at infrastructure, progressives in both houses have already said they are ready to sink a deal on police reform that removes changes to the qualified immunity.

“In some ways, Biden is in the worst position of all,” Perry says.