Facing a pandemic with historic health and economic consequences, a rising China, and domestic strife over rapidly changing race and gender norms, voters of all ideological backgrounds are looking for political leaders ready to fight for them.

Despite President Biden’s superficial calls for unity and bipartisan deal-making, his administration is already pushing the nation’s environmental, tax, spending, and regulatory policies sharply to the left. Biden is doing so via executive actions, legislation that can be passed on a party-line vote through the reconciliation process, and liberal appointments. Democratic voters see their party’s control over the White House and Congress and are demanding aggressive action. They have been agitated by a steady diet of grievances fed to them by a media convinced that Donald Trump posed an existential threat to American norms and democracy itself.