This week marks the one-year anniversary of the Biden Harris administration. I’ve been barraged with political messages asking me to grade them, and then donate money. My Twitter feed is filled with folks I respect and others I may not offering their own critiques, often while pitching their organization’s priorities. I hear appreciation for government providing four free COVID tests to each household while others voice irritation that the roll out didn’t work for every household type. I view this while in my very bones I feel so tired. We are at such a difficult governing point in America. Our country is not just divided, it is divisive.

We have lost the ability, even at the individual level, to compromise. We seem unable to recognize that this is a huge country with vastly different populations, political beliefs, values and cultures, needs and means. Rather than seeing this as a strength, we are in a “winner takes all” battle.

This is a very different environment than any other administration in my lifetime has faced in their first year. The Biden Harris administration came into government on the heels of a failed insurrection attempt, a continuing global pandemic, a wounded economy, and deeply exposed racial injustices. To judge them without recognizing all of this seems rather ridiculous and unfair.

Despite formidable head winds, they have made real progress. Many systems badly broken by the last administration were fixed or at least patched up. Historic levels of investment were provided. Not just for existing programs like highways and bridges, but trillions in recovery funds that enabled emergency rental assistance to help vulnerable tenants avoid eviction; operating support for transit agencies to provide free fares for low-income riders; provided a child tax credit infusing money into household bank accounts and the economy; allowed small businesses to stay afloat as their doors were shuttered; restored supply chains damaged by the continued pandemic and labor shortages, and provided free vaccines to millions.

Was it enough? No. How could it be?
Was progress made in all the areas that I personally feel are the most important? No. How could it be?

But let’s please not lose sight that the Biden Harris Administration has been working to put out a major house fire at the same time as new fires are being started. Sometimes in different parts of the house, and sometimes in areas that they thought were under control.

This administration has been rolling out new programs, executive orders, and regulations while most federal staff are working remotely. And remember, it is always easier to destroy something than to rebuild it. This year has required triaging problems created by the last administration be it the post office or environmental protections – to name only two - while facing staffing shortages including in senior management positions as the Senate sits on confirmations. Think about the challenges remote work and labor shortage dynamics create in your own organization. Now amplify that for the sheer size and complexity of the federal government.

The Biden Harris administration faces state and local GOP assaults preventing critical federal resources from reaching cities and households. And they are doing all this in an environment where nothing seems to ever satisfy. Where it has become more popular to blame than to applaud or acknowledge gratitude. Where most of us are carrying a lot of trauma, anxiety, and weariness by what we’ve been living through the last several years ---- including those working in the administration.

These dynamics apply to almost every level of government and almost every major American institution at this moment. It feels that almost every aspect of the public good is under attack.

This is far different from when I came to work for the new Obama Administration. That was a heady and joyous moment for many of us who felt pride and hope in the future of America. Obama won along with significant numbers of Democrats thus gaining control of the House and Senate. There was a palpable energy for change; all of which came to a screeching halt by Mitch McConnell’s tenacious obstinacy and the 2010 mid-term elections. I hold onto those embers of hope still. For it is when we lose hope, that we lose the best of ourselves. Yet lately this is a daily struggle.

I am grateful to the Biden Harris administration and all who are working in government from career staff to political appointees for their efforts, for taking on the burden of working for the public good in these challenging times, and for not giving up on this country. By word and by deed this administration is trying its best, in a difficult bureaucratic and political context, to help ALL Americans -- not just those who voted for them. I applaud their commitments to racial justice and the environment, and beg them to not let political fears, bureaucratic inertia, or perfection delay them from taking action. I pray that they will listen, value and prioritize the voices of those living on the front lines of environmental injustice for they hold the solutions most needed.

My disappointment of this first year is that the President didn’t make the Right to Vote a day one priority. Given all the lies about the last election and all the partisan bills introduced and passed at the state level to restrict the ability of people to vote --- especially people of color, but also the disabled, those serving in the military, seniors, college students, working parents – I am deeply disappointed this wasn’t a day one priority. Recognizing the historic senate wins in Georgia and the losses in South Carolina and Texas, I am deeply disappointed this wasn’t a day one priority. Remembering Congressman John Lewis and his consistent calls that Black Lives and Black Votes Matter, I am deeply disappointed this wasn’t a day one priority. Seeing the salacious seizure of the Supreme Court by the far right, I am deeply disappointed this was not a day one priority. The administration failed to see that the Right to Vote is essential to its priorities for climate, for racial justice, and for democracy. Or perhaps it had more faith than was proven out by Senate Republicans and the media to see voting not as a partisan issue but as an American ideal.

As an infrastructure wonk, I felt regret in 2009 when Democrats took political control and made health care reform their top priority ahead of infrastructure. The latter being by far the easier and quicker win. I thought it should have gone first. Those with better political heads than mine pointed out that they did this precisely because it required so much political capital to pass Obamacare. None of it could be wasted. They assumed bipartisan support would get transportation programs reauthorized under Democratic leadership. That didn’t happen, but in hindsight it was the right calculus.

Perhaps with that recent lesson infrastructure stalwarts including President Biden felt that with a smaller margin of victory it was better in 2021 for Democrats to prioritize bipartisan legislation. They got their victory with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act albeit with only a handful of House Republicans. Yet it seems that neither the Right to Vote nor funding social programs benefitting the vast majority of Americans can win even a handful of Senate Republicans. But we can’t forget, there are three more years of this administration that remain.

I don’t know where the road we are on as a divided and divisive country will lead us. I worry about the future our children will face. But I refuse to give up hope or dismiss the passion that so many of us have for a more inclusive, just and stronger America. Thank you, President Biden and Vice President Harris, for not giving up hope either.

Early in my career I had the privilege to work with Secretary Rodney Slater at USDOT. He was famous for saying “Find the Good and Praise It.” I’ve kept that advice with me. It’s easy to complain, especially when there is so much to complain about. But it’s also just as easy to say thank you.