A president in dangerous denial For a while, President Biden seemed to be recovering from chronic fantasies about Republicans in Congress. But last week he had a relapse -- harming prospects for key progressive legislation and reducing the already slim hopes that the GOP can be prevented from winning control of the House and Senate in midterm elections 15 months from now. Biden’s reflex has been to gladhand his way across the aisle. On the campaign trail in May 2019, he proclaimed : “The thing that will fundamentally change things is with Donald Trump out of the White House. Not a joke. You will see an epiphany occur among many of my Republican friends.” A year and a half later, the president-elect threw some bipartisan bromides into his victory speech -- lamenting “the refusal of Democrats and Republicans to cooperate with one another,” contending that the American people “want us to cooperate,” and pledging “that’s the choice I’ll make.”