Only the party book connects Senator Joe Manchin from the workers, coal and Trump state of West Virginia with today's leading Democrats.
That was known, and yet the White House has not hidden how deeply Manchin's no to the social and climate package hits the president.
No wonder: Less than a year after taking office, Joe Biden is almost empty-handed.
His bet of cramming the country's transformation through with just a one-vote majority in the Senate has not worked out.
Of course, he hardly had better options, because the Republican Party would never abandon its blockade of climate protection or free daycare.
The rest of the world can't leave it cold.
Perhaps Biden shouldn't have declared his reforms to be the litmus test of democracy, which should prove its vitality in competition with China's authoritarian model.
It is unlikely that the president will be able to keep his America is back promise in the field of climate protection.
The next Trump after Biden?
At best, it bypasses the divided Congress and enacts ordinances to work towards making America emit half the greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 as it did in 2005. But that could easily be cashed in for a Republican successor.
And the more the man who wanted to save democracy withdraws by decree, the more likely it becomes that his successor will be named Donald Trump or walk in his footsteps.