Joe Biden is a hair’s breadth away from making history in a manner that Democrats once thought impossible. With his average approval rating hovering near 40 percent, Biden is just one point away from Donald Trump’s record of being the least popular president at this point in his first term. Much of the blame for that falls on the White House, itself. Depending on which worried Democrat you ask, Biden either failed to rise above the intractable politics that he promised to fix, or has proven unable to communicate his goals and achievements to the American public. Maybe both. But presidencies are just as defined by events beyond one’s control as they are by promises, and the primary culprit for Biden’s woes is an unmistakable five-letter word that would slot nicely into the first row of a morning Wordle: COVID.