ANALYSIS | Biden finds unity abroad, but is losing it at home

Biden: the war in Ukraine will continue to affect the world economy 0:33

(CNN) --

President Joe Biden's crusade against authoritarian leaders abroad is constantly complicated by the messiness of his democracy at home.

Biden, who so strongly condemns the aggressors and so fully leads the world community against Russia, conspicuously failed to rally the senators he needed to enact a lasting domestic agenda.

The president is hell-bent on ensuring that Ukraine and Taiwan can choose their own leaders in free elections, but a surprising number of Republicans continue to reject his own electoral victory.

• Biden affirms that the United States is willing to "give diplomacy every chance of success" to de-escalate the crisis between Russia and Ukraine

Controversy after Biden's request for more funds for Ukraine 5:52

He sputters trying to explain a faltering economy to Americans, which could cost his party control of Congress in this year's midterm elections.

The Senate is so paralyzed by filibuster, giving a minority the ability to crush legislation, that no elected leader seems to be talking seriously about federal legislation to address some of America's biggest problems:

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• An expected wave of immigrants at the border.

• A climate crisis that threatens the health of the planet.

• The epidemic of gun violence that strikes with increasing frequency: on the subway, in supermarkets, in classrooms.

To name a few.

American democracy is not uniform.

The Supreme Court appears poised to strike down the right of American women to have an abortion within certain limits.

Some states, exercising their own form of democracy, hope to prohibit women from terminating any unwanted pregnancy, even shortly after conception.

Lawmakers in Oklahoma recently passed a bill that would ban abortion "from conception."

Who should Biden support in this election?

A key test of faith in American democracy comes Tuesday in Georgia as the Republican governor and secretary of state who opposed former President Donald Trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 election results will face off with primary voters. Republicans.

Both Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger want to keep their jobs.

For the gubernatorial race, Trump has endorsed former US Sen. David Perdue, but Kemp appears to have momentum, drawing the former president's ire.

Election deniers, as Politico points out, have so far failed to win primaries for secretary of state jobs in Idaho and Nebraska.

The cruel irony of these primaries.

The difficulty for someone like Biden is that he may prefer that Republicans who recognize the legitimacy of his presidency win their primaries.

It could be said that he sends a signal of unity, however small, in a shared truth.

But he may also hurt the party's prospects for him in November to have Republican candidates who might appeal to voters who don't reject him outright.

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Abroad, Biden speaks clearly and with power.

White House advisers were caught off guard and immediately sought to clarify Biden's unequivocal promise to Taiwan on Monday.

"Yes," he said, the United States would get involved militarily if China invaded Taiwan just like Russia invaded Ukraine.

"That's the commitment we made," Biden said during a news conference in Tokyo, standing next to Japan's prime minister.

It is a step further than the United States has gone to help Ukraine, which is not part of the strategic North Atlantic Treaty Organization, known as NATO.

Biden has repeated this promise multiple times in recent months, suggesting he is speaking his mind, while advisers -- who reiterated the US's respect for the mainland Chinese government -- are trying to be ambiguous.

International relations can be difficult to follow.

The United States appeases China by not having official diplomatic relations with the autonomous island of Taiwan, and China prevents Taiwan from being an official member of international alliances.

But the United States has supported Taiwan as a democracy and pledged in the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 to provide weapons to help it defend itself.

A message from Biden to China

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China would face American firepower (Biden did not explain how) if it invaded Taiwan.

• What happens between China and Taiwan?

  Everything you need to know about the dispute

Confronting authoritarian aggressors by democracies is becoming the main theme of the Biden presidency.

He wants to show the world that the American form of government is better than the authoritarian version, where presidents change the rules to give themselves power for decades or for life and where they plan to take over the Earth.

Remake the United States as the leader of the democracies.

Biden's greatest success as president has been rallying most of the world against the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

But at home he faces an arduous task.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman left a recent lunch with Biden with a heavy heart.

"Biden didn't say it in so many words, but he didn't have to," Friedman wrote.

"I could hear him between the lines: He is concerned that while he has brought the West together, he may not be able to bring America together."

Democracy works both ways.

Friedman's biggest point was that no one knows if the next US president will be such a strong supporter of democracy.

The evidence suggests that Biden's chance to bring America together, if such an opportunity ever existed and if the United States was ever truly united, may now be long past.

The same democracy that gave him power may soon take something away from him.