Opinion | Biden Can Still Get Things Done. Achieving National Unity Isn’t One of Them.

Joe Biden’s presidency began in the shadow of a violent insurrection that threatened to tear our country apart. He promised to heal the “soul” of our nation and restore unity. By most accounts, that has been Mr. Biden’s North Star, his highest mission. Despite his low approval ratings, Democrats did surprisingly well in the midterms last week. Against strong headwinds like inflation, they avoided a red wave and retained control of the Senate.

But even with these favorable results for Democrats, the country will remain almost evenly divided in Congress, and Democrats and Republicans often act as though they live in different realities — all of which suggests that Mr. Biden has failed in his unity mission.

That is not a surprise, because the goal of national unity was unattainable in the first place — unattainable now, as it has always been in the nation’s past.

Though Mr. Biden reiterated that goal in post-midterm remarks (“I’m going to do everything in my power to see through that we unite the country”), he should stop focusing on the unattainable and focus instead on a different, more pragmatic approach. He should acknowledge that the American nation has many “souls,” not just one, and he must lead and get things done for the American people by creating new connections among them while respecting their distinctness.

Demands for unity actually tear us apart. Even on what appear to be widely held beliefs in things as basic as our democratic system, consensus is rare in American history — we are too large and too diverse for that to be possible. And consensus also threatens to silence many legitimate and worthwhile voices.

Indeed, demands for unity are seductive but can cause grave harm because they pretend a leader can somehow erase deep differences. No president has ever done that. Instead, the call for unity raises expectations in every group of citizens that they can get what they want by making their wishes the dominant position taken up by the government and therefore applicable to everyone. Those left out fear they will get none of what they want and must therefore resist at all costs.

That is where we are today, with Democrats and Republicans locked in a death spiral to define the dominant program for government — either no abortion or free choices about pregnancy; easy access to guns or onerous restrictions; low taxes or a progressive system that reallocates wealth. The choices often appear to be all or nothing.

The most effective presidents in American history were not figures who elicited universal admiration. Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan were hated by large parts of the population. Numerous groups organized to defeat them, promoting alternative policies, harmful lies and sometimes even lethal violence.

Roosevelt famously said, against those who opposed his New Deal programs, that he welcomed “their hatred.” Johnson said to those who resisted transformative civil rights legislation that “we will not accept” the unity “that stifles protest.” Mobilizing citizens for change required opponents who could serve as useful contrasts.

These presidents abandoned demands for bipartisan consensus. They also sometimes defied the cautious leaders of their own parties and instead used their office to shake longstanding partisan positions and build support for new, creative polices like Black participation in the Union Army in 1863 and Social Security for all citizens in 1935. Neither party had fully embraced these programs before Lincoln and Roosevelt pieced them together.

Mr. Biden must adopt a similar approach to his next two years as president. He must stop waiting for a moment of revelation when all good citizens come together to protect our embattled democracy. He should begin by telling Americans that will never happen in such a large, diverse country. It is not our history. We will remain divided, but our divisions are more complex than Democrat versus Republican. That is where Mr. Biden, like his predecessors, has room to maneuver.

The president should devote his energies to building new coalitions around specific policy issues. He can start with the economy — the most important issue in this year’s election.

Many Democrats and Republicans are eager to see more executive action combating inflation. Efforts to reduce supply chain blockages, decrease tariffs on imported products and place more money in the hands of middle-income consumers can bring groups of liberals and conservatives in Congress together for specific legislation.

The same is true for investment in critical industries, as we saw with the bipartisan coalition that passed the CHIPS and Science Act this summer. On abortion and gun control, there is growing evidence of possible coalitions to protect basic women’s health and school safety.

Presidents have assembled coalitions most frequently on issues related to foreign policy. Despite some recent signs of cracks, support for Ukraine has already brought antagonistic groups together in Congress to approve assistance to Kyiv and sanctions against Moscow. Resistance to Chinese aggression in East Asia has encouraged similar coalitions.

Partisan pressures will clearly constrain coalition-building on many other issues, especially immigration and inequality. Highly organized interest groups in each party and partisan media discourage elected officials from defying the most extreme voices.

But that is why we have a president. He is not a prime minister, who is a leader of a party in government. The president is supposed to lead all parties. The president can work between them, relying on personal relationships, individual incentives and, when necessary, targeted threats.

The timing for this coalition work is favorable after bitter, hard-fought midterm elections. The members of the House and Senate seated in early 2023 will not face a partisan primary for more than a year; that makes them a little less beholden to their most extreme supporters. They will, however, need to please party leaders for committee assignments and other privileges, so they will not abandon partisanship either. What members will want are successes they can take back to their voters, showing they can get things done before the next election in 2024.

Their voters want economic stability, basic protections for their bodies and children, relief from inflation and evidence that the world is not teetering on the edge of nuclear war. This is Mr. Biden’s moment to appeal for coalitions of convenience on those issues — not an elimination of partisanship, but a channeling of partisan interests to specific purposes.

The rioters who attacked the Capitol in January 2021 feared that Mr. Biden’s promises of unity would destroy their power, but even their sympathizers care about the economy, health and safety. That is where the president must meet them, showing that he can help some of his opponents as he helps some of his supporters, a pluralistic approach that has always worked better than appeals to partisanship or unity.

Jeremi Suri, a history professor at the University of Texas, Austin, and the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, is the author, most recently, of “Civil War by Other Means: America’s Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy” and the host of the podcast “This Is Democracy.”