By design, Congress is unable to do anything. It's either one party (always the same party) being completely obstructionist, even other presidential appointments, or if a rotating villain who defects and stops any meaningful legislation.
Power has moved to the courts and to the states. Again, entirely by design. In the current term, there is an inocuous sounding case called Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo [1], which is expected to overturn a longstanding (~40 years) precedent called Chevron [2]. This would gut Federal agencies. Chevron set a precedent that in areas of ambiguity courts would give deference to Federal agencies. The argument for this is that Congress has to be explicit but Congress cannot possibly explicitly regulate, for example, salmon quotas and inspections. The goal here is deregulation for profit. That's it.
For the last 30+ years, every president issues an executive order on day 1 either banning or allowing recipients of foreign aid to provide counselling on abortion, depending on the party.
The real question here is why did this take 3 years into Biden's regime for the FCC to act? The FCC is an appointed position. This could've been done in 2021.
> Maybe it's always been this way though and I'm just getting old enough to be bothered by it?
No, it's now more obstructionist than it ever has been but it's always been more difficult to make changes than not. Previously there was more respect for institutional norms. For example, if the president nominated someone for a position, that person would always get a Senate hearing regardless of who controlled the Senate. There is no law that required that but people previously accepted the president had a mandate for appointments. Now? It's way more scorched earth.
[1]: https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/loper-bright-ent...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevron_U.S.A.,_Inc._v._Natura....