Vox On Joe Biden's surprisingly progressive agenda

[TomCADem]

Vox makes the point that the most transformative presidents in our nation’s history — Lincoln, FDR, LBJ — were not ideologues. FDR epitomized the Democratic elite establishment at the time. Democratic progressives opposed Kennedy's selection of LBJ, an old white southerner, as a VP.

https://www.vox.com/21322478/joe-biden-overton-window-bidenism

Progressive groups overwhelmingly favored confrontational leftists like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren during the 2020 primary campaign. And many pretty clearly favored younger, more diverse rising stars like Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg over Joe Biden. Biden, after all, is not only a paid-up member of the “establishment,” he’s a veteran of the long shadow cast over American politics by Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan — a guy who voted in favor of the invasion of Iraq, of multiple pieces of legislation deregulating the banking industry, of the 1994 welfare reform bill, and of the “tough on crime” 1994 criminal justice bill.

Biden is now the presumptive nominee, but progressives still fundamentally do not see him or his team as kindred spirits. Many, however, are becoming more optimistic about Bidenism. His platform is in many ways a surprisingly progressive approach to policy that the left sees as a triumph of their own work in trying to change the terms of debate in American politics.

Biden “envisions a massive public sector role for job creation,” points out Faiz Shakir, who managed Bernie Sanders’s 2016 campaign. He doesn’t think Biden has suddenly become a left-wing hero. But he credits Biden, Biden’s team, and mainstream Democrats more broadly with “understanding that in Covid times there needs to be thinking about bold practical measures.”

Republicans have so far failed in their attempt to convince moderate voters that Biden is a socialist snake in the grass. Even as broader American society sees a genuine upsurge of left-wing radicalism both in the streets and in the realm of ideas, public perception of Biden continues to hold that he is closer to the middle ground than President Donald Trump.

[LakeArenal]

1. Really not surprising for a large number of us knew before the primaries.

Others might not have been listening.