Joe Biden and the underrated value of winning elections

It all depends on what happens next

(Photo by Greg Nash - Pool/Getty Images)

Joe Biden campaigned for president on a sweeping and transformational progressive policy agenda. I know because I covered the 2020 presidential campaign, and part of that coverage was reading about Biden’s policy proposals.

You can read all about it in such Yglesias Takes as:

• “Joe Biden has a plan for that: Not a joke, folks — he’s running on a transformative policy agenda” [May 26, 2020]

• “Progressives don’t love Joe Biden, but they’re learning to love his agenda” [July 18, 2020]

Then he broke out to a huge lead in the polls, after which the election results turned out to be surprisingly close. Then, contrary to the expectations of most people (but not me), Democrats won the special elections in Georgia. That set the stage for the passage of the American Rescue Plan, which suddenly led to a flourishing of takes about how Biden could be a transformative progressive president.

David Brooks said he could lead a realignment on policy even without a par…