A Biden Presidency Could Be Better Than Progressives Think

[marble falls]

A Biden Presidency Could Be Better Than Progressives Think

Campaign promises matter, and his platform shows a distinct leftward drift.
Michelle Goldberg

By Michelle Goldberg

Opinion Columnist

April 20, 2020, 8:21 p.m. ET

Credit...Hilary Swift for The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/opinion/joe-biden-progressive.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Contributors

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Biden’s proposals go far beyond his call for a $15 federal minimum wage — a demand some saw as radical when Sanders pushed it four years ago. While it’s illegal for companies to fire employees for trying to organize a union, the penalties are toothless. Biden proposes to make those penalties bite and to hold executives personally liable. He would follow California in cracking down on companies like Uber that misclassify full-time workers as independent contractors who aren’t entitled to benefits. He’d extend federal labor protections to farmworkers and domestic workers.

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Biden wouldn’t need to pivot so dramatically to be a transformative progressive president. There are plenty of bleak moments in his record, including his treatment of Anita Hill and his Iraq war vote, but it’s not quite as reactionary as leftists sometimes imagine. Among other things, he’s long been better-than-average on unions; as Jared Bernstein, Biden’s former chief economist, told me, “One of the main things that differentiates Biden from a traditional mainstream Democrat is his understanding of the importance of worker power.”

Still, it’s clear that he’s moving leftward. Biden recently came out for tuition-free college for students whose families earn less than $125,000. He endorsed Elizabeth Warren’s bankruptcy plan, something that would have been unimaginable in 2005, when Warren, then a Harvard law professor, charged onto the public stage to fight a regressive bankruptcy bill that Biden supported.

After long supporting the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funding for most abortions, Biden gave in to pro-choice pressure to come out against it. His climate plan already went beyond any of Barack Obama’s initiatives, and he’s pledged to make it even more robust. Biden’s health care proposal falls far short of single-payer, but it is, as Paul Waldman wrote in The Washington Post, “surprisingly liberal.”

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[Fiendish Thingy]

1. Biden will have a once in a century opportunity to make substantive changes

The current crisis has opened a window of opportunity that wasn’t there during the 2008 meltdown. There will be a unique opportunity to push through improvements to healthcare and legislation to address income inequality, with more support from voters and a weakened opposition.

Insurance companies will be jacking up premiums and denying coverage to make up for profits lost during this pandemic, and folks just might decide they don’t like their employers plans as much as they used to (for those that have jobs).

If Dems take back the senate, Biden should go for the whole enchilada, no pragmatic incrementalism. If he wants to restore America’s soul, he can start by creating long term relief for all the working families who will continue to be suffering. The American people will be ready for substantive change that makes their lives better - the fear of change will have been surpassed by the fear of things not changing.

Then he can set his sights on bringing Trump and his minions to justice.