When Democratic primary voters selected Joe Biden to be the Party’s standard bearer in 2020, the faithful made their choice in a very specific context: the Trump administration. Like with Labour facing a Tory government gone off the rails, progressive in the U.S. were determined to nominate a candidate who would appeal to the electorate as a whole—who would, namely, be capable of drawing together the anti-Trump vote. Joe Biden was, without a doubt, perfectly suited to play that role. The man from Scranton—a figure with bipartisan sensibilities rooted in his experience growing up as a working-class kid in Pennsylvania—met the moment and succeeded. He vanquished the incumbent populist.
But then things changed. In an odd twist ostensibly fueled by a moderate’s determination to unite progressives, the man who ran most notably as a beacon of the center chose to govern as a paragon of the left. There’s no mystery to why Sen. Bernie Sanders, the self-described socialist who competed against Biden in the 2020 primaries, was among the most vociferous figures hoping to keep the incumbent atop the ticket. The rationale was clear: Biden had allowed himself to become a vehicle for Sanders’ leftist agenda. Ironically, it was the party’s centrists, figures who had originally propelled Biden’s candidacy, who now wanted him to exit. They wanted the change not only based on the debate debacle but based on defending an agenda they did not sign up for.
