Joe Biden won the primary by presenting himself as a sane bulwark against the Castro-loving socialist Bernie Sanders. But after having captured the nomination, Biden is using the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to embrace the radical left wing of the party.
To be clear, it was never fair to call Biden a centrist — as the description only made sense relative to his rivals. Even before the coronavirus hit, Biden proposed $6 trillion in new spending in service of an unapologetically liberal agenda. With that said, it’s also true that Biden positioned himself as an opponent of the sort of transformational change being proposed by his opponents in favor of a promise to build incrementally on the legacy of his former boss, Barack Obama. He criticized the proposals of Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren as too disruptive and politically unrealistic.
