People are supposed to grow ever more conservative with age. The teenage dreamer becomes the middle-aged pragmatist, who in turn settles into late-life reaction. A curious feature of Joe Biden’s story is that it defies this classical arc. The New Democrat of yesteryear, tough on welfare and even tougher on criminals, is now the party’s most progressive candidate for the White House since the 1980s.
Nothing makes the point more resoundingly than his economic platform. A President Biden would spend upwards of $2tn on climate change abatement. The money, which doubles up as stimulus for a stricken economy, would not just fund research into clean energy but directly update America’s physical infrastructure.