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Demetrius Freeman

Ask a Democrat with a long memory what the numbers 97,488 and 537 represent, and their face will twist into a grimace. The first is the number of votes Ralph Nader received in Florida in 2000 as the nominee of the Green Party; the second is the margin by which George W. Bush was eventually certified the winner of the state, handing him the White House.

Now, with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/candidates/joe-biden-2024/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">President Biden</a> gearing up for reelection, talk of a spoiler candidate from the left is again in the air. That’s unfortunate, because here’s the truth: The past 2½ years under Biden have been a triumph for progressivism, even if it’s not in most people’s interest to admit it.

This was not what most people expected from Biden, who ran as a relative moderate in the 2020 Democratic primary. His nomination was a victory for pragmatism with its eyes directed toward the center.

But today, no one can honestly deny that Biden is the most progressive president since at least Lyndon B. Johnson. His judicial appointments are <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/bidens-judicial-appointees-by-far-most-diverse-aba-says-2022-07-28/" target=_blank>more diverse</a> than those of any of his predecessors. He has <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Business/biden-climate-law-spurred-billions-clean-energy-investment/story?id=96632120" target=_blank>directed more resources</a> to combating climate change than any other president. Notwithstanding the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/06/30/supreme-court-decision-student-loan-forgiveness/" target=_blank>opposition from the Supreme Court</a>, his administration has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/07/14/biden-student-loan-forgiveness-income-driven/" target=_blank>moved</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/07/25/college-america-student-loan-cancellation/" target=_blank>aggressively</a> to forgive and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/student-loans-debt-college-cancellation-forgiveness-34152bb5000128a413efd2287887a37a" target=_blank>restructure student loans</a>.

And in a story that is criminally underappreciated, his administration’s policy reaction to the covid-induced <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/business/coronavirus-recession-equality/" target=_blank>recession of 2020</a> was revolutionary in precisely the ways any good leftist should favor. It embraced massive government intervention to stave off the worst economic impacts, including handing millions of families monthly checks (by <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/01/27/1075299510/the-expanded-child-tax-credit-briefly-slashed-child-poverty-heres-what-else-it-d" target=_blank>expanding the child tax credit</a>), giving all kids in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/20/universal-free-school-lunch-end/" target=_blank>public schools free meals</a>, boosting unemployment insurance and extending health coverage to millions.

It worked. While inflation rose (as it did worldwide), the economy’s recovery has been blisteringly fast. It took more than six years for <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PAYEMS" target=_blank>employment rates</a> to return to what they were before the Great Recession hit in 2008, but we surpassed January 2020 jobs levels by the spring of 2022 — and have kept adding jobs ever since.

To the idealistic leftist, that might feel like both old news and a partial victory at best. What about everything supporters of Bernie Sanders have found so thrilling about the Vermont senator’s vision of the future, from universal health care to free college?

It’s true Biden was never going to deliver that, but to be honest, neither would Sanders had he been elected president. And that brings me to the heart of how people on the left ought to think about Biden and his reelection.

He has been exactly the kind of president the left should hope for, not because he shares its agenda but because his agenda is malleable. What the left needs in a president is someone who can get elected in a closely divided country and whom progressives can influence.

Biden is that president. His convictions are, shall we say, lightly held. He cares more about making deals and signing legislation than holding to progressive principles. But he has been open to the argument that adopting more progressive stances than Barack Obama or Bill Clinton ever dreamed of can be the politically smart move, in part to maintain good relations with the left side of his party. And presenting progressive policy as moderate common sense is one of Biden’s skills.

This is not to say that the left should stifle its policy complaints and simply cheerlead for Biden’s reelection. Pushing Democrats to do better is the left’s job, and it needs to keep doing that. But there’s a difference between saying, for instance, that Biden’s actions on climate are a good start but much more is needed, and that he’s a failure on climate, proving the parties are indistinguishable. The latter approach demobilizes ordinary people and encourages those with power to stop listening to you.

It would be nice to believe that with enough persuasion, the entire nation will see the light and come to agree with the left’s agenda. But in reality, conservatives will not disappear. There will always be those who oppose the left’s agenda — sometimes a few more, sometimes a few less, but they will always be there. Turning America into a Nordic-style social democracy is, if not impossible, a spectacularly difficult task that would require decades of work, with many setbacks along the way. The right president will not bring it about in four or even eight years.

I’ve been in and around politics for many years, and even among liberals, I’ve almost always been one of the most liberal people in the room. Yet only since Biden’s election have I realized that I will probably never see a president as liberal as I’d like.

It’s not an easy idea to make peace with. But it suggests a different way of thinking about elections — as one necessary step in a long, difficult process. The further you are to the left, the more important Biden’s reelection ought to be to you. It might require emotional (and policy) compromise, but for now, it’s also the most important tool you have to achieve progressive ends.

Swarthmore College, BA in Political Science

University of Pennsylvania, PhD in Communication

Paul Waldman is an author and commentator whose work has appeared in dozens of newspapers and magazines.

Paul Waldman

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