Biden the Bold?

Twitter is full of the sounds of deep sighs of relief from the Make American Boring Again faction now that Status Quo Joe is officially the frontrunner in delegate count (barely). That's understandable, and hard to begrudge.

And I give the Corporate Centrist faction credit for waiting at least a day or so before going into smug-like-Hillary-supporters-in-2020 mode. I hope for all our sakes that Biden and his campaign are very aware of and prepared to compensate for his weaknesses.

It would also be good if Biden could pick one or two good, popular policy themes by which he can define his campaign.

This Biden-booster article by Yascha Mounk, Biden’s Agenda Is Plenty Bold The Atlantic 04/04/2020, apparently seeks to convince us that a from items from the boilerplate list of issues from Democratic fundraising letters amounts to a gutsy policy agenda: "Biden has pledged a higher minimum wage, a big increase in Social Security benefits for the poorest Americans, more generous health subsidies, and strengthened union rights. While unabashedly in favor of markets, Biden is just as unabashedly in favor of completing the American welfare state."

Except he's definitely against "completing the American welfare state" with comprehensive national health-insurance, aka, Medicare for All. Definitely not that!

Mounk also uses the argument that Biden's program is "social democracy", which he assumes that will be perfectly acceptable to voters while Sanders' "democratic socialism", which voters will presumably find horrifying. I don't recall ever hearing of Biden use "social-democracy" to define his program. And while I heard someone the other day make some kind of distinction between social democracy and democratic socialism, it was surprised to hear it. Because I'd have to do research myself to to figure out how to make an argument like that. And I have at least a passing familiarity with the history of socialism.

Eric Levitz recently said in explaining the difference in Biden's approached and Sanders', that Sanders embraces "radical social-democratic reform". (Bernie’s Revolution Failed. But His Movement Can Still Win. New York 03/04/2020)

And at the risk of harshing the mellow of Biden fans envisioning floating on the clouds of contentment they thought Electable Hillary Clinton would deliver to them in 2016: Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee will be running against the Republicans. That means, they are going to call him a socialist and a communist and lots of other things as well. Don't kid yourselves.