My prediction: the Biden era will be the inverse of Obama era. Obama was seen as a progressive in the last phase of the Reagan-Clinton era. Biden is a moderate in the beginning of a post-neoliberal era.

He will represent a transition between neoliberal hegemony and new ideas.

A combination of social movements and structural conditions (the pandemic, the destruction of the middle class, etc) gives us a chance to make move extensive government involvement in our society a common sense idea.

We have a chance to create a new era in the next 4 years.

The initial signs from the Biden Administration are giving me cautious optimism.

- Talking about using everything at their disposal to push for full employment

- Talking about going big on two rounds of stimulus/investment

- Willing to use reconciliation

In my opinion, the left has an opportunity to continue building towards hegemony by integrating our ideas into the shifting Democratic Party consensus.

We need to show government can solve people's problems. Now is our chance to use government as a force for good.

As @aldatweets said the other day, we often focus too much on individual politicians and not enough on structural forces.

No matter what Biden believes, we're at the onset of a new hegemonic era in American politics. We may just see the first inklings, but it has begun.

I still believe left-populist hegemony won't be consolidated until later this decade and someone like AOC is our Reagan.

But, we will have lots of opportunities to move in that direction in the next four years. The ground is shifting beneath our feet and the old era is dying.

Even if you have zero faith in Biden, there are lots of reasons to expect he will govern as a synthesis between neo-Keynesianism and neoliberalism.

The squad, social movements like @sunrisemvmt and increased labor militancy will be significant forces pushing him left.

Crucially, the left and progressives will not treat Biden as tentatively as we did Obama. Biden won't get a real honeymoon from progressives.

Movements aren't demobilizing; they're preparing to push. And Biden doesn't engender the degree of love and admiration that Obama did.

To measure this ideological shift quantitatively, I imagine the proposals Biden puts out in the next three to four months will be much closer to plugging the output gap than the proposals Obama put out.

It's not because Biden is smarter than Obama; the terrain has shifted.

LBJ was a lifelong racist who pushed for and passed the civil rights act.

FDR began his 1932 campaign by promising to balance the budget.

Presidencies aren't made by the men who guide them, but by the forces they navigate, and the winds of history are pushing our way.