Yesterday was a good day. Like so many others, I heard the news of Donald Trump’s loss not from TV pundits, but from spontaneous cheering in the streets. By the time I had grabbed a pot to bang outside, cars in the streets of my New York City neighborhood were honking wildly, and dozens had already poured out to celebrate. Many hours (and many drinks) later, millions of us across the country were still out dancing and celebrating.

Collective political joy is generally rare in the United States, but it’s been in particularly short supply this year — or, to be more specific, since late February. The effervescence generated by Bernie Sanders’s primary win in Nevada feels like a lifetime ago, washed away by the Democratic establishment’s consolidation on Super Tuesday and the subsequent pandemic. So even though Joe Biden is a billionaire-backed neoliberal, we deserved every ounce of glee we could get.

Of course, none of this diminishes the severe shortcomings of Biden and the Democratic Party, as underscored again by the absence of a congressional blue wave and recent leaks about Biden’s possible cabinet appointments. Nor should we miss a beat in pointing out that Trump is the product of four decades of bipartisan neoliberalism and that only a bold agenda of transformational change can prevent Republicans from taking back power in 2022 and 2024.