I voted for Joe Biden last November in the swing state of Michigan. If time were rewound, I’d do it again. Biden was clearly the lesser evil, and there were both strategic and harm reduction reasons for the Left to prefer spending the next four years fighting him rather than Trump. It mattered whether hardcore union-busters would be appointed to the National Labor Relations Board, and it mattered whether social conservatives would be appointed to the Supreme Court.

But now that Trump has vacated the Oval Office, the Left should resist the temptation to position ourselves as a pressure group within a permanent coalition with centrists. If we see our role as “pushing Biden to the left” inside the mainstream Democratic fold rather than offering a robust alternative, we risk ceasing to exist as a distinct political current.