Joe Biden’s turn to supporting large-scale government spending, after rallying the Democratic Party establishment to defeat Bernie Sanders in the primary, has stunned much of the Left. After signing a $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill, he is now advancing an additional $1.7 trillion infrastructure bill, to be spent over the next eight years. These bills include far more than the base level measures necessary to address the pandemic or to simply repair highways and bridges. Surprisingly, Biden has sought to expand the definition of infrastructure to include spending on elderly care, housing, schools, childcare, and other social programs.

This level of social welfare spending goes beyond anything we’ve seen in the neoliberal period. Obama’s stimulus, enacted immediately after the 2008 crisis, amounted to $831 billion. All the social programs funded through these bills would make the United States a kinder and more civilized place to live.

So it’s understandable that the Left, still stinging from Sanders’s defeat, has been put on the back foot by this offensive — especially as Biden initially seemed to show an unexpected willingness to eschew bipartisanship (although even this limited boldness is fading with time).