But between Biden’s ego and the DNC’s determination to stick with a wholly-owned establishment neoliberal hack at all costs - even if it means losing - I expected that they wouldn’t take this golden opportunity.
Biden has objectively been the most progressive president since LBJ, and the most effective progressive president since FDR. And he did it with about the slimmest possible congressional margins, a situation which would have made it very easy for an actual “establishment neoliberal hack” to say “my hands are tied” and accomplish nothing of substance. Instead we got the biggest climate reform package ever, the biggest infrastructure package since the Interstate Highway system, a child tax credit that massively reduced child poverty, the most significant industrial policy in decades (CHIPS and Science), a veritable bulldog FTC chair with an aggressive anti-monopoly stance, and that’s just for starters.
I could see trying to spin it as “As an elder statesman, I don’t have it in me to simultaneously run a national campaign and govern the country, so I’ll be putting 100% of my focus on finishing out my term and passing the torch to the next generation of blah blah blah.”