In an age of hyperpartisan politics, the Biden presidency offers a welcome centrism that might help bridge the divides.
But it is also Biden’s economic centrism that offers a chance to cut through what has become an increasingly polarised approach to economic policy.
On the Republican side of politics, there is strong support for neoliberal economic policies – that is, economic policies that do not just emphasise the importance of markets but represent a kind of free-market fanaticism. Ronald Reagan aptly expressed this view in his 1981 inaugural speech, in which he said: “government is not the solution to our problem, the government is the problem”.
On the Democratic side, the centrism of the Bill Clinton era (1993-2001) has given way to much more left-wing policies. Indeed the democratic socialism of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been in the ascendancy for several years.
If you have any doubt about this, consider two facts.
First, Sanders came very…
