“We handed away votes to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and then celebrated – dancing in the streets like fools,” Jecorey Arthur told us days after Biden’s victory last November. Despite running on a Democratic ticket for Louisville City Council in Kentucky, this racial justice activist was deeply sceptical of the incoming president – like so many we met across the US.
In Georgia’s critical Senate race in January, progressive canvassers were similarly lukewarm. These volunteers had flown and bussed in from all over the country to turn out the Democratic vote; their efforts helped deliver Biden a vital congressional majority. Yet few could muster much enthusiasm for the president-elect, describing him as a “corporate centrist”, a “neoliberal”; better than Trump, yes, but not capable or willing to take bold action on the climate crisis, poverty, healthcare, racial justice and much more.
Fast forward three months, and ‘Sleepy Joe’ has confounded many of those downbeat predictions. He has passed a record-breaking ‘American Rescue Plan’ – delivering $1,400 stimulus checks, extending unemployment insurance, and implementing a temporary childhood tax credit that some experts claim will cut childhood poverty in half.
