if he were not idealogical he would have backed Medicare for All (or thrown some kind of bone) under pressure from the grassroots and worry the young left won't be fucked to vote (he's right).
he's doing a bad meat loaf cover: "i'd do anything to beat Trump, but i won't do that"
He's thrown all sorts of bones at the left -- he had tons of meetings with Bernie, for instance -- the left just recognizes them as the load of horseshit that they are.
His constituency is (a) corporate donors and (b) centrist libs whose main priority is defeating Trump. Backing M4A would have pissed off all of that first group and at least some of that second; running on "nothing will fundamentally change" satisfies both. He's not a populist candidate, he knows that (or the people around him do), and his campaign staff credibly believes they don't need to rock the boat to win. The left sees all the problems with that strategy, but the Biden camp doesn't because they're not leftists.
if he were not idealogical he would have backed Medicare for All (or thrown some kind of bone) under pressure from the grassroots and worry the young left won't be fucked to vote (he's right).
he's doing a bad meat loaf cover: "i'd do anything to beat Trump, but i won't do that"
He's thrown all sorts of bones at the left -- he had tons of meetings with Bernie, for instance -- the left just recognizes them as the load of horseshit that they are.
His constituency is (a) corporate donors and (b) centrist libs whose main priority is defeating Trump. Backing M4A would have pissed off all of that first group and at least some of that second; running on "nothing will fundamentally change" satisfies both. He's not a populist candidate, he knows that (or the people around him do), and his campaign staff credibly believes they don't need to rock the boat to win. The left sees all the problems with that strategy, but the Biden camp doesn't because they're not leftists.