Think bigger: that's the message for Starmer from Biden's bold beginning

Centrist policies are unequal to the crises we face, and the new US president’s ambitious priorities acknowledge that

If you’re on the British left, the last few months in American politics have provided some cheer during a grim period. Trump lost, despite the widespread fear that he would not. The Democrats captured the Senate, despite the system for electing it being biased against them. The American right, so influential around the world, seems in some disarray.

More startling still, the American left appears to be exerting an influence on Joe Biden. Its two best-known figures, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are seeing some of their ideas, such as doubling the minimum wage and a Green New Deal, shape Biden’s presidential priorities and possibly his actual policies. Former Sanders advisers have been hired by the administration. And Ocasio-Cortez – who said last year that “in any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party” – said last month that she was “extraordinarily encouraged” by his government, for its “openness” to the views of radical climate activists.

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

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