Thread by @alexburnsNYT

My story today: Dems had just settled on a 2020 message, about center-left policies & a return to normalcy, when covid made it obsolete.

Now, Biden is promising FDR-scale change, and Dems from Warner to Warren say the moment demands deep economic reform.
nytimes.com/2020/05/17/us/…

Dems are a long way from defining a hundred-days agenda for 2021. But there is already a clear consensus in the party that incrementalism is out and Big Structural Change(tm) is in.

There may a difference, however, between going big and going left ...
nytimes.com/2020/05/17/us/…

There are already clear areas of agreement among Dems. But there is also a race to come up with new plans.

Biden is ramping up his policy-drafting apparatus, while progressive leaders have begun convening a weekly meeting known as the Friday Morning Group to craft an agenda.

It's worth stepping back to note this is alien territory for Biden: His political career has not been about grand economic change. For decades, he was mainly focused on foreign policy and criminal justice.

But in recent weeks he has made his shifting economic orientation clear.

A major backdrop for the Dem conversation is a widely held view that they did not fully meet the moment in the last recession.

This time, it is not just the left urging a bigger agenda: moderates like @MichaelBennet want an ambitious attack on inequality.
nytimes.com/2020/05/17/us/…

People who have spoken with Biden directly say that is his inclination, too, though the details are still in progress.

@ewarren, who called this "a big moment that we must meet with big ideas," said she is convinced Biden shares that view.
nytimes.com/2020/05/17/us/…

Looming challenge for Biden and other Dems is crafting a greatly expanded agenda in a way that balances the insistent demands of the left w/the reservations of the moderate swing voters Biden is focused on

Easier said than done (& not that easily said...)
nytimes.com/2020/05/17/us/…

Jake Sullivan, one of Biden's closest policy advisers, says he hasn't changed his fundamental economic worldview

But there is a recognition in the Biden camp that this is a new world, & a Biden presidency would be pretty different from the one he imagined
nytimes.com/2020/05/17/us/…

There is a lot in here on Dems reopening the debate about their identity as a party, and about what the most important figures in their coalition think it would take for them to lead in this crisis. So, I hope you'll spend some time with this story today👇
nytimes.com/2020/05/17/us/…