Biden’s dual identities – ally of oligarchy and friend of the working class – are in fundamental conflict. On green, gender and other gentry-liberal issues, the progressive left and the oligarchy are in fundamental agreement. But when it comes to class issues, like taxes and labour organising, the new oligarchs, however sartorially modest they are these days, still think like corporate aristocrats. They are desperate to preserve their quasi-monopolies and unorganised workforce, and often use groups like the Business Roundtable as convenient fronts.

Democrats are also looking to make life easier for the highly affluent metropolitan population that now makes up much of the progressive fundraising base. Expanding the welfare state to the affluent may make them both complacent about fiscal impacts and politically compliant. Reinstating write-offs for local taxes and subsidies for electric vehicles will greatly benefit this distinctly non-proletarian constituency.

In contrast, the Democrats’ Green New Deal – now repackaged as the $3.5 trillion Reconciliation Bill – threatens the interests of many in the working class, and many among Biden’s staunch labour-union allies. The Sanders-inspired bill has at its base a transformative programme that would all but eliminate fossil fuels from the economy. Biden’s genuflection to the green cause has already resulted in the loss of some 10,000 high-paying, mostly union jobs, due to the cancellation of the Keystone pipeline.