It depends if “left” refers to a set of policies, or generally the left-leaning half of the country. The latter includes a lot of people who, like Biden, aren’t that liberal. Apart from white moderates, you have a lot of black people and immigrants for whom upward mobility-a big house and nice cars—is a major theme.

Warren barely finished ahead of Michael Bloomberg (2.8 million votes to 2.4 million votes). Sanders did better, but note that he’s extremely careful on environmental issues, since a large share of his support comes from working class hispanics.

Politics aside, “billionaires will pay for it” is the ultimate cop out for the left these days. Reaganism has won so completely that it’s unthinkable that any viable party could ask the middle class or even the upper middle class to pay for anything. They must maintain the illusion that we can have our cake and eat it too—we can mitigate climate change, but we don’t need to make any change to our standard of living or pay higher taxes because billionaires will pay for it.

Biden isn't really left at all, and one reason nobody goes to the billionaires' pockets to fund all kinds of progressive policies is that there isn't enough money in those pockets. To do major new social safety net services, you need ongoing (large amounts) billions of dollars. European-style social spending is funded by drastically higher tax rates on the middle class; the top marginal rate often kicks in at a CPS teacher's salary there.

I am all for taxing the hell out of billionaires, but deference to their interests isn't what's keeping you from having free grad school and high-speed rail; it's deference to the interests of ordinary people living in suburbs holding that back.

For those not familiar with Chicago politics, "CPS" -> Chicago Public Schools.

(tptacek lives in the Chicago area as I recall.)

Yup. I live in Oak Park. Our teachers are in high tax brackets even in the US.