Ageing Biden versus new feisty Democrat generation

SIXTY-SEVEN DAYS TO GO. Joe Biden still has more than nine weeks before he takes over the White House (Trump willing) but already he is facing up to the feisty set of young new-breed Democrats who are hoping for, no demanding, a radical and progressive programme which older Democrats, including Biden himself, are afraid the nation will view as socialism with a big S. Biden is by instinct and record a centrist who will seek the middle way with everything, probably even on climate-change although his ideas at the moment look to be pretty far-reaching. But the new generation of Congress members on the Democrat side are not going to put up with soft, soggy politics. They want radicalism to take over the country. I'm thinking here mainly about the Famous Four Congresswomen, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (New York), Rashida Tlaib (Michigan), Ilhan Omar (Minnesota) and Ayanna Pressley (Massachusetts) - the so-called AOC Squad. Ocasio-Cortez is the youngest of the four at 31. Omar is 38, Tlaib, 44, and Pressley, 46. Joe Biden will be 78 on November 20. These four and others who support their progressive views will cause endless trouble for Biden when he takes over from Trump. But from the moment they launched themselves on the political scene they have added a breath of fresh invigorating air into the Democratic party. They are radical, sure, but they are firebrands of visionary ambition for their country. They will not just keep Biden on his toes, they will force him to be radical himself, to think the impossible even if Congress, especially a Republican-driven Senate, treads heavily on any truly transformative policies. The Democratic party needs the AOC Squad to inject new ideas and inspirational dreams into future policy-making. Nancy Pelosi, an institution who dared to stand up to Trump, is 80 and will be more wary of these four than anyone in the party. But it will be up to Biden and Pelosi - combined age nearly 160 years - to gather in the freshness and enthusiasm of the AOC Squad and make it work for the good of the whole nation over the next four years. I refuse to believe that Biden's first term is going to be destroyed by divisions both within the country and within the Democratic party.