But that is the paradox: In a narrowly divided Congress, Biden almost certainly will not be able to make major public investments if he is conflict averse. Passing a bold agenda will likely require an epic confrontation with the Republicans, who are already girding for obstruction. After years of profligate tax cuts and spending, GOP leaders are suddenly pretending to care about the deficit, and if history is any guide, they will renew their efforts to block the changes to environmental and labor laws that Biden has promised are forthcoming.

The left is correct to fear Biden getting too cozy with Republicans: His record working with the GOP was marked by collaborating with segregationists against school busing, supporting the Iraq War and pushing to cut Social Security—and it is not hard to imagine Biden now finding common ground with Mitch McConnell on the latter.

But this is where progressives must learn their own lesson from the Obama years: rather than once again offering deference to a first-term Democratic president, they must press Biden to reject an attitude of appeasement, move him into a more confrontational posture and urge him to see the first few months of the Obama era as a cautionary tale rather than a guidebook. And they have already had some initial success doing that: they successfully pressured him to start supporting the $2,000 survival checks.

"We've got to pass the infrastructure package, we've got do the $2,000 checks, we've got to do a whole bunch of things with a 50-50 Senate and a pretty slight margin in the House," said Wisconsin Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan, a former co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. "I hope we don't do what we did when Barack Obama first got elected and try to have kumbaya a little too much with everybody and not get things done in that little period of time we had. We really have to act and use the very tight margins we have very swiftly in order to get these things done."

This will require the kind of shrewdness, discipline and intestinal fortitude not typically seen from the left in decades. Grassroots groups will have to get comfortable pressuring the new administration, even if the White House doesn't like it. Democratic lawmakers will have to be prepared to clash with Biden, even when he is trying to talk them down with "come on, man," "here's the deal" and other sweet nothings.

The good news is that progressives are better positioned for this fight than they have been in years. The corporate wing of the Democratic Party remains powerful by virtue of its ties to big money, but polls show it has lost the argument in the contest of ideas. Many Americans want big change, and want it now—and progressive Democratic lawmakers are fortified by a grassroots fundraising base, better political infrastructure and name-brand leaders.

In the House, the Progressive Caucus has dozens of members, and it is revamping its rules to be a more cohesive voting bloc so that it can leverage power in the narrowly divided chamber.

Already, the group—led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other members of the Squad—persuaded Democratic leaders to reform budget rules to make it easier to pass landmark initiatives like a Green New Deal and Medicare for All. They can also reject the "look forward, not backward" attitude and instead press to invoke the Congressional Review Act to rescind a slew of last-minute Trump regulations designed to weaken protections for the environment and workers while undermining the fight against climate change.

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