It’s technically possible that Biden has undergone some sort of Road to Damascus–style conversion experience, and that he’s now dedicated to opposing the establishment interests he’s spent his life serving. That sort of thing does happen. Wendell Potter, for example, went from being a health insurance executive who lobbied against even incremental reforms to a passionate advocate of single-payer.
One problem with this hypothesis is that he’s very recently acted like the same old Biden. If he did undergo some Potter-type transformation, had it happened yet in June 2019, when he notoriously promised a roomful of wealthy donors that he wouldn’t “demonize” the rich, no one’s “standard of living” would decline under his presidency, and “nothing would fundamentally change”? What about this March, when even in the midst of the initial chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic, he told an interviewer that if both houses of Congress passed Medicare for All while he was president, he would veto it? While not technically incompatible with the half measures he’s officially committed to on health care and higher education, these moments don’t exactly scream “changed man.”
Only two weeks ago, various outlets reported that Biden’s transition team is vetting several Republicans for prominent cabinet positions, including Charlie Dent, a former congressman turned lobbyist, and John Kasich, the former governor of Ohio. When Dent rushed to register as a lobbyist after the legally mandated one-year “cooling off” period following his resignation from Congress, the clients he disclosed were pharmaceutical companies and private health insurance providers. As governor, Kasich was a notorious union-buster.
Even if it’s an overstatement to say that “personnel is policy,” this isn’t the sort of team you’d be likely to assemble for an all-out push for reforms like card check and a public option.