Many people addressed Joe Biden, the 46th U.S. president, as the “President in the Basement” for taking a moderate stance on political affairs. Granted, he entered the Democratic primaries with a narrow attempt to end Trump’s governance, and he did not make accomplishments as comparable as those of his predecessors such as Obamacare. Nevertheless, attributing his presidency merely to Barrack Obama’s pre-election pitches, Kamala Harris’s multicultural identities, or the “anyone-but-Trump” phenomenon would be an unbalanced view. An alternative way to interpret his moderate-democratic outlook is Centrism: avoiding political extremes by taking an ideologically intermediate position to maximize electoral support.

Biden has kept a Centrism stance throughout his career. Once he secured the Democratic nomination, he adopted plans from intra-party competitors, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warrens, that voters preferred. Biden embraced a partial version of Sanders’s ideal of a tuition-free college for families with low income and picked up Warren’s proposal to overhaul the bankruptcy system, which entails repealing parts of a law he helped pass (Evan Osnos, 17). In return, Sanders endorsed him soon after pulling out from the campaign, and Warren helped him by swiftly dispatching another democratic competitor, Bloomberg. Instead of savaging debate opponents, Biden strived to incorporate the best ideas to the maximum extent, which gained him hard-won advocacy and reverence from his fellow candidates.

Additionally, Trump’s discriminatory remarks on black protestors in the case of George Floyd gave rise to America’s burgeoning polarization. On the other hand, Biden smartly balanced the hierarchical privileges given to police officers and social equality. He thrilled progressives in his proposal to narrow down the applicability of “qualified immunity” on policemen, a public shield that exempted the four polices involved in the death of George Floyd from lawsuits alleging that their conduct was not strictly unconstitutional. Wary of tilting too far to the left, however, Biden refused to defund the police. Instead, he proposed a 300-million-dollar investment in community policing, which could give the police department resources to reform by, for instance, hiring officers who mirror the radial diversity of the community.

During Trump’s presidency, his incompetence in containing coronavirus threatened thousands of elderly lives vulnerable to infection, providing a potential opening for Biden’s Centrism to win over the fed-up senior voters. Polls have shown that a majority of likely Democratic voters identified as moderate or conservative were over fifty. Accordingly, Biden sought to lower the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 60, so Americans who work hard and retire before they turn 65 can automatically enroll in the insurance, in contrast with Republicans who raised the eligible age to 67. Simultaneously, he added a “public option” people could easily shift into if they are unsatisfied with what their employers offer — an idea that was considered radical a decade ago but conservative by the new standards.

Centrism might be risky for being not as provocative and unwavering. However, it provides reliable assurance for American citizens that they would not be led far astray in periods of turbulence. During the outbreak of coronavirus, Donald Trump politicized the issue of wearing masks and social distancing, reflected in distinctive solutions by different parties to face the virus. Illustrated in Pew Research Center’s startling poll published on June 25th, separately, 8% and 28% of Democrats, but 31% and 65% of Republicans, were willing to attend a crowded party and eat in a restaurant. When people face a lack of information or misinformation, they follow public cues that might significantly define their safety, property, and well-being. Compared with Trump’s hardline plans to open corporations and revive the economy, Biden’s prudent measures put his words into action that there are no red and blue states in front of a universal threat, but a united, anti-pandemic America.

Biden is never the choice of progressives. Instead, his tepidity is analogous to the temporizing water, which diffuses the extremes and gradually drips away barricades. He wittily found middle grounds between Republican and Democrats, social hierarchy and racial equality, opponents and advocates that won him the presidency in times when Centrism might, instead of “Making America Great Again,” alleviate political and racial divide, depoliticize the scientific issue of the pandemics, and uncover subtle possibilities of equality and peace.