It's very dangerous for the middle-class centre-left (liberals in US parlance) to raise the hopes of people more desperate than themselves and then dash them repeatedly (remember 'Yes we Can'?).

Such frustration with middle-class centre-leftist leadership was, I believe, part of de Tocqueville's theory of how revolutions happened. And Walter Benjamin's theory of how countries ended up going fascist as well.

Thus, the Troubles that broke out in Northern Ireland in 1969 were preceded by a reforming administration that failed to deliver on its promises to overturn the legacy of fifty years of right-wing repression, earning its Premier the nickname of "Captain Mighthavebeen": https://www.drb.ie/essays/captain-mighthavebeen.

It's surprising that more well-educated liberals don't grasp this lesson from history. But I guess they all tend to operate from the standpoint that it can't happen here.

Will Biden be America's Captain Mighthavebeen? We shall see.