There are several themes to Joe Biden's five-decade career: his willingness to shift positions with a change in the wind; his willingness to let his family take advantage of his political position (and his willingness to cut the usual DC sweetheart deals with friendly companies);

his absolute and utter wrongness on every major foreign policy issue of the last half-century; his bloviation and gaffes which were so bad they repeatedly sank his ambitions. If Biden represents a return to normalcy, that's because the Old Normal was corrupt and venal too.

Nothing makes Joe Biden a transformational figure. But nothing makes him a bulwark against transformation either. His career has always been about absolute ambition, pockmarked by utter incompetence and thorough dishonesty.

In other words, those who are saying that Biden will represent a renewed stasis are wrong. Biden has moved to appease the prevailing winds on every major political issue. And those winds blow strongly to the radical Left in his own party.