Many years ago, a young man named Frank Bourgin, a graduate student in history at the University of Chicago, wrote a dissertation arguing that founding fathers like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had taken economic positions that, by modern standards, were highly progressive. He hoped that thesis would lead to an illustrious career as a historian — but his advisers, without much of an explanation, rejected his arguments. It wasn't until many years later, when Bourgin was an old man and another historian discovered his work, that he was retroactively vindicated.
If Joe Biden's presidency continues on its current track, he may be remembered as a policy visionary ahead of his time and ignored by his peers.
