Voters have little idea about these policies because Mr. Biden mentions them only in the most vague, general terms. The press barely reports them. Americans may think they’re voting for Joe’s persona, but they will get the platform of Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

In Mr. Biden’s sunny telling, he will be the anti-Donald Trump. He won’t kick down, won’t trash norms and won’t alienate allies. He’ll work with Republicans to forge bipartisan policies, restraining the passions of his party’s left. In that sense he has been the perfect Democratic nominee to appeal to women and suburban Republicans tired of polarized politics. He has run a disciplined campaign on character and Covid that has made the election a referendum on Mr. Trump.

We too would like to believe Mr. Biden could govern in a less divisive way because it would be better for the country. Left to his own instincts, and if he were a decade younger, he might pull it off. Every Republican who negotiated with the White House over a budget compromise in 2011 told us they made progress when Mr. Biden was in the room, only to have Barack Obama take it all back when he joined the talks.

But what evidence is there today that Mr. Biden will restrain his increasingly radical party? Across his long career he has been the consummate party man, floating right or left with the political tides. As a presidential candidate this year he has put no particular policy imprint on the Democratic Party—not one. The party has put its stamp on him.

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On stage, Joe Biden had nothing to say to this point. But in a Pennsylvania town hall this month, he pooh-poohed the stock market as a concern only of the distant rich. “All that Trump can see from Park Avenue is Wall Street. All he thinks about is the stock market, and telling them, ‘We’re going to do all right, everybody owns stock.’ How many of you all own stock in Scranton? In my neighborhood in Scranton, not a whole hell of a lot of people own stock.”

Mr. Biden’s critique might have made sense when he began his political career. But today, more than 100 million Americans save in 401(k)s, up from 19 million in 1990, along with many others using individual retirement accounts, 403(b)s and 529 college savings plans. And this growing “investor class” is increasingly aware. They receive frequent reports and can check their statements online anytime to see how their savings have grown, fallen or rebounded. They watched the Trump presidency drive up the value of their life savings.

“Wealth” is a slur to the left. Yet if you ask ordinary Americans not about their “wealth” but about their savings in a 401(k) or IRA, many can tell you its value to the penny. Skeptics argue that the market’s performance matters only to investors with the biggest stakes, but that argument gets things backward. Younger Americans, just beginning to save in an IRA or 401(k), have an even greater interest in pro-growth economic policies. They have more years to reap the benefits.

President Trump’s tax cuts, deregulation, energy policies, and appointment of self-restrained judges have put Americans on a faster course toward savings growth. On Election Day 2016, the last day when many Americans and Wall Street believed that we would be living under Obama-style economic policies, the S&P 500 stood at 2140. By this February, after three years of President Trump’s policies, the S&P peaked at 3385 right before the Covid shutdown—an increase of 56% since Mr. Trump was elected.

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