I don’t disagree with what you say about being Bernie light, but it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t stolen away from Bernie (or at least whoever was going to be the viable challenger to Bernie). In the primaries, Biden was laughably irrelevant. The media was barely considering him a contender. Then one night the DNC made up their minds and had the entire machine mobilize to gaslight the primary.

The main reason Biden is Bernie light is because he had to be as a political concession to unify the party.