President Joe Biden s administration is beginning to look like an ideological mullet: all establishment in the front-facing roles, with a progressive party happening in the back.

Bidens high-profile Cabinet picks tended to have experience, personal relationships and an ability to earn approval from across the ideological spectrum Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have all earned bipartisan stamps of approval in the Senate. But left-leaning Democrats are excitedly watching Biden fill agency and sub-Cabinet posts with younger thinkers who have developed big ideas designed to solve the economic, racial, health and climate crises the Biden administration hopes to address.

Some of these younger thinkers are taking leading roles that require Senate confirmation, like progressive Rohit Chopras nomination to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Others are assuming lower-profile jobs in the White House, the Department of Homeland Security or the Interior Department where they can play key roles in shaping the administrations approach in a number of areas including economic recovery, the climate crisis and reversing the Trump administrations immigration orders.