It has to have been before he was elected if it happened. Making Biden his vice president was either a deliberate move to stifle the future with someone too old and conservative to affect change or at least an early acquiescence to the easiest status quo politics.
Also I don't see Obama's reading list being all woke either. His summer 2025 list included Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's Abundance; just more hope a dope there.
Even Obama's 2004 DNC speech pretty much gives up the game:
Don't get me wrong. The people I meet in small towns and big cities, in diners and office parks, they don't expect government to solve all their problems. They know they have to work hard to get ahead and they want to. Go into the collar counties around Chicago, and people will tell you they don't want their tax money wasted by a welfare agency or the Pentagon. Go into any inner city neighborhood, and folks will tell you that government alone can't teach kids to learn. They know that parents have to parent, that children can't achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white. No, people don't expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all. They know we can do better. And they want that choice.
Does an actual progressive talk that way?