They had the super majority at the start of that term. They couldn’t have pushed something as complicated as the ACA through, but they could have moved on something small like affirming Roe. Besides, the Republicans always find a way to ram through legislation without a super majority (and I’d suspect we’re about to see them abolish it entirely), but the Democrats never do.

For example, when the Senate parliamentarian tells the Democrats that they can’t pass a $15 minimum wage through a simple majority, the Democrats give up. When the parliamentarian tells the Republicans they can’t do something, they ignore them, and one time, they just flat our fired the guy.

You can argue about whether the Republicans are being unethical or underhanded, but at the end of the day, they achieve things, and the Democrats don’t. The Democrats will tell you that they need 60 votes to do anything and that the parliamentarian won’t allow them to pass non-budgetary items without one, but Senate filibuster rules can be changed, and the Parliamentarian has no real authority. Playing by the rules while your opponent cheats isn’t noble, it’s stupid.

There’s also just a massive element of the Democrats no longer functioning as a coherent political unit. It wouldn’t help in an instance needing a filibuster-proof majority, but since being a Democrat is mostly negatively defined as “We’re not the Republicans” these days, it has grown to encompass a range of views that prevents them from having a cohesive platform backed by all members in the way the GOP largely operates today.

Yes, Republican obstructionism is a major element in the dysfunction of our government at the moment, but even before you run into that, you have a party that embraces the Joe Manchins, Kyrsten Sinemas and Joe Liebermanns of US politics, while also having your Bernie Sanders and AOCs. Even before you encounter the obstructionist tendencies of Republicans, you have Democrats who don’t fall in line that can hold the party platform hostage, and no meaningful mechanisms to force them to do so.

The Democratic Party really needs to start defining itself positively, rather than the current “We’re not the other guy, so at least we aren’t so bad” stance, and presenting a unified front in the face of Republican obstinance. There should be a time a place for intellectual debate, but the Democratic status quo not only makes them look incompetent when they can’t hold members to task for failing to support major elements of the party platform (see Manchin’s stranglehold over Biden’s agenda that left quite a bit dead on arrival prior to Republican efforts), it also demotivates would-be voters.

Also forget the portion where dems do not use their powers unless it is needed for Israel.

I’m not buying this anymore. Dems could do the same if they had balls. Enough of this when they go low we go high bs.

False. The one with the elephant in the middle accomplishes things. Terrible things. I’ll take do-nothing over do-wrong

GOP gives their base red meat. This is because it is compatible with their donors’ interests. This contrasts to Dems, for whom delivering for their base runs counter to their donors’ interests.

What is deliverrd by the GOP is marginalization, of course, but this is still a more direct and materiap response than what the Dems do, which is just PR.

Yeah it will be, because that’s how the corporate-run political duopoly works.
It’s a big club and you ain’t in it [1][2]