Jargoggles on Nostr: Democrats won so decisively in 2008 that they could basically pass any legislation ...

Democrats won so decisively in 2008 that they could basically pass any legislation they wanted. Their supermajority in the Senate made them completely immune to the Republican filibusters that would later grind things to a halt.

So isn't it weird that Democrats have never even *tried* to run the same kind of campaign they did with Obama? I mean, if I was even half that successful at something, I'd at least give it another shot, you know?

It's also not like they don't have tons of data to know exactly what would get people out to vote in those kinds of numbers. Yet they always handle those kinds of topics like they're wearing oven mitts.

Do you really need someone as charismatic as Obama to just confidently state that you're going to make universal healthcare happen? Is it beyond the grasp of all but a once-in-a-generation political operator to realize that compromising with yourself on your own policies will stop your momentum dead in its tracks? They can't have possibly thought that voters were dying to hear all about how they were going to means test the hell out of student debt relief, right?

None of it makes any sense in the context of a political party that is doing its honest best to execute a legislative agenda. It does, however, make perfect sense for a party that wants to maintain an extremely unpopular status quo but knows they would never get elected if they just said that. A party like that would need to trip themselves up just enough to keep elections close so that they could always blame their inability to pass substantial legislation on not having enough political power.

Otherwise, they have to make bizarre excuses for why their legislative centerpiece amounted to nothing more than a repackaged Republican healthcare bill. I'm supposed to believe that the reason we don't have a modern, functional healthcare system is because the entire Democratic Party was brought to its knees by *Joe motherfucking Lieberman*? His opposition to a public option was so principled, so full of moral courage that there was no bone that the entire Democratic establishment could throw him tempting enough to get him on board with the single most important item on the Democrats' agenda? They had absolutely no choice but to go, "Oh well, we tried, I guess we just have to copy Mitt Romney's healthcare bill?"

No, it's much simpler to just say, "We really want to do all these cool things for you, but those mean ol' Republicans won't let us."