Why would someone downvote you. This is 100% true. Congress makes the laws. The president can set the agenda but things can only happen if there are enough people in Congress who will actually vote for it. Since we know 0 Republicans will ever help with anything, that means the Democrats need enough of a majority to overcome the GOP, and enough of a majority that one or two rogue Democrats looking to advance their own profile can’t hold it hostage. We had that for a brief time in the Obama admin and they passed the ACA. During the Biden admin Manchin alone could make a name for himself by blocking anything and everything.

It’s a crappy system where you have to control both houses with some breathing room, and the presidency, to get something done if one party decides to stonewall everything. But that’s the reality. Our system of government has serious problems.

However, assuming that the Democratic presidents are privately glad they can’t do most things they say they want to do, when they are never given the opportunity, and then using that assumption as the basis for cynicism, seems unreasonable. What do you gain by assuming this? Why not work as hard as we can to give them a real actual opportunity, and then see what happens.

I think it's more about the attempt than the result. historically, we get a lot of promises of strong leadership and then no attempts to even start following through. in my opinion, this is a massive source of voter apathy both in general but especially among young people. "why bother? they're all liars anyway, nobody will really try to help us once they're in" - the kids energized into politics with Kamala's campaign will wither or defect permanently if she makes these promises and they vote for her because of it and she does the usual routine of ignoring them until reelection season swings around again. if they want any hope of banking on the new energized kids in future elections, she has to at least try and she has to be loud about doing it. if she doesn't, this will win us only 4 years.

when companies pay lobbyists to change laws and it doesn't work, they retry and retry and retry until they do it. same with unpopular surveillance and "security" bills. but when talk of important social reform come up, dems go "ehhh, it's unlikely to pass... don't even try, it's not worth it. it will just be a hassle..."

like yes, the prez cannot just make dictates to change laws like people wish. other parts of government have to be engaged to do these things. so... ENGAGE THEM

And I firmly believe you're full of shit.