And here I thought Democrats even participating in a BS, "bipartisan" bill that only served to validate the xenophobia being put forth by the opposing party was appalling and a clear example of the utter failure they represent.

Then again, illegals is common vernacular now, so what the fuck do I even know, really.

I've voted for Dems my entire life, but you'll never catch me saying they "do their jobs". The party embarrasses me at nearly every opportunity; any support I have for/give to the party is despite its leadership, not because of it.

Rolling over for republicans is in their job description?!

... that explains a few things...

It was a one person majority in the Senate that only lasted for a brief amount of time and was gone once healthcare reform ate up all of the time before Ted Kennedy died. They basically took what Mitt Romney had done at the state level and applied it federally, which is what Republicans claimed to want before they decided to call it Obamacare and pretend they didn't help craft it.

The health care bill contained a series of things that are broadly popular when they were laid out individually. Package them together and call it "Obamacare" in the media and it was suddenly unpopular.

Tea Party astroturfing can't be understated, either. The GOP grabbed back power at just the right time to be able to gerrymander districts and then keep them gerrymandered up until now. We're only beginning to erode that back.

Technically, during the Obama Admin the Democrats had a senate supermajority for I think less than 2 months. During that time no substantial bills hit the senate floor that I recall, but I remember they approved a bunch of USPS locations which seemed odd to me. Politics are crazy but they're even weirder in retrospect.

Only until the instant the Senate takes a simple majority vote to lower it to 50.

While the Senate has historically been a useful bulwark for pushing back against the creeping fascism of the GOP, it's also a matter of fact that it is an antidemocratic institution that in the longer term we're better off minimizing or eliminating. It's the House of Lords and we do not need a House of Lords in the modern era.

Though I would like to see proper reapportionment in the House of Reps first, including adding significantly more members.

I commented this a while back, and I believe it wholeheartedly -
The current U.S. system is set up so that only two political parties can exist. In a perfect world, they would be rational, and represent differing facets of the voters values/goals. But in addition to not having a perfect world, through manipulation, degradation of the laws, and just human error/unintended consequences, we’ve wound up with a system where the two parties in power are largely funded by corporations, or those who have the resources to create PACs and launder their money into politics, and those groups represent roughly the same values and political goals.

So the political ‘game’ now is to acquire money to campaign (so you can get the votes) by appeasing the donors while appearing to do things that attract voters, because voting has not quite been manipulated to the point where money equals votes, yet. (Save for gerrymandering, which renders the voting ‘problem’ moot.)

I now believe politics is largely theatrical, and the media, also controlled by the interests that fund the political campaigns of politicians that do their bidding, works very hard to keep folks divided and arguing, rather than facing the real problem of their systemic disempowerment.

I am increasingly disillusioned that a solution to this problem is possible.

But anyway - I guess I’m saying I agree with you.

Imagine the soundbites if they said they wanted to destroy the opposition party.

They say this because their lobbyists want nothing to change and if the Republicans are too weak, Democrats may actually have to make peoples lives better or the whole charade falls apart.