But in general, I think dems generally are to blame for their lack of effectiveness. First, they focused on the 1.9 trill package, which was too much, too late, and is the one truly legit complaint against Biden on inflation. That left far less flexibility in spending with the moderate dems, who opposed the massive, sprawling, hodge-podge of different, unrelated progressive agenda items, where there was no theme, so the package was discussed in terms of its cost only. And they got nothing.

We can’t even pass electoral count act reform, because so many in the dem party obsess over food vendors on voting lines and voter ids, and not being able to get everything means we get nothing, leaving the path to the Trump coup attempt we saw in early ‘21 open. Sacrificing the good in service of the perfect. The other obvious slam dunk we should be able to get done is the chip act, still missing in action.

In a nutshell, I think dems have far more soul searching to do about their failures over the past 2 years than just 2 moderate scapegoats.