I think it is obvious that rank and file Democrats have no idea how much power they have. What’s less obvious is that the elected Democrats cannot yet fathom how much power they have. For at least 14 years Democrats have been toiling in the minority trying to come up with policy prescriptions that could pass in Tom DeLay’s House and Bill Frist’s Senate. They put in all this work and now we can pass the fruit of their labors. Too many progressives want to pass the legislation they came up with in a GOP-dominated era because that’s what they’ve been working on for a decade or more. This is totally understandable. But the problem is that we have the votes to pass much better stuff than any of these thinktanks ever dreamed of passing over the last decade-plus.
We’ve entered a progressive era but most of the hard work by wonks was thought through in a Republican era. Don’t worry. We’ll learn. But actual progress will be slower than it should be becauce we were not prepared.