#USPOLITICS According to both the corporate press and "progressives", all horrible developments in society are due to Democrats, generally, not stopping Republicans from doing those horrible things or making them do more horrible things by keeping from doing the horrible things they used to want to do. This is the "only Democrats have agency" theory of US Politics.
@vy I do kinda like the underlying (inaccurate) assumption that republicans are inherently cruel and incapable of doing anything good, and only the plucky heroic democrats can save us. It would be nice if we could push this from implicit to explicit.
@smellsofbikes Not a bad idea. The obvious problems are it leads to "liberal/left" attacking "hapless" Democrats for not magically stopping e.g. a R Senate majority from blocking Merrick Garland's nomination and to so many complaints about how e.g. smug Democrats, calling people rude for being cruel to trans people are forcing these otherwise nice guys and girls to join Nazi gangs.
You bring up the Garland nomination, and I think the spin around that story is key to what you're describing here. So many of these narratives are rooted in factually wrong ideas about how government functions.
In the Garland case, R's didn't block nomination since that's not how the nominating process works. Under the US system, the president must seek approval NOT avoid disapproval.
That detail shifts the story completely, as it's no longer action of the Rs that mattered, but inaction of the D, of Obama.
It's not what Republicans *did* but what Democrats *didn't do* that lead to the outcome.
