Two of these guys are much more complicated. Most people have already pointed out Lincoln but Teddy is more complicated than how he viewed Native Americans. He was out first Trust Buster as President. The robber barons thought they had bought him but once he was in office, after the death of McKinley, he went after them. He broke up Standard Oil. He went after those fuckers with his big stick and helped a lot of people because of it. He also created National Parks, which is complicated but still more positive than the destruction of the land that was happening.

Of course he was also racist, but there are presidents who are complicated and manage to do both terrible and actually very positive things at the same time. Teddy wasn’t perfect and he was often an asshole, but he did good things too.

They’ve increased taxes in 2009 in response to the crash, they’ve done investment in infrastructure. They’ve passed the first climate change legislation ever in this country. They increased the minimum wage in 2009 and tried to again. They did actual shit for the 4 years of the last 2 decades they’ve had full power to do anything. But then voters vote them out because they don’t do everything they intended to.

They need do more, but they need full power to do that. Whenever they get that they do shit. But it’s impossible to do shit when Republicans control one house of Congress kneecapping everything they want to do.

Also they are incredibly different. One of them wants to increase the minimum wage, the other wants to get rid of it. One of them wants to make sure queer folk are allowed to exist in public and have rights, the other wants to put us in prison and take away our right to exist at all. One of them wants to bust monopolies and the other wants more monopolies. One of them wants to increase social safety net benefits, the other wants to get rid of it. One of them wants to tax the rich, the other wants no federal income tax at all. One of them believes that voting should be easy and the other wants to make voting impossible.

They’ve passed plenty of bills that end up dying because of Republicans, you’re blaming Democrats for Republicans being the problem and saying they’re the same. You’re being reductive because they happen to both be capitalist parties, which sucks ass but there’s a lot of space in the capitalist spectrum.

Listen, there’s nothing wrong with wanting Democrats to do better. But it’s BS to say they haven’t done anything positive in the last 20 years. 20 years where they only actually had full power for 4 of those years and 2 of those years only barely had a majority in the Senate.

Edit: also most of what I said Harris campaigned on has not been promised for 2 decades. She campaigned on policies that the party hadn’t supported on the presidential level before. The only democratic presidential nominee to campaign on legalizing weed was Harris. The only one to campaign on a unrealized gains tax was Harris. The only one to campaign on the down payment assistance was Harris. Biden talked about increasing the minimum wage too but that was 4 years ago so not over the last 20 years.

Right? All they had to do was promise to Legalize weed, increase the minimum wage, put caps on rent increases, go after shrinkflation, make it easier to vote, say that healthcare is a human right, fight for unions, promise to help support people who currently can’t afford to buy homes to be able to buy homes, and tax the rich and corporations more.

Oh wait, Harris did all of those things. Democrats have had progressive policy, but voters keep voting against it. Because Democrats have to be perfect and cant also happen to have a couple shit policies. The moment they have a couple shitty policies, or don’t have all the progressive policies people want. those are all that matter and that means Democrats are just the same as Republicans.

Are they unprepared though? Because every time they get full power they get shit done. Not as much as would be ideal but they still do stuff. And they also would have passed multiple more things in 21-22 if they had been given more seats in the Senate, having a 50-50 Senate made it only possible to get some things done not everything, they could have played dirty and gotten more done. For instance they weren’t able to pass their Voting reform bill that had passed the House and would drastically have changed and improved how we vote. But it’s still BS to say they don’t get anything done. That’s literally far right propaganda that has become so pervasive it convinces people on both sides that the Democrats are useless and never do anything.

That said, about Project 2025. It was put together by the Heritage Foundation. A think tank that does its work and puts it out for free. They’re backed by right wing billionaires. So the Republican party didn’t make it, despite it being their platform. Also wouldn’t it be Project 2029 for theirs since 2027 is a midterm and the whole point for that is to obstruct and do oversight on trump and his administration by having any power again. That said again. They don’t have the massive far right billionaires driving the equivalent of a Project 2025 and democratic voters also frequently argue against Billionaires driving something like that. Project 2025 is successful because all the work was done by Heritage.

Also also, I 100% agree that it’s insane they keep playing nice. They have to play dirty and that means breaking some rules which they seem unwilling to do.

But they are put into power by the Voters and then punished by the Voters despite doing significant legislation and improving the country when they get full power. So them not being able to take power for as much time as republicans has to do with the voters and the Republicans cheating with gerrymandering and voter suppression. And general Republican propaganda destroying the system.

But even this last Election Harris wanted to increase the minimum wage, wanted to put caps on rent increases, wanted to give first time home buyers 25,000 down payment assistance, wanted to legalize weed, wanted to introduce an Unrealized gains tax on people who have stock portfolios bigger than 100 million, increasing the corporate tax rate, talking about actually trying to punish companies who engage in shrinkflation. She had progressive policies on her platform, but instead of Democrats going out and voting and the progressive legislation driving people to the polls, everyone summarized her as only ever being not-Tump and them being the same and some saying she even had no policies. Democrats have things they campaign on, but the Voters say no. Mainly because the left doesn’t vote, or split their vote, and the right ALWAYS votes.

Personally, I’m not saying the Democrats can’t or shouldn’t be better, I think the party needs to be drastically reformed and we need to primary and kick out the older generation and we need more progressives who can talk more like real people. But I’m also trying to be fair about how things actually happen when they are in power.

Well a major influence on that is because people keep voting for Republicans even when Democrats have progressive policies on their platforms. Republicans winning the House in 2010 kneecapped every single thing the Democrats had been striving for. 2010 had the lowest turn out for a midterm in decades. Often because of people on the left blaming Obama for not fixing everything right away, or because there is a depressingly large population of the country that don’t even know midterms exist.

Republicans fuck everything over, and people keep voting for them. Democrats don’t fix everything right away, and people refuse to vote for them. Such is the stupidity of the American public.

Oh and the Dodd-Frank act regulating Wallstreet. And saving the economy from the massive financial crash with the Recovery Act. And an act that extended how long after being fired someone can file for unemployment. And new tax legislation that had tax increases to help pay for the investment in the economy with the recovery act. And around 50 other pieces of legislation.

Plus the “shitty health care” you mentioned mandated insurance companies have to cover people with pre-existing conditions giving insurance to tens of millions of people. And extended Medicaid to tens of millions of people providing relatively cheap medical care by comparison to before. Free? No. But many went from having bills of multiple hundreds a month to just 50. Again, perfect? No. But a massive fucking improvement.

All that in the 2 years he had both houses. Not his entire first term. Much of it was incredibly influential even if not perfect. To say we got nothing out of it is misrepresenting both what we got and what we had before.

Edit: and increasing the minimum wage.