So was Obama. And he got fuckall done because we have a tricameral system that balances the powers between three branches of government, and the Republicans own two of them. To eliminate the Electoral College, replace stripped environmental regulations, and replace the insurance industry with actual healthcare, will take all three branches of government working together towards the same goal. And while a blue sweep would be nice, nobody is seriously thinking that's going to happen. So even if Biden wins the Presidency and the Democrats retain the House, we will be EXACTLY where we are today with progressive issues: deadlocked.
I think you’re wrong. Progress comes in fits and starts. ACA isn’t the end game but it was a major advancement. The things that seemed too progressive to pass muster 8 years ago are platform policy now. UBI seemed like a far off idea until Yang and the pandemic brought it in full light. So many things will and have been advanced by decades because Of the pandemic. If you want to advance change the best thing to bring it about is a catastrophe. We are in one. I also hope your apathy isn’t shared by too many on the left. We need to mobilize, donate money and time and get that unlikely blue wave, to become a reality. I think it’s possible to take all three; house, senate and whitehouse.
Don't mistake my poor outlook for apathy. I have voted in every single election since I could, in 1987. (October birthday! Woo!) I was a delegate for Bernie in 2016. I give profligately to key campaigns outside my state (which is decisively blue, and therefore a waste of my time/money). But the ACA was, in the end, a toothless sop. The Republicans forced him to compromise and put together a patchwork of largely cosmetic changes that did nothing to address the core problems of healthcare, or to de-fang the pharmaceutical lobby, create pricing transparency in hospitals, or make the structural changes that will lead to a long-term healthcare industry (rather than insurance industry, which is what we have today) that benefits the key Americans who need it; the lower and middle class who are dying from our healthcare system. BECAUSE he chose to "compromise" with Republicans, to get it through the Senate, rather than play hardball and expose the Republicans for the nihilistic sociopaths they actually are, and have the public twist their arm and get them to succumb. Now with the Supreme Court solidly conservative, and no less than six cases lined up and carefully sculpted to destroy the last remaining threads holding the ACA together, the last thing Obama accomplished will be undone. The flaws in the original design of our republic have been weaponized by people with no foundational beliefs, morals, or sense of community. It's defective, and needs structural renovations for it to survive and prosper into the future. There need to be significant changes to how voting is done, how votes are counted, how districts are defined, how basic human rights are protected, and a strong curtailing of the cult of corporate-profits-at-any-cost. Without a progressive President, House, Senate, and Supreme Court (now that the Commerce Clause has made them more powerful than the other two branches of government), any efforts at addressing these structural problems can be easily destroyed by the next clown to sit on the throne for 4 years. What we really need this year, is for EVERY single person under 40 to vote. That would completely flip the government upside down - AND make every voter feel like their vote actually counted, thereby reinforcing their decision/passion for voting again in the future - and could possibly lead to a decade-plus run of progressivism that could help reset this country back on the path, and embracing the beliefs, we were founded upon. (You know none of this is targeted at you, right? Apparently I needed to vent.)