Tom Frank has been publishing some really garbagey articles lately, but there is a paragraph in the most recent one that does make sense:
In point of fact, there were plenty of things Obama’s Democrats could have done that might have put the right out of business once and for all—for example, by responding more aggressively to the Great Recession or by pounding relentlessly on the theme of middle-class economic distress. Acknowledging this possibility, however, has always been difficult for consensus-minded Democrats, and I suspect that in the official recounting of the Obama era, this troublesome possibility will disappear entirely. Instead, the terrifying Right-Wing Other will be cast in bronze at twice life-size, and made the excuse for the Administration’s every last failure of nerve, imagination and foresight. Demonizing the right will also allow the Obama legacy team to present his two electoral victories as ends in themselves, since they kept the White House out of the monster’s grasp—heroic triumphs that were truly worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize.
It’s true that the whole “the bad, mean right-wingers are not letting me do all the wonderful things I would have done otherwise” spiel is getting old. Five and a half years of hearing the same excuse has become nothing but annoying.
Clarissa's Blog 
How did the ‘mean ole’ right wingers’ prevent the Democrats from changing things? As I recall, the Democrats had COMPLETE CONTROL of the White House, US House, and US Senate (including a filibuster-proof majority) for two years!! And that doesn’t even include the large part of the GOP that is Democrat-lite at heart.
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Ok, I have no idea why WordPress started censoring perfectly good comments all of a sudden. Again, I apologize and assure everybody that I’m not causing this in any way.
I also agree with this comment completely.
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Simple answers:
Presidents don’t have as much real power as people think.
Parties don’t thrive by doing things (which might have effects that supporters hadn’t foreseen or didn’t want). They thrive by being foiled from doing great things by incomprehensibly evil opponents.
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With Democrats, neither the president nor the Congress nor the Senate have any power as long as they are Democratic.
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Putting aside how long the filibuster proof majority lasted —
There is simply more ideological room to be a Democrat than a Republican. Democrats do not have the same party discipline on any level. How else could you have a party that had both Joe Lieberman and Elizabeth Warren as members? RINOs who go against their party on big votes lose their seats. DINOs can have long careers.
Obama is a Blue Dog Democrat who could have easily been a moderate Republican if he had come up in a city other than Chicago. As a rule, they’re not super motivated to upend the current order or to do much to upset large business interests of any sort.
Obama was never going to be second coming of FDR or Johnson regardless of any right wing opposition.
And on a personal level, the man just doesn’t have the temperament for obstinacy.
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