Democrats cannot function as a party because they think politics is about a beautiful tapestry people adding their own unique personality traits to the legislative process. It's a party. It is supposed to be an organization with explicit goals, where the members work to achieve those goals. If it cannot function on that level, it is not a party. What are people voting for then? What is a democracy then? Pointing out that a party should have legislative goals and try to achieve them is what gets you called a tankie these days. And the republicans? Yeah, you guess it, they're tankies. Because they can always get their tax cuts through congress. To these people, the most virtuous thing you can do is be very aware of how fucked everything is getting and refuse to violate the autonomy of Joe Manchin so you can get something through congress. It shows how committed you are to democracy, when you know exactly how many homeless people there are but still defer to Joe Manchin's policy preferences. We are all very very aware of climate change and how it's an existential threat, but it would be authoritarian to do something about it without Joe Manchin's permission.