There is a boring, brutal pattern that online leftists refuse to see. Republicans come in, light the economy on fire, shovel money to the rich, deregulate everything that moves, and leave behind a smoking crater. Democrats win, walk into the wreckage, and the same people who helped make the mess start screaming that the new crew has not built them a Scandinavian social democracy by Wednesday.
When Democrats inherit power, they are not walking into a clean kitchen with empty counter space. They are walking into a restaurant after a food fight, a gas leak and a health inspection. First job is not passing your dream bill. First job is keeping the place from being condemned. That takes time. Sometimes it takes the first two years. Then the midterms hit, the party in power gets punished, and everyone pretends they just witnessed proof that “Democrats never do anything.”
Meanwhile every Republican who follows a Democratic presidency gets to surf on the early years of that repair. They inherit the recovery, pocket the credit, trash the fundamentals and then blame the fallout on the people who came before. It is like a kid wrecking the house, watching their mom spend all day scrubbing and patching, then greeting dad at the door and announcing that she never lifted a finger.
Online leftists fold themselves into this cycle with those romantic third party votes and protest abstentions that always, somehow, land hardest when the stakes are highest. They chip away at the Democratic margin, help the arsonist back into office, then scream that the firefighters did not finish the renovation in time. It is politics as tantrum: all feeling, no map, zero sense of what governing inside a wrecked system actually looks like.
Meanwhile every Republican who follows a Democratic presidency gets to surf on the early years of that repair. They inherit the recovery, pocket the credit, trash the fundamentals and then blame the fallout on the people who came before. It is like a kid wrecking the house, watching their mom spend all day scrubbing and patching, then greeting dad at the door and announcing that she never lifted a finger.
Online leftists fold themselves into this cycle with those romantic third party votes and protest abstentions that always, somehow, land hardest when the stakes are highest. They chip away at the Democratic margin, help the arsonist back into office, then scream that the firefighters did not finish the renovation in time. It is politics as tantrum: all feeling, no map, zero sense of what governing inside a wrecked system actually looks like.
I am not saying Democrats are flawless or that every compromise is sacred. I am saying there is a difference between pushing a party left and helping the fascist party win on purpose, then blaming the cleanup crew for not rebuilding Rome in a single term. You cannot keep throwing your vote at vanity projects, sneering at the only people who ever fix Republican damage, and then act shocked when the house looks like a crime scene again.