During the 2020 primaries, the Democratic candidates were occasionally asked how they were going to accomplish their ambitious objectives, in light of the makeup of the Senate, the filibuster, and the hostility of the counterrevolutionary Supreme Court. Biden said he would do it by working with reasonable Republicans. He was accused of being naive and stuck in the past when he said it, but his real, unspoken message was that we needed to lower our expectations. Warren, on the other hand, always responded by saying she would “fight” tirelessly. By that, she presumably meant she would run around the country and make lots of fiery speeches supporting her agenda.
The events of the last year have shown that Biden was right. The voters didn’t elect enough Democrats to get much done; “fighting” with Manchin and Sinema has accomplished nothing; and the most important pieces of legislation coming out of Congress, the initial pandemic relief bill excepted, have been bipartisan.
So what can progressives do, given that the deck is stacked against them in both the legal and the political system? They have two choices. First, they can lower their expectations, focus their energy on working with moderates in both parties to save liberal democracy from the Orbanizers, and wait for the angry old reactionaries to pass from the scene. Second, they can try to organize a movement to make fundamental changes to the political system and the judiciary. That will take vast amounts of energy, a lot of focus, plenty of patience, and, in all likelihood, a young, charismatic leader with the ability to fuse both identity- and class-based arguments into a single, persuasive whole.
Right now, the essential ingredients for Option 2 do not exist. That leaves us with Option 1.