It would have been filibustered. So no he didn't have 2 years, he had 4 MONTHS. Just carrying on your all caps. He spent it on Healthcare.

You could say they could get rid of the filibuster, and yeah the desire to keep it now is strange. But back then Obama wanted to unify, and get the country back on track, and work together, and all the jazz hands things. He was not keen on overthrowing long established processes (imagine the conspiracy theories if he had, they were bad with him just jazz hands). He wanted to work together because he had another 6 years to go and likely wouldn't have all 3 for those 6 years. So he wanted to come off as reasonable and could be worked with and all that. I barely blame him for that. Who knew that the GOP's heads would explode and they would become obstructionist to that extent.

I’m not buying the “it’s easier to stagnate or regress” point when democrats don’t put much effort into blocking republicans.

GOP by and large doesn't have much legislation they actually want to pass. So there's very little to block. This is the nature of it.

Here's an old conversation I had (part of which I used but makes more sense in full).

What the GOP wants is lack of progress. They want to hit the big giant pause button on society. They want to block progress from happening. That's why the GOP benefits more from blocking things. What the Dems want is actual progress - new bills, new laws, new measures. That requires legislation to actually pass. So no, it doesn't work the same both ways.

The most the GOP wants to do is repeal what was already passed, and give tax breaks. It takes fuck all effort to do that. They get one house and they can demand tax breaks or they shut down the government. Or they try to repeal the ACA. They didn't write a well thought out replacement lol, all they want to do is repeal.

To actually write and pass progressive legislation takes a ton of actual work, effort, support, and time. And all 3 houses to pass it.

Ok Israel.

The funny thing (that I see) with Israel is that support for Israel is a generational thing. Guess what generation Biden is in.

Want a new generation in office? Guess how we do that? By voting for the left. Because when they lose they both go to the center and run their old candidates with their supposed wisdom and ability to win and all that. Want progress? Show them that it's safe to go left and that they won't lose when they do. (Is this where you say but Hillary? Then I say Obama lost the house in years 3 and 4. And again lost the house in years 5 and 6. And lost both the house and senate in years 7 and 8. No wonder the party thought they needed to be moderate to get voters. The thanks the party got for the ACA was immediately losing the house of reps.)