In 2008 democrats crushed it, getting the White House and both chambers of the Congress. They could have done as much as they wanted to.
After that they lost one seat, and the Republicans explicitly made it their mission to ensure that not a single thing got passed.
Harry Reid opposed filibuster reform at the time, which I think was a mistake but there might not have been enough votes in the Senate to pass any reforms.
Also, the "blue dog" Democrats were a pretty big block in the House, and would have opposed a lot of things that would be considered mainstream Democratic positions now.
The person with the 60th vote has a ton of policy influence. This is why we don't have a public option, or at least an awfully public example of how "having 60 votes" during that short window didn't get much done.
Not that I want to apologize for the democrats or anything, I just agree that no one has had a meaningful 60-vote majority in my lifetime.
Although, because little kids nowadays have access to smartphones with social media, I suspect that 7 and 9 year olds are now paying more attention to politics than they used to.
There wasn’t (and still isn’t, sadly) political appetite for ending the Senate filibuster, so reform is limited to Byrd rule nonsense.
The ~5 months Democrats had an a functional supermajority under Obama in 2009/10 was used to get the ACA passed as written.
it's a see saw of nobody does anything but blame their systemic rival
either USA party system gets more than two parties because they're on a steady stalemate, like other poster was saying, 35 years of gridlocked congress because of two way ties.
or look at china, my prediction is that soon enough a ballsy european monarchy is gonna go full-blown one-party democracy or something clever like that
It's far easier when your allies are long term. Which functions a lot like a single party even if you don't call it that.