WE SAY "INFANTILE LEFTISM" FOR A REASON.

National Review's Jim Geraghty brings the reality checks.  "The progressive Left is a fundamentally immature political movement that refuses to recognize the hard fact that when they have 50 seats, the only proposals that will pass are ones that completely unify the party."  Ordinarily the "fundamentally immature" part would make a Friday short take, although there are enough related and peripheral points that a longer meditation might be in order.  He continues with an observation should the Pachs regain a slim majority in the Senate, a different set of True Believers is likely to be disappointed.  "There is a decent chance that Republicans will win back the chamber in 2022, and then the situation will be reversed: The only conservative proposals that will pass the Senate are the ones acceptable to the least-conservative GOP senators."  Under ordinary circumstances, legislating to the median voter still has a lot of potential for mischief.  If I recall correctly, some highway-only spending bill came out of the House on Friday.  Bipartisanship has long been for throwing Federal money at roads state and local governments can't fix.

First thing the journalists might do is understand that "bipartisanship" is a bug in the system, precisely because "bipartisanship" is Democrats work one side of the cow, Republicans the other.

Second, they might understand that a lot of the crumbling of (government) infrastructure is a consequence precisely of past bi-partisanship.

Third, they might think carefully about why "rail" rarely comes up in these laments about infrastructure.

These days, though, the self-styled progressives are more about getting their own way, and if the roads get worse, they seem to think that will make things better.

When progressives cannot get their way, they insist the rules are unfair. They conclude that the Supreme Court must be expanded. They conclude that high-population states should have more senators than low-population states — completely ignoring that the bicameral legislature established under our Constitution was deliberately designed to set up one chamber where high-population states had a large advantage, and another chamber where low-population states were on an equal footing. They loved using the filibuster to block parts of Trump’s agenda, but denounce it as a “Jim Crow relic” when Republicans use it against them. They fundamentally reject the idea that one set of rules should be in place and applied consistently, no matter which party is in power.

I suspect both major parties are more interested in playing to the hopes of their bases than in coming up with policy tweaks that would attract some voters who are choosing the least unappetizing prix-fixe dinner being doled out.  What the voters seem to be doing is gridlocking the national government to gum up the swill-cooking, and relocating to more convivial states or localities within states.  But the communist coalition within the Democrat caucus still hasn't gotten the memo.  "If that means the national Democrats pay more attention to the interior of the country and less to the aesthetic preferences of Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and the Northeast Corridor, that might be for the good."

But after Donald Trump handed the Democrats a gift in those Georgia runoff elections, the Democrats thought they had an opportunity for Christmas by July.  "A common observation this week is that Joe Biden cannot pass Franklin Roosevelt- or Lyndon Johnson-scale legislation without first having Franklin Roosevelt- or Lyndon Johnson-scale Congressional majorities."  Which they don't have, and whatever schmoozing skills the president might have once had don't work so well.