The $15 minimum wage may yet pass as part of the pandemic relief bill; who knows. The Democrats in the House, admirably, intend to go right ahead and pass the relief bill with the minimum-wage increase included in it, in effect daring anybody in the Senate to be the one who'll sign their name to having stripped it out. But this, exactly this kind of dithering and capitulating, is why the Democratic party is always so much less popular than incredibly well-liked ideas -- Medicare For All, gun control, COVID-19 relief checks, minimum-wage increase, a federal government that does more to help people directly, etc. -- whose only support in government comes from its own members. Given the rare opportunity to flex some power, and a clear and obvious moral mandate to do so, they're throwing their hands up at non-binding parliamentary procedures and well actually-ing their own supporters over what exactly the phrase "$2,000 checks" means.

Bigots and billionaires and culture warriors can at least count on the Republican party to gleefully immiserate the classes of vulnerable people they despise, whenever it's entrusted with the power to do so. The only thing you can count on the Democratic party to do is to develop a sudden paralyzing case of situational Budget Concern or Norms Respect, whenever it can cripple or stall or dilute the fulfillment of a pledge to make common people's lives better, to materially address any of the myriad ways American society has been warped into incoherent brutality by capitalism and white supremacy.

Previously, previously, previously.