YES, IT WOULD BE TERRIBLE IF DEMOCRATS DID THAT THING THEY DID EIGHT YEARS AGO THAT ... UM, WORKED

We're being told again that it would be bad for Democrats to oppose "everything" Donald Trump is doing. In a Rolling Stone story about Democrats' supine response to Trump this time around, Andrew Perez and Asawin Suebsaeng quote a Democratic operative:

“I think it’s important to distinguish between capitulation to Trump in a way that betrays Democratic values, versus constructive pragmatism,” says Jesse Lehrich, a former 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign spokesman. “Because I actually worry about both ends of the spectrum — weak-kneed Dems letting Trump steamroll them on one end, and the party just reflexively opposing anything Trump supports (i.e., 2017-style ‘resistance’) on the other.”

This echoes a December quote I've posted here several times, from Senator Brian Schatz:

“The mood is slightly different than the last time and there is a sense that if you are freaking out about everything, it becomes really hard for people to sort out what is worth worrying about,” Sen. Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii, told CNN.

I question whether Democrats were "just reflexively opposing anything Trump supports" and "freaking out about everything" in 2017. Fifteen members of the Democratic Senate caucus voted for a majority of Trump's 22 initial Cabinet appointees, while nine more voted for at least ten of them and every senator, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, voted for at least three. And have we all forgotten how eager Democrats were to work with Trump on infrastructure? From December 2016:

But let's accept the premise that Democrats were "just reflexively opposing anything Trump supports" and "freaking out about everything" in Trump's first term. What were the negative consequences of that?

Democrats won control of the House of Representatives in 2018, gaining 41 seats. Was that a bad thing, according to Democrats now?

And in the 2020 elections, Democrats won back the presidency and the Senate, while holding on to the House. Was that bad?

During Trump's term, he and his party failed to overturn the Affordable Care Act. They faced pushback on separation of immigrant families. Very little of the wall was built. Trump and the GOP passed a standard-issue pro-plutocrat tax cut, but that was Trump's only major legislative accomplishment.

But now I guess Democrats think all that was bad. Winning a few fights with Trump? Can't have that!