The GOP has been moving further right, yes. But the country? No. Things like gay marriage that were a hot-button national issue back in even 2008 have become solidified in the national eye as acceptable and commonplace. The voices rebelling against them have grown quieter and weaker. Are those protesting bigots still there? Yes. But in the minds of most Americans and in the law? Things like gay marriage are settled. That is left-wing progress you can take to the bank.
The victories the GOP has won since 2008 have been fleeting. Hurtful to the nation? Most certainly. But fleeting nonetheless.
You can cite Palin and the Tea Party as being further bastardizations of Bush's form of republicanism. And you'd be right. But Palin and the Tea Party didn't win. Not in 2008, not in 2012. The eventual victory the then further bastardization of that bastardization, the Trumpkins, won in 2016 by the slimmest of margins. It was by no means a resounding Republican victory. Then they lost the house in 2018, lost reelection in 2020 and lost the senate to boot.
The democrats "not winning as big as they could have" does not mean the republicans won. That's critical to remember. To paraphrase Endus' sentiment, a victory is a victory, no matter how small.
You're not going to defeat a massive, embastioned political party like the GOP that operates with a rabid lockstep fanbase, hundreds of millions of corporate sponsorship dollars, and, most critically, zero moral compunction, with some big "gotcha" piece of legislation or flashy victory. Bernie would be facing the exact same opposition Biden and co. are facing right now. He could have come in swinging with medicare for all in one hand and free college in the other and the GOP would have shut him down all the same. I'd even wager that facing a victorious Bernie would have inflamed the GOP even more than Biden did, and I think Bernie would actually probably have lost against Trump, but that speculation is neither here nor there and my original point stands without it.
You defeat the GOP by chipping away at it and how they're able to retain such power despite them holding favor only with shrinking demographics the nation over. Defeating the GOP is climbing a mountain. You do it hand over hand and one step at a time, and you never let go. Just because the next handhold isn't the summit doesn't mean you let off your climb and let go in disgust, because then you just fucking die. It's the same with politics.
- - - Updated - - -
What really gets me is the notion that these people seem to think that, had Bernie won, that he'd be able to... I guess wow and dazzle the GOP, who are currently opposing things as simple as COVID relief and a minimum wage increase, into supporting things that they actively hate like medicare for all and free college, or that for some reason the numbers would have all magically worked out differently and Bernie would have this commanding charge of all the branches of the government needed to pass this legislation without hitch.
Their thought process of how things "should have gone" seems to be:
1. Bernie wins the presidency and his rhetoric and aplomb is so charming that:
2. People come to realize the nation over how great he is such that:
3. People the nation over turn out to the polls to unanimously vote in more left wing democrats in both houses of congress and at all state levels and:
4. Bernie is allowed to pass any and all legislation without having to face the GOP opposing him at literally any turn.
To which I say... that's a lot of pretty hopeful leaps of events to arrive at a place we're not more or less currently in.