The Waning "Democratic" Congress

People like to talk about how the Democrats, with a 70+ seat majority in the House and a 16 seat majority in the Senate, both of which expire in January, why the hell don't they just pass things that are good? It's their last chance, one last shot at the apple, we need to do something before the Republicans take over the House, etc. etc. But there's a giant problem with this: Republicans control the Senate. They can filibuster. There are 42 of them; they can even afford to lose one vote. So Democrats cannot run roughshod over the Republicans. They just can't. Republicans have a plenary veto over legislation, currently. They have that plenary veto over legislation approximately as strongly as they will have it in January. So nothing can pass without getting, now, two Republicans to vote for it in the Senate. And the discipline of Mitch McConnell is a fearsome thing to behold, so roughly speaking nothing Democrats want to get done will get those two votes, and thus it won't get done. Very, very simple. Blame Obama for any number of things, but strict failure to get any reasonable left-wing policies passed through the Congress ain't one of them.