I simply don’t believe the Democrats would really be worse off with voters if they committed themselves to putting people back to work, policing Wall Street, throwing their weight behind a real public option in health care, making hedge fund managers pay the same tax rates as ordinary people, ending the pointless wars abroad, etc. That they won’t do these things because they’re afraid of public criticism, and “responding to pressure,” is an increasingly transparent lie. This “Please, Br’er Fox, don’t throw me into dat dere briar patch” deal isn’t going to work for much longer. Just about everybody knows now that they want to go into that briar patch.

– Matt Taibbi, 11 July 2011

Now almost two over four years after the fact, does the landscape look particularly different?  (Addendum 8/8/2015:  A little different, but not much.)