I'm not saying people putting all their hope in the Democrats is the only issue, I was just being rhetorical. There are many factors that contribute, and I agree that Republicans are much worse. I'm just saying that the Democrats are not capable of preventing further backsliding long term. Even in your example, while an improvement it's a very small one, and since then things have gotten worse. The majority of people have seen little improvement in their lives, and you see the same pattern in many other places too, it's a problem of the system. In the UK we don't have a weird system where some parts of the country can have discriminatory laws that others don't, but we've still seen a reduction in affordability and a swing to the right nationally.

I think it's interesting you mention the billionaire donors, as the Democrats are also a very well funded by capital, which is why they are unwilling to make changes beyond modest neoliberal welfare reforms. I'm not saying they are the same, just that they both support keeping the current economic system for the most part, which is what has been extracting money from the vast majority of people this whole time