It would have come off as Democrats making nothing but "making power grabs"

Even if it didn't have that outward appearance, the liars would have lied to ensure that was the message.

Here's an example of this with Democrats trying to improve access to voting:

https://barr.house.gov/2021/3/rep-barr-denounces-house-democrats-h-r-1-the-election-power-grab-act

Rep. Barr Denounces House Democrats’ H.R. 1, “The Election Power Grab Act”

Here's Democrats trying to fix the courts:

https://www.courthousenews.com/republicans-wont-budge-as-biden-details-supreme-court-reform-plan/

“Liberals are furious that [the Supreme Court] is abiding by the Constitution,” said Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin, branding court reform efforts as “a toxic power grab” chipping away at the constitutional separation of powers.

Here's the Democrats trying to give people in DC access to representation:

https://oversight.house.gov/release/hearing-wrap-up-republicans-warn-h-r-51-is-an-unconstitutional-unworkable-democrat-power-grab/

Republicans warned the Democrats’ bill is an unconstitutional power grab that will result in the District receiving greater benefits than citizens of any other state

This isn't hypothetical partisan complaining.. the past is littered with examples of Democrats attempting to do the very things that people complain they aren't doing -- with Republicans whipping up lies to feed the electorate undermining those efforts.

Exactly. In order to promise to "fix the government" you need to lie to them and claim the government is broken, first. That's where liars have a leg up.

A lot of people here are developers or tech adjacent so I'll offer this strained analogy: this "the government is broken" narrative is tantamount to an intern hot off their Learning NodeJS course coming in and telling everyone that their complex production systems are trash and need to be completely rebuilt. That intern doesn't have any of the context, experience, or knowledge to make that determination and often creates conflicts within the team instead of just looking forward to the next iteration for improvement. Meanwhile, the professionals have to keep cleaning up their mess.

Elon Musk is this intern. Boebert, MTG, Tuberville, etc, are this intern. The GOP has been promoting and encouraging these interns and has since Reagan.

Can the government be improved? Absolutely. Should the interns be doing it? No.

That's one data point from three decades ago. If the Democrats have "done nothing" then there'd be nothing to fear from Republicans rolling back all the things "Democrats didn't do." Yet, here we are, right?

Workplace protections, loan forgiveness, the entirety of the CFPB, etc, etc, are all things Democrats have done to improve lives. To argue otherwise feels disingenuous.