The real wild thing is by and large a lot of policies the Democrats champion for have wildly popular uptakes across the entire political spectrum in the US but the Democrats themselves lack the overwhelming public support to implement them.
Florida passed a $15 minimum wage ballot measure and yet as a state votes almost wholly for Republicans.
Net neutrality has broad national support. Democrats never have sufficient legislative power to enshrine that. Repeat ad nausuem with all sorts of popular policies like inflation-tied minimum wage, secured abortion access, healthcare for all, legalize marijuana, etc.
These policies are popular. Half of Congress is represented (in loose terms) by a broad coalition of people who haven’t lost it but can’t really pass anything people really want because they lack the majorities needed to do so unopposed from both across the aisle and within their own ranks, and the other half have completely lost the plot.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was, at least at its time, a revolutionary piece of legislation that got watered down by Democrats capitulating to Republican demands and “Democrats” (i.e. incredibly conservative Democrats who are Democrats in name but not really) weakening the bill and the fact the Democrats’ filibuster proof majority really only existed for a few weeks at best, and despite all of that, it passed and despite its weaknesses, have had immense positive impact on the lives of many everyday people. Democrats passed the bill knowing they would get eviscerated in the immediately following election, which they did.
A clean universal healthcare bill, no strings attached, handed to the Democrats with a sufficiently large majority such that the most conservative of their ranks can break without jeopardizing the bill’s passage, will likely pass. I wouldn’t bet my life savings on it, but the notion the Democrats in general wouldn’t pass public good legislation does not line-up with their actual legislative and voting history. If a clean universal healthcare bill makes it out of the current House’s subcommittee with no Republican gotchas, I’m fairly confident most of the Democrats will vote for it, and those that will not are likely to do so for political maneuvering knowing it won’t pass.
You may say I’m being idealistic, and honestly I admit I am. But I think chances are good with a strong majority trifecta, strong and large enough for holdouts to vote against and not jeopardize its passage. Such a majority will probably never exist for another half a generation at least though. And at least from my PoV, dismissing the possibility is a grim outlook and a great way to lead to both discouragement and disillusionment of the process, and at least to me, there is only one major political party that benefits from people being disengaged and disillusioned.
Net Neutrality as it stands currently is being implemented because a variety of states (WA, CA, as examples) implemented some form of NN that is similar but not quite different. The FCC tried to preempt the ability for individual states to implement their own NN-esque laws or requirements but this was shot down by the courts. The consequence is, pragmatically speaking, NN of some form exists without the FCC directly intervening anymore because telecom companies aren’t very keen in implementing this at a state-based level, so very much like how CA has an undue influence in emissions standards due to its large market and the fact no company really wants to build one product for CA and one product for some of the rest of the states.
A number of West Coast states are aggressively passing legislation to the benefit of their citizens (WA’s minimum wage law has been signed for a while now, for example).