Yglesias makes a fair point (warning: Twitter): "When Obama used leverage over contractors to get paid leave for *over a million people* it was a minor story." He means this in contrast to Trump's Carrier actions.

But two counterpoints: 1) First, Trump (unsurprisingly) knows how to promote himself. You can whine all you want about lack of media coverage. Trump makes his own. Why couldn't Democrats? In part it's because they're embarrassed about what they do because they're triangulating between opposing constituents. In part because they're meek and don't like getting yelled at by Republicans. Trump welcomes the fight with the "losers and haters" and makes sure his supporters know (and/or believe) that he's fighting for them.

2) Obama didn't start doing stuff like this until the Dems lost their third straight Congressional election after he was elected. We talked about this at the time. Suddenly Obama found out that he could do things. So very late in his administration he started taking executive action, and many of these things haven't even gone into effect yet. The thing that Yglesias is talking about was announced at the end of this September. By the time it would have gone into effect, Trump will have reversed it. Similarly, we cheered when Obama updated the overtime threshold. That has since been put on hold by a district court in Texas, and i guarantee Trump won't pursue the appeal. As we've said before, you have to have this stuff ready for the day you walk into office. Hell, Trump isn't even waiting until he's president. Whichever Democrats are looking at themselves in the mirror and saying "2020" had better have a long list of the things they are going to do in their first 100 days that don't need to go through Congress, both so they can tout them on the campaign trail and so we don't have to wait seven years before they start enacting them.