I'm not sure I agree. In a democracy, you should expect voters and representatives to act within the framework of that democracy, which is usually more complex than the binary choice of being the party in power or not. Yeah, in aggregate 2024 was a loss for the Democrats. But they didn't lose every election, and because of that they retain some power even as the minority party, specifically the power to filibuster in the Senate, as well as the more general power of being the minority by only a relatively slim margin in both houses of congress.
The Congressional Democrats who did win their elections choosing not to use that power to advance policies they were presumably voted into office to support just because Republicans won more elections in Congress as well as the White House seems like a strange definition of democracy. The intent of Representatives and Senators is to advocate for their constituents. Abdicating that in favor of taking a nationwide poll is the opposite of their job. Why should a Senator from California base their vote on which party the good people of North Dakota chose to represent them or how many other states voted the same way?
Yes. People love to hyperbolize "this is the last election ever", "this is the most important election ever", "no matter what we need to win this time or the world will end".
