The tax bill that just passed in the Senate was the brainchild of the Republican leadership. For decades the party has been pushing a plan to redistribute society’s resources into as few hands as possible. Senate Democrats — and the constituents who pressured them at home and on Capitol Hill — pulled off an impressive feat getting even their most conservative colleagues to fall in line with the party’s unanimous vote against a tax bill certain to reshape the economy to suit the 1 percent even better than it already does.

But party leaders shouldn’t get off scot-free. It’s hard to say what congressional Democrats themselves could have done differently regarding this tax plan. Sweeping tax reform has been a longstanding priority for the modern GOP. With their egos bruised after several failed policy pushes on issues like health care and immigration, congressional Republicans came in to the tax battle hellbent on getting something passed — ideally with as many Easter eggs for the party’s wealthy donors as possible.

Democrats’ failings in this fight were more cringeworthy than defeat-inducing. Senate Democrats’ social media arm put out memes and videos of Ronald Reagan passing tax reform in the mid-eighties as an apparent appeal to bipartisanism. Speaking against the bill, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi described the tax plan with the crying-face emoji in an apparent appeal to millennials.