Bro maybe just maybe. Those people who you are calling "reactionaries" have been told "change is coming, it will get better just keep waiting, these things don't happen overnight." For the last 4 or 5 decades?
And maybe they're ignoring things like the civil rights movement, the original implementation of Roe, the progress of the LGBT community and all the other society changes that have happened in that same time.
The civil rights act was 60 years ago. Roe was 51 years ago. They're saying we've had barely any progress in the last 40 or 50 years. Cops are still killing people. Racism, homophobia, and other kinds of hate are still alive and well.
Racism, homophobia, and the like are not a matter that can be solved politically. One can make all the affirmative action and equal rights rules you like but the issue at the root is society and culture based. Educational standards are being fought against in our most conservative states pushing for religious indoctrination and denying historical reality.
You have a wing that actively pushes the militarization of the police over community support and engagement, and those same people trying to turn society back to the 'traditional norms' as they existed before the civil rights movement.
Given the realities of the need to actually get votes through, just how would you suggest those things be fixed?
Because you can put in those equal rights laws and enforce them, along with all the various other things like building roads and schools and such. To think you can just outlaw racism and such is foolish though. You would be trying to literally tread into thought police territory there.
Don't recall where I indicated any of them where controversial, care to point it out? I simply pointed that this complaint of 'no progress' is ignoring some pretty major progress over the years.