

Virtue signaling is an important act for a minority party. It lets the base know what you stand for and what your opponents stand against. This is something with broad public appeal yet low congressional support (because politicians like monies). It’s something you can hit your opponents with and, with a snowball’s chance, you might actually make progress in passing.
“I want to take money out of politics, my opponent is captured by rich billionaires. They don’t serve you, they serve the billionaires” It’s an ad that writes itself.
This is something dems should be doing, especially since the last election was them running away from policy and instead doubling down on how much their policy isn’t different from the average republican’s. We saw how that turned out.
Sometimes there is usually there isn’t.
The trap is that often times when there is a performance difference, a change in behavior can accommodate fairly reasonably.
For example, a hybrid hot water heater in its most efficient mode will (sometimes) recover heat slower than a pure electric or gas heater. That generally only matters for showers, so a shorter shower can overcome the slower recovery.