And the first person to really understand the implications of this was Mitch motherfucking McConnell.

In his own way, he really is a genius, a dark monstrous genius.

Because while every other Republican saw the ass kicking that they took in 2008,

where they were routed at every level of government, you know, repudiation of the disastrous Bush administration,

which had seen the horrifying war in Iraq and an economic collapse, the destruction of a major American city.

Most Republicans were ready to do what was generally the thing that the party out of power did when the new party came in,

reach across the aisle, try to get some of that goodwill rubbed on them so that they weren't blamed.

Make some deals, but McConnell realized something.

McConnell realized that in an era of ideologically coherent parties,

there is no benefit to compromising with the other side.

There is no rational reason to give the party in power, by power, I mean in the top office,

being the party in power, the presidential party, giving that person a win on anything.

There is no benefit to doing that.

And there is because people will associate any success with him and his party.

And any seats that he will, if any seats his party wins, are seats that your party loses.

So to the degree to which he is able to advance his popularity and his agenda and gain seats,

is to the degree to which your party loses seats, loses the ability to influence policy,

their agenda is defeated.

So there is no point to ever helping the party in power get any sort of policy through.

The fear many years was, oh, if you look in transagent, the people are going to punish you.

But what McConnell realized is that people don't pay that close attention, at least not enough of them to.

If the president flounders, if the president fails to enact his agenda, people will blame him for it,

...