There are all these Democrats who are wailing and whining about having lost votes on Gun Control, and perhaps on Immigration reform. Frankly, I'm asking, what do you expect?
The same intransigence you talk about daily from the Republicans is what makes this possible. And why can they do this? Because quite simply, they're unconcerned about reconciling themselves with public opinion. There's no negotiated solution to this, at least not at this point.
What we need to do is face a basic fact: Republicans are willing to do a shitload of hard and nasty things in order to gain power, while we float around, trying to be idealists about things, hoping that Obama somehow twists the arms of every Republican, as if the Republicans of today were anything like the GOP of LBJ's time.
Folks, this is fantasy. We're not dealing with a shellshocked party like the one FDR faced, or the long moderated party of Johnson's time. We're dealing with the people who thought that the GOP of Johnson's times were pussies, were not true Republicans. No, strike that, we're dealing with the people who think the people who thought that are pussies! We're dealing with the motherfuckers who were so radical that Eisenhower was stomping them down into the political meatgrinder.
In short, they ain't beat yet, and they won't be for some time. These are people who had all the power in this country, tasted that, got addicted to that, and now that it's been mostly taken away, are not only pissed about it, but are dedicated to doing the exact same things!
All this magic negotiating skill you're wanting him to use? These guys don't want to be negotiated with!
We need to do what's necessary to pry seats out of their hands. We need to stop looking to anybody else, to the public, or whatever, for permission to start a wave against the Republicans. They didn't ask permission for the Tea Party movement. Why should we, with considerably more popular support for our party's policies?
We should quit waiting for a popular movement to wash the Republicans out, and start engineering that ourselves.