In general, I think that most Americans, at the very least, want to be able to say about the leaders they elect, that those people got things accomplished.
But with their insistence on ideological purity, the Republican Party is making it impossible to claim credit for almost every major policy achievement enacted by our collective government.
Making it harder for themselves. They are doing it to themselves.
First, it became most glaring with the Affordable Care Act. They chose to take a vocal stance on repealing it, on shutting the government down over it, by waging multiple legal battles against it in court. Some prominent GOP Presidential candidates still insist on the language of repealing Obamacare. Even by demonizing it, by derisively calling it Obamacare, they make it all-but-impossible to extricate the ACA from anything but President Obama's legacy.
But now that the ACA has had time to come into effect almost in its entirety, what most people will begin to realize (incrementally, perhaps) is that, yes, they actually like it. And yet, this probably doesn't come as any surprise, least of all the Republicans, or at least it shouldn't. After all, Romneycare, Obamacare's previous incarnation, came about in much the same way: originally lambasted by its opponents, but eventually growing popular as residents started to see its benefits. But, because Republicans spent so much time and effort opposing the Affordable Care Act, any claims to have done anything to help Americans gain affordable health care will hardly seem anything but hypocritical.
Another example would be immigration reform. Through executive action, Obama made as many changes as he could to help fix America's immigration problem. But what do Republicans do? Again, they criticize, litigate, and basically put up as many obstacles as they could to these new immigration reforms.
Politically, by standing in the way of immigration reform, Republicans abandoned yet another signature policy. Instead of saving face and taking an active role in generating change, Republicans chose instead to side with their party's more obstructionist, inflammatory elements. But again, the repercussions are not something that should come as a surprise.
So Republicans can't, in good faith, claim any credit for fixing health care, for fixing immigration reform. The same could likely be argued for other issues, for women's rights, LGBT rights, etc. What can they claim that they accomplished?
Now, certainly not climate change.
Now, put aside the Republican Party base's continued denial of the science on climate change. Though some could argue that, even on climate change, the Republican Party as a whole is actually also on the right side, compared to their GOP leaders. Regardless, we have to assume that most of the prominent Republicans are smart enough to realize that, even if they won't admit it openly, they are in agreement with the general scientific consensus on climate change. And that it is something that will continue to need to be addressed, even after Obama leaves office, for the foreseeable future.
Nevertheless, the Republican Party chooses to be on the losing side. They choose to stand in the way of progress, to criticize every weakness in the proposed policy, without actually taking an active role in fixing those weaknesses. They choose to obstruct, obfuscate, and bloviate, rather than bite the bullet, roll their sleeves up, and get their hands dirty now to advance their own Republican-brand climate change initiative.
Once again, this is a rather shortsighted strategy. Once again, the official Republican Party line has their party on the wrong side of public opinion, or where public opinion will eventually end up.
Of course, these are politicians, and one could argue that it is almost natural to expect politicians to espouse a position that likely does not reflect their true position.
But there is also the optics on learning from history. It does not take a fortune teller to predict how the politics of climate change will play out. Nor is it difficult to predict the difficulties the overall Republican Party faces for taking its position on the wrong side of climate change.
So as they go on again, locking themselves out of yet another significant political achievement, one can't help but feel conflicted over the continued perception of ineptitude. It seems so apt, yet such a foreseeable disaster that anyone else could have seen coming from miles away, and acted to prevent.
The Republican Party is once again proving itself to be The Stupid Party.