Sure - Obama's rhetorical effort to project political power beyond what he actually had.

He had 60 votes and rammed through Obamacare with them. He had no interest in making deals with Boehner and McConnell.

A list of failed disappointments for his agenda.

And after that, he started using his rulemaking ability via the bureaucracy to get his agenda through. Ruthless is a trait that Obama has in spades.

The GOP seems gripped by the delusion that all that's necessary to achieve significant changes in US federal government policy is "courage" or "strength" or "will," rather than "a filibuster-proof majority" or "cutting a deal with members of the other party."

Because the democrats are the perfect negotiating partners, aren't they? They always act in good faith to get what they want?

Let's take illegal immigration. How did trusting the democrats work out for Ronald Reagan? Or Trump in 2016?

pon.harvard.edu - In the room where it happened a tale of two meetings nb
Democratic senator Diane Feinstein then made a bold proposal to Trump: “What about a clean DACA bill now, with a commitment that we go into a comprehensive immigration reform procedure?” She was asking for a bill on a single, Democratic-favored issue—protections for Dreamers—with no other issues on which Republicans could negotiate concessions, such as border security.

“I have no problem [with that],” Trump responded. “We’re going to do DACA, and then we can start immediately on the Phase 2, which would be comprehensive [reform].”

“Would you be agreeable to that?” Feinstein said.

“Yeah, I would like to do that,” Trump said.

Yeah, trusting the democrats - who never put politics in front of the national interest - is the way to go.

What about Establishment Republicans? Surely they know how to deal with democrats, don't they? Bush41's "Read my lips" pledge worked out well.

The democrat party - in its current form - isn't to be trusted as far as I can throw the White House into the Potomac. Whether it be abusing their positions as a part of the Deep State (the 51 signees of the Hunter Laptop letter) Harry Reid openly lying about Mitt Romney's taxes, Nancy Pelosi's Star Chamber impeachments of Donald Trump, to "give me amnesty now and I'll give you border security later" backstabbing, to "break your campaign pledge and I won't hold it against you"...

...the Republicans have been playing the duck to the democrats' scorpion for decades. Scorpions are to be squashed, not put into positions where they can drown the duck.