One of the most interesting things to see is the difference between the reactions of Democrats and Republicans to Trump and Obama. The reaction shows why one side has been successful, managing to reduce the Democrats to their lowest level of power since the 1920s, and the other side has been flailing.

Republicans

The republican reaction can be exemplified with the famous quote of Mitch McConnell. He said he would make sure that Obama would be a one term president. Liberals and Democrats hated that but in reality Republicans are supposed to help other Republicans win. This is doubly true for the majority leader who is supposed to increase the size of his coalition.

By acknowledging that Obama would be a one term president Republicans acknowledged their loss and prepared for the next election. They did an autopsy to find out what was wrong and attempted to win enough other races in other levels to increase the size of their coalitions. Please note that the autopsy was dumb and came to all the wrong conclusions but at the very least the attempt was made. A defeat for the Republicans would have been the Democrats winning the elections 4 and 8 years after Obama was elected.

There was a small faction of Republicans, which Trump was part of, which did not accept the loss and tried to have Obama removed before his time with the birther issue. The fact is they were a small faction without any political power. The ones who were actually planning the strategy of the party had accepted the loss.

Democrats

Democrats have still not accepted their loss to Trump. Having been told their whole lives that demographics is destiny and that Republicans would never win again without cheating they have not been able to emotionally process losing to President Trump. This prevents them from looking at the events of 2016 objectively and creating an autopsy like the Republicans did. Since they have not accepted the loss they focus on short term objectives like removing Trump from power as opposed to long term ones like restoring their party to power.

We are not talking about a small faction like the birthers in the Republican party but rather the entire party. This means that all political strategy only looks at short term effects. Every scandal has to be played up as the one that will finally impeach Trump exhausting the populace and the credibility of the media. A loss for Democrats is if Trump makes it to the next election as the President. The danger is that by next election the Democrats would have exhausted their outrage machine by so much that no one will listen to them.

One side uses cold calculation and logic while the other uses mass hysterics and we can see the results.