To further elaborate, the minority party is always the one that appears to be making trouble, but it's really about perception since whoever's in power always has the majority and can easily give the appearance of trying to compromise without really conceding anything significant. During the height of Republican power in the Bush administration it definitely felt as if the Democrats were the ones arguing about stupid little details on things and missing the forest for the trees, now it's going to look the Republicans are the ones doing that. Similarly, the minority party typically seems less united and defined. In 2004, Kerry ran on a platform of not being Bush. In 2012, Romney ran on a platform of not being Obama. These are just the realities of how a bipartisan system is going to work most of the time, although everything can feel much more congenial when everything is just generally going well, as it was for most of the '90s...