It is hard to make the case that this comeback is the result of an abundance of competence and strategic insight on the part of Republican lawmakers. While the Republican Party’s youthful and energetic strategists have deftly put the party on the correct path for a makeover, the GOP’s representatives in government have not helped shift public opinion as much as have the many failures of the president and his party.

The GOP is well positioned to press these emerging advantages as Democratic politicians appear content to assuage the concerns of their base voters with myths and fairytales.

Obama’s disastrous handling of his push for Syria, and his acceding to surrendering control of the situation to Russia, looks to the Democratic base to be the height of statesmanship. To the broader universe of voters, even though they may welcome the way out of a war they never wanted, it looks like fecklessness and incompetence. The White House’s failed push for new gun laws has squandered his opportunity to secure meaningful reforms in his second term, another fact his political base refuses to recognize. Even as Democratic politicians lose on the issue of new gun laws, Democratic leaders invent comforting fictions about “voter suppression” to appease their supporters rather than confront the reality of the unpopularity of their desired policy prescriptions.