"Most Americans still don't understand..."

It keeps getting scarier. In Paul Krugman's column ("There Will Be Blood"), today in The New York Times, he writes that

one of our two great political parties has made it clear that it has no interest in making America governable, unless it’s doing the governing. And that party now controls one house of Congress, which means that the country will not, in fact, be governable without that party’s cooperation — cooperation that won’t be forthcoming.
    ...
    Right now, in particular, Republicans are blocking an extension of unemployment benefits—an action that will both cause immense hardship and drain purchasing power from an already sputtering economy. But there’s no point appealing to the better angels of their nature; America just doesn’t work that way anymore.
    ...
    These days, national security experts are tearing their hair out over the decision of Senate Republicans to block a desperately needed new strategic arms treaty. And everyone knows that these Republicans oppose the treaty, not because of legitimate objections, but simply because it’s an Obama administration initiative; if sabotaging the president endangers the nation, so be it.
    ...
    My sense is that most Americans still don’t understand this reality. They still imagine that when push comes to shove, our politicians will come together to do what’s necessary. But that was another country.

While it's morally uplifting to have a nice, conciliatory, bipartisan president, one wishes (too late) that Mr. Obama had been more effective over the past two years in keeping the opposition in check. One imagines that if he had done a better job in that regard, the Republican Party might not have been able to gain control of the House of Representatives in the recent election. Now our President's opportunities to "be effective" have been sharply curtailed.