In January, pretty much all of respectable Washington had a sense of where President Barack Obama’s second term was headed. His approval ratings were sky high. His liberalism was pure and untroubled by thoughts of post-partisanship. His second-term agenda of immigration reform, gun control, climate change, and tax reform was clear. He would roll over the opposition. The dawn of a liberal age—a permanent majority, perhaps—was at hand. Stinking Republicans? Obama didn’t need them.