[mrguyorama]

It doesn't. The republicans are able to stop things a lot of the time because Democrats don't have a strong majority in either house. They can barely scrape together a 50% plus 1 vote by bringing in people who are "Democrat" but for example refuse to allow public option healthcare or shut down of coal plants.

Republicans have voters that understand your guy has to be in the seat before you want something to happen. They correctly understand that if you just vote for more guys, you get more of what you want to happen, and correctly identify that the solution to not getting what you want is to get more seats in the next election.

I can never understand the shocking lack of civics education from people who get upset at democrats for not having power when the system describes in plain language that you need numbers for the power.

When Mitch McConnell prevented the vote to appoint a new supreme court justice, it was because he had that power as senate majority leader. If Democrats had a senate majority at that time, he could not have prevented the vote.