To an impressive extent, the story of Barack Obama's presidency was written by Republican congressional leaders, who recognized that Robert's Rules of parliamentary order weren't binding on anyone—but that Democrats would proceed as if old comities would ultimately prevail.
For years before the 2008 election, Senate filibuster rules had been put to slowly increasing use, but when Mitch McConnell became minority leader in 2007 he turned supermajority requirements into the expectation rather than the exception. The GOP's massive-resistance approach to obstructing Obama's agenda was an innovation, but to people paying attention to the late George W. Bush years it wasn't unexpected.
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