But what does any of that have to do with post-election behavior? Hope and change sound familiar?
The behaviour of the elected person afterwards is irrelevant to what I'm talking about, even in my original post. It's all about a shift in the broader landscape of politics, not just one person getting elected. I mean, even in the context of your political system, the president is mostly a figurehead, or someone to take the blame when shit's bad. They are probably the most visible but least important people in the day to day running of the political process. The president can say they want to do this, or that, but at the end of the day, House and the Senate hold almost all the cards. The only reason a president is important is that it means that their party holds enough seats to be a majority in the House on that election, which means that a president's promises are slightly more likely to happen.