It's a short, simple phrase: they want it all.
When you listen to them complaining about SOTU or anything else the President and the Democrats do or don't do, underneath it all is that simple motivation: they want it all. This is what the villagers work very hard at not knowing; this is what the pundit class dare not reveal to the hoi polloi.
They want it all. All the power, all the wealth, all the moral superiority they imagine they're entitled to. They recognize no limits on their ambition, and no legitimacy on the part of others. They are the center of the universe and they are verily pissed off by those who fail to acknowledge it.
They are not bound by facts, law, custom, tradition, morality, or consistency if such comes between them and what they want - and they will not hesitate to employ all of those as weapons by imposing them on their enemies. (And everyone is their enemy, because if you're not with them, you're against them.)
What they can not buy, what they can not simply take by force, they are willing to steal by guile, misdirection, and outright falsehood. They lie to everyone, and no one more than themselves. The only thing of substance to their personal honor is the fury they direct on anyone who questions it.
The world may be richer when enemies are turned into friends, but if it doesn't make them personally richer, they can't be bothered. The only real crime in their view of the world is to be without money or power. A desire to share to share either is the mark of either a fool or a dangerous madman in their eyes.
They want to be feared AND loved, kind of like five year olds - only with nuclear weapons.
They are prepared to spend years working towards what they want - while ignoring the consequences right under their noses or heading towards them like a skidding bus on black ice if it means giving up the least bit of their desires or making concessions to reality. Reality is not their friend and never their fault.
Every advance in human society, every accomplishment of civilization is based at least in part, on frustrating their desires in some way. They call themselves Republicans today, but they have always been among us under one name or another, and every group of whatever persuasion or ideals can harbor examples. They are to be found wherever there is power or wealth of any kind, and always they seek it for their own ends, however they justify it, whether by faith, patriotism, or some ineffable logic of their own rationalization.
If you seek common ground with them, it is liable to prove quicksand under your feet. Where there is no check to their ambitions, the only ground they will concede to those who stand in their way is that of the grave.
Any claim to respectability, any shred of decency among them is due to a failure to live down to their ideals - it can't last. They forgive nothing, they forget nothing, they learn nothing. The only thing at the core of their values is what they want.
They want it all - and they can neither respect nor understand anyone who doesn't think that same way.
If you can remember that, you stand at least a chance of dealing with them.