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President Obama’s decision to use executive actions immediately after the election sent the spirits of those in his party surging, while splitting his Republican opposition before they could take power.

According to The Hill, the flurry of executive action is part of a broader strategy, “The last month has provided a glimpse of how President Obama plans to maintain his relevance in Washington while facing lame-duck status and a Republican House and Senate. Wednesday’s surprise announcement that the U.S. was seeking to normalize relations with Cuba was the latest example of a new, muscular approach on executive action that has highlighted how Obama can enact change without Congress, while enlivening a dispirited liberal base.”

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With two moves, Obama wiped away any bad feelings among the Democratic base that were leftover from the outcome of the 2014 election. President Obama revived and refocused his party by providing a clear agenda and acting on it. Democrats who have spent years caught in the quagmire of Republican obstruction and gridlock are overjoyed to see their agenda moving forward.

The president has also made sure that the incoming Republican congressional majority will not enjoy a honeymoon period. Obama’s actions have reopened a deep divide among Republicans. Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) and incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) had to promise to pick a fight with the president over his immigration executive orders in early 2015 in order to get enough support to avoid a government shutdown.

This was not how Republicans thought it was going to work. McConnell promised his supporters that when became Majority Leader he was going to break Obama and force the president to do his bidding. The exact opposite has happened. The president has demonstrated his ability to fracture the Republican congressional caucus in order to create divides that Democrats can exploit.

It is being reported that Obama feels liberated by no longer having to protect the Democratic majority in the Senate, “Obama feels liberated, aides say, and sees the recent flurry of aggressive executive action and deal-making as a pivot for him to spend his final two years in office being more the president he always wanted to be.”

A liberated Obama is bad news for Boehner and McConnell. With the government funded through September 2015, the president has taken away the Republican Party’s main weapon against him. The government shutdown has all but evaporated, which means that there is precious little that Republicans can do to stop this president.

President Obama is sending strong signals that he is going to be spending the final two years of his presidency making full use of the powers of his office. Republicans thought they could stop Obama by winning the Senate, but they will soon realize that their victory has empowered him.