No, you aren’t understanding. In business, both sides do NOT always “gain” and both sides (even if they don’t get it it) are usually trying for 100% victory. They may have to settle.
Politics is not different. What is different is that the negotiator in business-—a manager, or even a CEO-—has to report to a board or someone higher up. Congressmen report to the people . . . but only every two years, and many of them are almost 100% isolated from the people. That’s what is different. All you can do is make them irrelevant, or buy those particular people off. You can’t threaten them with “unelection.”
Somewhere around the time Obamacare was first being floated, our elected leaders decided it was okay NOT to vote as the folks back home wanted, but to vote as THEY saw fit. They said as much to their constituents at many of the town halls. “I hear you, but I’m going to vote for it anyway.”
That’s the day they publicly broke faith with the public— and the day America became something other than a republic.