And perhaps most important, Mr. Trump has rarely bothered to ask.
I am a moderate from a state Trump won, said Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, who is up for re-election next year in a state where Hillary Clinton received just 38 percent of the vote. Youd think they would have called me sometime.
I am ready to work with President Trump on things like infrastructure. I happen to agree with him on the water rule, she added, referring to a regulation that Mr. Trump is seeking to roll back. These are just lower priorities for them, I guess.
Rather than trying to bring Democrats to his side, Mr. Trump has instead waged a war of Twitter insults against lawmakers who oppose his agenda. He has picked fights with allies, proposed giant budget cuts to programs dear to many in his own party and inserted himself into the health care fight in ways that hurt congressional Republicans efforts, all under the cloud of a federal investigation into possible connections to Russian meddling in the election.
All this has undermined the notion, born just six months ago, that Mr. Trumps surprising win had rewritten the political map, as Ronald Reagan did in 1980, in a way neither party could ignore. Confident that the political order is largely intact, Democrats have been emboldened to oppose his agenda, and Republicans, who adamantly refused to help Mr. Obama, are learning what turnabout feels like.
Early in new administrations, members look to work together where they can, said Scott Mulhauser, who served in senior roles for several Democrats and committees in the Senate over the past decade. There was a postelection moment where this president might have reached toward the center, delivered on priorities like infrastructure that cut across party lines and reconfigured the electoral math. Instead, he made little effort to collaborate, lurched rightward to his base while taunting the center and the left, and is now feeling the consequences. You reap the discord you sow.
Some Democrats, including Mr. Schumer, tried to appeal to Mr. Trump early on.
I told him infrastructure and tax reform should have been the first thing out of the box, said Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, whom both parties expected to be an early ally of Mr. Trump. But, Mr. Manchin said, the president chose a more partisan agenda. Someone got to him, he said.
Mr. Manchin spoke with the president early in his administration leading to speculation that he might even land a job within it but has since been largely ignored by White House officials and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, who has mostly iced out Democrats in this Congress.
Mr. Manchin has no interest in the Senate health care bill, which would greatly cut the Medicaid program in his poor, rural state, a concern shared by his Republican counterpart from West Virginia, Shelley Moore Capito. Mr. Manchin has largely voted against Mr. Trumps agenda and nominees. (He was the one Democrat who voted to confirm Jeff Sessions as attorney general, but that was out of friendship with Mr. Sessions more than fealty to Mr. Trump.)
The country has a long history of senators from the opposite party working to help pass a new presidents agenda. Former Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, supported President George Bush on a broad trade agreement, and sided with President George W. Bush on a large tax cut and the expansion of a prescription drug benefit for older Americans, infuriating his own party.
Both Bushes were very deeply experienced, as were their cabinet officials, Mr. Baucus said in a telephone interview from Paris on Wednesday, noting that the White House had courted him on every measure he ultimately supported. Jim Baker took the cake, Mr. Baucus said, referring to George H. W. Bushs chief of staff, who called him to wheel and deal on the North American Free Trade Agreement. Donald Trump and his people have no public policy experience, and it shows.
Congressional leaders, emboldened by the total Republican control of Washington, are now pursuing a partisan agenda largely through methods that require no help from Democrats. Senate committees, where bipartisan bills have historically been forged, are not developing big bills right now, which have been left to leadership teams instead.
Mr. Baucus, who served in leadership roles on the Senate Finance Committee, met with his Republican counterpart, Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, every Tuesday at 5:30 for 12 years, even if it was just to talk about our kids, Mr. Baucus said, and that helped pave the way for bipartisan legislation.
The most successful bills have historically come out of committees, because successful committee votes provide evidence of a policys ability to pass the full Senate, and pressure members of both parties to participate. I know this sounds corny, Mr. Baucus said, referring to votes for bills that cross party lines, but if you do whats right, its a terrific shield against critics.
Should the Republicans health care bill fail in the Senate, there is already nascent talk of bipartisan bills to fix the existing law.
At the same time, Democrats have sought a parallel unity, coming up with their own infrastructure and child care plans to lay down markers if the White House decides to bargain on bills that, unlike health care and the next item up, tax reform, will need 60 votes, and therefore the support of at least some Democrats, to pass.
We Democrats have set the goal posts, Mr. Schumer said. If President Trump is going to talk the talk on these issues, then we look forward to him working with us and walking the walk.
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A version of this article appears in print on June 29, 2017, on Page A15 of the New York edition with the headline: Spurned by Trump, Conciliatory Senate Democrats Take a Harder Line.
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Senate Democrats Sought to Work With Trump. Then He Began Governing. - New York Times