But the price of that was likely the reduced House majority and losing to, for example, Susan Collins. This is a much more pausible theory than DEFUND THE POLICE. He basically encouraged the weirdos who love to vote split ticket to do so! Again, fine, he won. I'm not criticizing it, just pointing out that it was a strategy with other consequences.
There's now an ongoing tension between "the Republicans are an existential threat to the nation" and "I love to do bipartisan things with my good friends, the Republicans, who are, mostly, good."
This has not been worth the benefit of passing the shitty infrastructure bill and nothing else.