I agree with the president!

[pyesetz]

On Thursday, President Trump announced that if the Republicans did not pass the replacement healthcare system by Friday, then he would drop the matter and stay with ObamaCare (which remember is basically the same as RomneyCare, which was a Republican initiative to begin with).  On Friday, as expected, the replacement plan did not pass because it wasn't mean enough to poor people.  Here we are on Monday night and apparently the TrumpCare plan remains dead.

This is the correct outcome!  The Repubs have been saying for seven years that they would "repair or replace" ObamaCare, which they hated because Barack Obama has black skin.  (It couldn't have been because of anything *in* the plan, because Obama had copied it from the Repubs to begin with.)  For seven years they fundraised off racist donors who hated a plan that helps Black people more than Whites.  The (R)'s won the 2016 election, in part, by promising to get rid of ObamaCare and make Black people die in the gutter as God intended.  But of course they can't actually do that.  ObamaCare, like MediCare, is now a permanent entitlement.  Too many voters are getting benefits from it and it would cost too many votes to get rid of it.

So how did Trump get out of this unimplementable campaign promise, this "pre-existing condition" signature issue of the Republican party?  He made a big show of *trying* to pass a lame attempt at replacement, which of course failed, and then he dusted off his hands, declared failure, and moved on.  End of campaign promise!  ObamaCare is now the law of the Republican land — which is the right answer for America.  Of course, ObamaCare is a stinking pile of rotting garbage compared to what Canadians get, or what most every well-off country on the planet offers to their citizens (except Andorra — what is wrong with those people?).  But Americans can't have nice things, so ObamaCare is the best they can do.  And Trump has now announced what amounts to bipartisan support for it.  Such a nice president!

I sometimes wonder whether the ban-on-some-Muslims is a similar trick.  Trump repeated that promise over and over during the campaign because it got such big roars from the crowd, but banning Muslims will not Make America Great Again.  We've tried that before.  Banning Chinese people did not MAGA.  Putting quotas on Catholic immigrants did not MAGA.  Throwing all the Japanese-looking people into concentration camps did not MAGA.  We know this approach doesn't actually help with anything except generating applause at election rallies.  So Trump has twice now issued an "executive proclamation" in which he appears to be trying to keep his campaign promise to ban Muslims, only to be shut down by Conservative judges appointed by President W.  Did Trump know that would happen?  Was the whole Muslim-ban just a feint to get out of a inadvisable campaign promise?

And how about "Mexico will pay for the wall"?  What a great applause line that was!  But it seems pretty clear that Donald has no idea how to make it actually happen.  Somehow he will need to make an attempt, declare failure, and move on.  Might I suggest that the USA buy something for Canada, which then buys something for Mexico, which then buys the wall for the USA?  It's a three amigos gift exchange!  I can't imagine anything else that could possibly work.

Comments

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

I'll never forget the fractious negotiations for the ACA - not just with the Destructoids, but their own party as well, with folk like Louisiana's Mary Landrieu opposing it, inexplicably. Big tent, fine, but opposing a fairly modest - but highly useful - improvement in the abominable state of American healthcare? WTF? (Still, he duly stumped for her re-election. Go figure)

I rather enjoyed the way Trump discovered that he doesn't actually control how Congress behaves - Ryan called off the vote, and only later was Trump informed, during that wonderful big truck photo op, by a reporter, that that had happened. So, guess Ryan's off the Trump Christmas card list.. hell, the way Trump holds grudges, that'll be the least of his concerns.

Oh, did you hear the latest scuttlebutt? Seems the Kochs are pushing for a constitutional convention, if the party can secure a call by the requisite 34 states. Wouldn't that be fun?

[pyesetz]

The US gov't no longer obeys its Constitution, so I would be in favour of a convention to write a new one — if the NSA were put in charge of choosing the candidates so as to ensure that they broadly reflect American society, rather than being a gaggle of lawyers.  The NSA likes to claim that they know everything about everyone, so surely they could pick a set of conventioneers who are widely respected and whose signatures on the resulting document would actually cause Americans to have faith in it.

Landrieu voted for ACA, but only after demanding that the gov't include a $300m Medicare payment specifically for her home state.  She was with the Democrats on Hurricane Katrina, abortion, gun control, and some other issues, so it was reasonable for Bill Clinton to campaign for her re-election even though her position on ObamaCare was selfish.