Classic politics.
At the beginning of Obama’s administration, Republicans condemned the Affordable Care Act for being worked on behind closed doors with secret agreements and, of course, being rushed through the House. Fast forward an administration, remove some melanin, and it is clear that the hopefully disease-free shoe is on the other foot.
It seems silly that just about every single aspect of pushing Obamacare into legislation condemned by Republicans is being used now, by Republicans, in a Republican controlled government, to push their papier-mache replacement through before anybody really knows what they’re voting on. The major difference is, I guess, that Republicans hope to pass this bill within three months of Trump’s first term, while Obamacare, which was criticized for being rushed into legislation, took 14 months to pass.
It’s silly too that Republicans can control the presidency, control the House, and control the Senate, but still have the audacity to blame Democrats for any troubles with the bill. At this point, Democrats have the ability to filibuster and that’s about it, without even enough seats to halt a bill without some Republican support.
Even sillier might be the utter blatancy of lying in which this administration partakes. Perhaps nobody ever told Trump that hyperbole begins to lose its affect when used in every successive sentence, or maybe he’s just delusional enough to think that people don’t know how to watch videos of his speeches—or maybe he’s just forgetful. I don’t know, I can’t claim to understand how the president thinks, or if he thinks at all, but it is absolutely baffling to watch the commander in chief say “I never said ‘repeal [Obamacare] and replace it within 64 days’” and then watch a clip of one of his rallies where he claims that he will repeal and replace Obamacare “immediately.” Granted, he didn’t say 64 days, but immediately sort of has slightly quicker connotations. But as usual, as with declassifying private CIA intelligence, Trump is safe on a technicality.
Trump doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing, and the Republican controlled Congress seems to be in a greater mess than the orange toupee itself, but perhaps it’s just them doing their job…correctly. The bags under Kellyanne Conway’s eyes and the distraught in Sean Spicer’s voice might hint that they’re constantly trying to clean up the most recent mess and, admittedly, they probably are. However, if there’s one thing that cutting healthcare for tens of millions of Americans guarantees, it’s a limited scope of government. Maybe Trump’s just flying on his anti-Obama campaign promises, or maybe he legitimately wants to transfer some of the legislative responsibility from the federal government to the state level and legitimize the federal system, I don’t really know. What I do know is that, while it seems that Trump has no idea what’s going on, maybe it’s a good thing.
Not a good thing for us wanting to live to see 2020, but a good thing in regard to respecting his ideology. Trump ran on an ultraconservative platform, and cutting federal healthcare is without a doubt effectively limiting the scope of the federal government which, by definition, is fulfilling a conservative ideology—I just wish he at least would try to do it in a way that wasn’t so embarrassing.
Maybe Trump doesn’t know what he’s doing. Maybe he knows exactly what he’s doing. I’m not sure which one scares me more, but I think, at the very least, it’s worth a thought.
