Trump opponents hate the premise, so they are inclined to reject it out of hand. But, pretend a moment. Pretend he is a master at persuasive messaging.
What would Trump do??
Remember, Trump does not care about policy but he cares about being popular.
First of all, he would campaign against Obamacare, for the simple reason that it was complicated, incomplete, expensive, cumbersome, new, and it was created by Democrats. It was unpopular generally and especially among Rebublicans. So of course he campaigned against it. That does not take a genius.
Second, he would recognize that any new health care bill will be complicated, incomplete, expensive, cumbersome, new, and would be created by Republicans and would be doomed to be unpopular. But since he campaigned against it he has no choice but to make a show of repealing Obamacare.
Third, he would make the show, but "move on" just before a vote. Then he would immediately say that Obamacare survives, that Democrats caused the defeat, he would repeat the word "Democrat" multiple times, he would say that Democrats 100% own Obamacare, and he would move the news to something popular: tax cuts and infrastructure spending.
Fourth, a brilliant strategist would understand that to be credible as a feint and phony attempt he needs to make it look good and needs to let the Democrats gloat, so indeed he welcomes the gloating and tells Paul Ryan to hold out there and admit it was a loss, a failure, that they came up short.
And that is exactly what happened. It is entirely possible that Trump is, as his detractors believe, a blowhard of middling intelligence who stumbled upward due to Democratic incompetence in nominating a Hillary. But it is possible, just possible, that Trump is actually very good at this.
The smart thing for a Democrats to do is pretend that he is, and attempt to defend against a genius, not a buffoon.
3 comments:
Truly scary proposition...however, I don't believe the evidence is conclusive that this was a strategy, although It does seem to indicate that, as I believe, that Trump doesn't care about policy, unless it can enrich him further. This is such a complicated issue politically that it almost becomes moot as to who will benefit, but the ACA is still under threat, and maybe the whole exercise was done in bad faith. It certainly looks that way considering the haphazard way it was conceived and legislated.
Thanks, Peter, I actually posted something similar yesterday, not that Trump is brilliant (his advisors might be savvy enough tho),but he will repeat that Democrats caused this, and that Aca will implode. So many things about the ACA genuinely need to be fixed, like some people in some states do not have any insurance companies participating. Like the high cost of pharms. Both sides could agree (ha!) on doing something about these. Ryan, tho, and Walden, were probably genuinely involved in the new bill. I agree that what Trump wants is just an audience and applause. And more money, of course, for the 1%.
I have actually read the ACA on a panel for the Foster Care System. It could be fixed. It was not as flawed as everyone thinks. At the time that the Republicans sequestered the Federal Government, they were granted some changes. One was to lift the 20% cap on Insurance profits. I don't know why this is not reported more. That was the beginning of the destabilization of a program which had been worked out by economists and actuaries.
Because the Republicans (and I assume some Democrats) are in bed with Insurance and Big Pharma, we are losing our chance for a part private and part government subsidized program.
Our biggest problem is getting some legislators to sit down and read the damn thing, Secondly, we must reveal the assholes who are holding us hostage so they may line their own pockets.
Then we must regulate insurance and Big Pharma. (Another one of Trumps promises was to allow us to purchase meds from other countries.
I believe we can do this is we keep bombarding our legislators and expose the ones who are allowing insurance to gouge us more and more and more.
This was apparent at the time Michael Moore produced "Sicko" 2007? We were not organized to protest as we are now. You could help by getting the word around. It was a good bill. It was sabotaged. We still don't know if there was some sabotaging of the marketplace computer system... or maybe we do.
Whatever Trump is... We are wise to him now. Snyders new book "Tyranny," says that the next set will be a major terrorist type event orchestrated by Trump or his controllers. If we are proactive we can predict what is going to do. So far he has been going by some well-researched methods used by other dictators which he plagiarized in his own book.
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