18th July 2017, 6:09 PM
... So, Senators Lee and Moran decided to be the "bad guys" who would kill McConnell's health care bill, and isn't that a relief! This was always the most likely result, as I said I've never thought this year that Republicans were definitely going to repeal Obamacare, but I was getting worried that maybe the Senate would go the way of the House and pass something awful... but at least right now it looks like that is unlikely for the moment at least, thanks to the Republican Party's impressive levels of dysfunction, both between their extremist and "moderate" wings and because of a complete lack of policy details or leadership from the idiot in the White House. We may strongly disagree with the reasons why some of those Republicans refused to back the bill -- Ron Johnson, for example, is quite upset about McConnell's secret promise to the "moderate" wing that the medicare cuts would never actually go into effect because he wants those cuts now -- but a dead bill keeps the ACA in place and while it is a deeply flawed law it IS at least better than any of the Republican's alternatives, so that's great.
Beyond that, seeing the reaction on the right as their total control of the government collapses into uselessness because they can't agree on anything is both amusing and a great sign for Democratic success in 2018 and 2020. I've said this before and I doubt that it'll ever actually be worth the damage this president has done to our democracy, but if out of it we can save our very vulnerable incumbent red-state Senators up for re-election in 2018 (who probably would almost all be doomed in a Hillary Clinton administration, particularly if Republicans held enough power to block everything as they almost certainly would) and win in 2020, a census year before redistricting... well, that would be a pretty good result, all things considered. It is also quite satisfying to see Trump's fact-free style fail at policy; the people may be stupid enough to believe nonsense and elect him, but governing is hard and he isn't able to do it.
To reference one concern of mine from the past, fortunately, things now are so bad that even if Trump was removed soon I think it'd be hard for that party to get anything done before the elections to save their House majority and such... and let's hope that their party's failure to govern and the continuing Trump-Russia revelations, and investigations, combine to keep things that way for long enough to keep any horrible legislation from passing and help Democrats win lots of seats next election despite facing the massive upwinds gerrymandering brings on us.
Beyond that, seeing the reaction on the right as their total control of the government collapses into uselessness because they can't agree on anything is both amusing and a great sign for Democratic success in 2018 and 2020. I've said this before and I doubt that it'll ever actually be worth the damage this president has done to our democracy, but if out of it we can save our very vulnerable incumbent red-state Senators up for re-election in 2018 (who probably would almost all be doomed in a Hillary Clinton administration, particularly if Republicans held enough power to block everything as they almost certainly would) and win in 2020, a census year before redistricting... well, that would be a pretty good result, all things considered. It is also quite satisfying to see Trump's fact-free style fail at policy; the people may be stupid enough to believe nonsense and elect him, but governing is hard and he isn't able to do it.
To reference one concern of mine from the past, fortunately, things now are so bad that even if Trump was removed soon I think it'd be hard for that party to get anything done before the elections to save their House majority and such... and let's hope that their party's failure to govern and the continuing Trump-Russia revelations, and investigations, combine to keep things that way for long enough to keep any horrible legislation from passing and help Democrats win lots of seats next election despite facing the massive upwinds gerrymandering brings on us.