I don’t feel this is true. What the Republicans did was rebrand the ACA as “Obamacare” and then they rewrote the program so it wouldn’t work. This shows the fundamental difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. The Democrats see a problem and try to figure out a way to fix it. The Republicans see a problem and try to figure out a way to blame it on the Democrats.
And ACA started off as a Republican idea, which they suddenly turned on when Democrats decided they like the idea.
I’m going to have to be contrarian for a moment here. I would like to cast doubt on many of the claims of “Trump has surpassed my worst expectations” posts here.
On Election Night 2016, there were people posting things like, “The living will envy the dead,” “Trump will turn America into the Handmaid’s Tale,” etc. No matter what, you can’t in seriousness claim that America has turned into the Handmaid’s Tale or Hitleresque fascism. It’s like people want to have their cake and eat it too - they want to predict, “Trump will be Hitler” - and then, say, “Trump has SURPASSED my expectations, he’s worse than Hitler.”
You’re comparing him to uncited SDMB posts, not what your own expectations were, which is the topic. 
If the question asked was ‘did Trump measure up to the general expectations of the Board?’ then your… again uncited… examples would be relevant.
But that wasn’t the question.
OK, fair enough. I’m sure some were hyperbole and not serious.
In some ways, Trump has been more dignified and presidential than what I expected. Which is to say that I was mentally prepared for a horrifying presidency.
I remember feeling very sad when I learned that Trump won, but I wasn’t frightened, so I definitely underestimated him because he has scared the bejesus out of me several times.
Acknowledgement of hyperbole aside, I love how you’re setting the bar at “worse than Hitler” and “literal Gilead” in order to contradict the narrative that Trump is bad.
Never mind that multiple historical scholars - and actual Holocaust survivors - have pointed out several close parallels to the rise of the Nazis in 1930s Germany. Never mind that Trump and his administration have been using rhetoric right out of the Nazi playbook, including repeatedly referring to critics and the media as “enemies of the people” and ethnic minorities as “vermin” “sneaking across the border” to spread crime and disease. Never mind that we literally have camps where asylum seekers are being separated from their families (and their children “lost” in the system") and subject to all manner of deprivation and abuse. Never mind the ongoing rallies where supporters shout hateful chants demanding the incarceration of and violence against political opponents, nor the ongoing support for right-wing vigilante groups planning and committing violence across the country. And let’s not forget the now-blatant efforts to disrupt the upcoming election, including voter suppression, intimidation and fraud.
So no - Trump isn’t “worse than Hitler”. Yet. And he probably won’t be. But the comparisons to the Nazis have nonetheless turned out to be pretty fucking accurate thus far. And a lot closer than even I thought they would be.
As for “Gilead”, well… I refer you to the latest SCOTUS candidate, the other conservative judges McConnell and friends have shoehorned into place, and the intended docket of cases she’ll likely be ruling on. We won’t see a literal “Gilead” but we’re likely to see things get a lot harder for women, for ethnic minorities, for LGBT+ individuals, and for anyone else outside the right-wing white Christian orthodox set.
And, again, I had hoped that the sensible voices in the GOP would prevent things from getting this bad. It turns out there weren’t many, and they’re all on the sidelines now.
I shudder to think what you were expecting.
I can’t think of a single instance that “dignified and Presidential” was even on the horizon.
This one time he squeaked out a greasy burger-fart that sounded like a few bars of, “America the Beautiful.”
Dignified:
Talk about a low bar-You’ve seemed to have sunk that one in the Mariana Trench.
Presidential:
Looking at the body language, which male is more dominant in this picture?
- Trump
- Putin
- They’re both equal
0 voters
Hey, that recorded an inadvertent vote!
You don’t want to know.
Yeah, well, you voted correctly, IMHO. I don’t see how one can objectively argue either man in that photo is somehow demonstrating any sort of dominance. It’s a still photo of two guys sitting in chairs.
Putin: shoulders are wider, his hands are above his waist, head up, eyes pointed directly ahead to whatever he’s looking at, engaged with the subject, his posture erect (as much as it can be while sitting).
Trump: shoulders are hunched, his hands below his waist clasping each other, his posture slumped to the left, away from Putin, his eyes averted from his facial orientation, expression scowling.
One is confident, the other inwardly squirming. It’s pretty blatant to me.
Yep. Trump is definitely exhibiting submissive body language.
That is not quite correct. In 2017, Eddie Munster presented America with the Republican-crafted, imaginatively named AHCA. It would
- make essential benefits optional, on a state-by-state basis
- slash MedicAid by a lot
- give insurance companies more latitude over pre-existing conditions while claiming to do otherwise
- base tax credits solely on age (making them much more illogical)
- defund Planned Parenthood and make healthcare services for women less accessible
This passed the R-dominated House by 4 votes but failed to pass the R-dominated Senate. Nonetheless, it is wrong to say that the Republicans never had an alternative. A hastily slapped together fucked up unworkable destructive mess that even Rs could not get behind still qualifies as something.