At the moment, Trump seems to be pushing hard to have the ACA repealed and replaced RIGHT AWAY.
Republican leadership seems much more cautious about rushing things.
Part of this is certainly Trump’s total lack of knowledge about how things work in government; it is not a “business” model, where Trump is the CEO, and he commands “make this thing happen” and his underlings rush to please him.
However I wonder… The Republicans have been going on and on for years about repealing the ACA, and having vote after vote after vote… which were mainly political theatre, as they never really had to worry about the votes succeeding.
NOW, though… The Republicans have to put up or shut up. They’ve had 8 years to come up with a workable alternate plan. It seems to me that Trump is essentially calling their bluff, and telling them to get their shit together and put in place the healthcare plan that THEY SHOULD HAVE PREPARED YEARS AGO. And the Republican leadership is currently having an “oh shit” moment.
I think this is sort of a “Only Nixon could go to China” situation. Only Trump can show that the Republican policy on healthcare is an empty vessel of opposition - they have spent time railing against the ACA, but have no real alternative in place.
What purpose would it serve him to embarrass the only group that doesn’t openly loath him?
I think he’s been assured by Ryan et al that Republicans have big, huge, incredibly fantastic health care plans just waiting for Trump to stamp his name all over and he’d like nothing better than to show that ne’er do well Obama how it’s done.
Well yes, that would be the logical thing to expect from a normal politician. Trump has openly rebelled against Republican leadership (and Ryan) in the past - I truly am of the opinion that Trump thinks so much of himself that he really does think that he can do whatever he wants and Ryan will now obey him.
I think it’s neither ignorance nor wisdom that is driving him, but the simple carnival barker’s instinct for what sells. He was elected on a promise to “repeal and replace”, so that’s what he’s telling Congress to do, without any guidance or sense of direction or the slightest hint of what it is they’re supposed to be doing, exactly, because Trump himself has no idea and never did. But as long as he keeps saying “go and do that thing that the rubes said they wanted”, the rubes will applaud. By the time the Republican Congress totally bungles it and the rubes start losing their health care, Trump will, as always, have moved on to something else, perhaps a war someplace where there are Muslims.
A snark free quibble, if I may? My impression is that he campaigned on full repeal, tear it out by the roots, gonna do it the first day, so on and so forth. I don’t think he started with “replace” until much later in the game. He says “REPEAL!” and the crowd roars, he says “…and replace”, not so much. There were a couple of times he advanced some comparatively sane notions, but the crowd did not roar, and he did not repeat.
Well, he’s not a DC player. He has no campaign contributors who want a huge return on their investment, no friends to placate, and he has election pledges to deliver.
It’s a beautiful position to be in; he can leverage anything he wants from any angle.
I don’t know that it is intentional. It is just that the republican party is now in the spotlight right now.
Their ideas are being showcased. The fact that they have no good ideas has not been a problem for them when all they did was obstruct and criticize, now that it is time for them to put up, they got nothing.
Now, before anyone goes celebrating, keep in mind how much they do with nothing. Their ideas are crap, but their messaging is definitely superior to that of the Democrats. No matter how badly the republicans fail now that they have total control over the govt, they will still blame the democrats for their own shortcomings, and unfortunately, manage to convince a good portion of the electorate to go along with it.
Trump has no intention of taking responsibility for his statements.
He doesn’t care whether what he says is logical or contradicts something he said yesterday. He doesn’t care if it is do-able, or even whether it’s legal.
So we may be in for a new era of journalism,unknown in history:
Rather than discussing “What Trump Will Do” or “What Does Trump Mean When He Says” , we and the whole world may need to learn a new tactic, called “Let’s Ignore Trump”.
Congress will do things, some good, some bad, and life will go on–but only because congressmen and political parties will continue doing their usual thing, following their usual routines, but now with no guidance from the executive branch.
Trump may go down in history as the only president to be irrelevant…He’s just a sideshow: a carnival barker, and a bad joke.
This. He’s letting his supporters know that he **tried **to get the ACA repealed immediately-- he even **demanded **it!–but the crooked Congress wouldn’t do it. So, in essence, he is calling Congress’ bluff and appeasing his voters at the same time. He gets to have it both ways.
Because OF COURSE it can’t be repealed without some kind of replacement. Any doofus with half a brain can see that. Fortunately, there does appear to be half a brain in Congress (but only just).