I’m not following you. If the last president had been white, you think the GOP would have had an alternative plan ready? I don’t see any reason to believe that.
No. I’m saying that their ability to mobilize fierce, unified, and total opposition was partly a consequence of the fact that this opposition was not primarily driven by policy differences. It was driven in large part by simple tribalism, and Obama’s race was a significant factor in ramping up that tribalism (on top of simple partisanship).
This argument is supported by the fact that the GOP continues to have no coherent policy criticism or organized policy alternatives. They want lower deductibles while proposing policies that would radically raise deductibles. They are all over the map, with the only thing they can agree on being that they don’t like Obamacare.
Sorry, but I’m not seeing the connection between your argument (paragraph 2) and race. The previous Democratic president was impeached, for God’s sake. So it seems to me the “scorched earth” policy of the GOP towards a Democratic president predates Obama and would have been no different had Obama been white. Fierce opposition by the opposing party is not prima facia evidence of racism when such opposition is seen towards members of the same race as the opposing party.
All I’m saying is that the “Obama is a Kenyan Muslim” rallying cry was instrumentally helpful to a GOP leadership deadset on denying him any policy victories regardless of whether the policies were quite centrist. In the same way, Clinton’s infidelities were instrumentally useful.
Would you argue that the GOP base’s views on the propriety of White House blowjobs were irrelevant to their fiery Clinton opposition?
All I’m saying is that if President WhiteBoy had a muslim father who was from Bosnia, and had grown up in and out of muslim families around the world, he would have been called a Muslim Bosnian by the GOP.
I think the GOP were opposed to Clinton before the blowjobs (and subsequent charges of perjury) became public, so I would argue that they served as a convenient excuse to go after him but were not what cause the opposition itself.
You seem to be arguing that anti-Muslim bigotry is a better explanation than racial hostility. Maybe so. There’s really no way to separate it all out, but I do think you can paint Obama as foreign more easily because he is also Black. My cite is all of American history.
Immaterial to my point. I don’t necessarily think McConnell is any more racist than anybody else. But he was able to organize his party more effectively because they were. The same is true for Clinton. If the GOP base wasn’t heavily evangelical, the infidelity attacks would have been less successful.
While there is definitely an argument that any Democratic President who would have passed ACA would suffer from Republican attempts to repeal / replace, etc., I do believe that Trump is personally very strongly motivated by a direct hatred of Obama. I also believe it is primarily racism in Trump’s case. It is really just a happy accident that it aligns with the Republican platform.
The way you find out is to have a congressman/sentaor or simply a press release that announces this ‘new thing’ called the ‘Affordable Care Act’ and use the exact same bill/wording (change the dates/names of course) and see how people respond to it.
This will tell you all you need to know.
I heard someone say once, Republicans never support Democratic legislation until they get to take credit for it. So if the Senate can indeed build a bi-partisan coalition to improve Obamacare, write the bill, title it “Repeal and Replace” and watch support among conservatives for the ACA skyrocket.
Similarly, that’s when you’ll know the fight is finally over. When they move on from fighting it, to merely accepting it but making sure not to give Obama any credit. 
I honestly dont think Trump cares that much. See the GOP hated it as that "uppity nigger’ pushed it thru and made it his hallmark. And honestly to star there was a lot of hated for the ACA- it was complicated and people didnt understand. And to be even more honest the ACA really isnt that great.
So the GOP seized on that dislike and fueled it and made it a Standard to rally around. Meanwhile, people were getting affordable health insurance.
Now it is impossible to just repeal. Maybe in the year after it was passed, sure. But not now. Still the GOP & Trump made so much noise about it, it’s hard to back down.
But not if passed by a White GOP president. And not as much.
Racism is hardly the only reason the GOP hates it, and likely not the main reason. But to say it is not A reason is being willfully blind.
I suggest that there is a difference between racism being a REASON, and the existence of racism in the Republican base, being a PROPAGANDA TOOL. The republicans as a party never hated the ACA because Obama is black. But they know that a significant part of their base does hate anything that involves black people being in positions of power, so they carefully shape their propaganda to ALLOW the racists among them to wink at each other knowingly.
Agreed. Trump and his rabidly nationalist-populist base seem to have a loathing for the man Obama as this illegitimate “alien” figure(*) who got into power with the express purpose to undermine what America stands for. Obama gave a lot of that base the visible symbol tofocus upon and finally say out loud “I want my country back”.
The Republican Party merely rejects as a matter of course WHATEVER it is that “the Liberals” may propose at any given time, regardless of how centrist or mild, but do not consider it beneath them to use racist animosity to rally votes and will happily see those flames fanned if it keeps them in power.
(* I’ve wondered before, if instead of “Barack Hussein Obama” his name were Brandon Henry Oldman, maybe some of the reactions may have taken a different tack)
It helped that Obama publicly humiliated Trump at the Correspondents’ Dinner, the ultimate sin in the Trump Universe. (And he greatly deserved it, after all his birther bullshit.)
Not only that, but did so in the middle of staging the Bin Laden operation and within 48 hours preempted the season finale of The Apprentice to announce the execution.
Yet another indicator of the special world in which Trump lives, and it sort of fits, being that it has to do with his signing a health care bill. I was keeping abreast of the Charlottesville debacle when Trump finally decided to give a statement, for about 30 seconds of a ceremony for the signing of an extension of funding for VA health care. As it happened, I wasn’t listening very closely as I was doing some writing on the puter. (I don’t pay much attention to what the Blowhard-in-Chief says in any event.) But something caught my ears that made me laugh out loud, and Stars & Stripes was the only publication I could find that reported it accurately.
[QUOTE=Stars and Stripes]
[VA Secretary David] Shulkin made a point to say Saturday the bill was bipartisan. After Trump praised Republican lawmakers Rep. Phil Roe of Tennessee, Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia and Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada during his speech, he beckoned Shulkin to the microphone, who thanked Walz and another Democrat, Sen. Jon Tester of Montana.
“It was very, very tough for reasons that I guess I understand, but it was not easy,” Trump said. “I will tell you Phil, Johnny and Dean worked very hard to get it through. Also, by the way, I can also say others, and even some Democrats.”
After Shulkin said Walz and Tester were key in passing the legislation, Trump said: “See, I can do it.”
[/QUOTE]
So he could also say others, even Democrats, but instead had his VA Secretary say the names before he said, “See, I can do it.” Only he didn’t.
I swear, Trump is the love child of Dilbert and Krusty the Klown.