Friday, June 18, 2021

QOTD -- Obamacare Trauma

 

"... [T]he passage of Obamacare was a traumatic event for Republicans. The wound it opened in the party’s psyche has not fully healed, and even more than a decade after its passage into law, they cannot reconcile themselves to its legitimacy.

"The passage of Obamacare, even though it merely incrementally expanded an existing program (Medicaid) and copied a program designed by a Republican governor (Mitt Romney) was met by unmitigated hysteria on the right. What seemed to unhinge conservatives was less the substance of the bill than the very idea of Democrats using their control of government to … govern. Republicans became fixated with the sinister machinations that they believed had produced the bill." --  Jonathan Chait on "Why Republicans Could Never Tell Their Voters the Truth About Obamacare" in New York Magazine.  It's been the Republican mindset for decades that Democratic governance is illegitimate.  That they continue to lose elections (7 out of the last 8 Presidential popular vote) drives them further into more and more blatant anti- democracy measures wherever they have the power.  They failed for 10 years to kill the popular signature achievement of President Obama, and today we must make sure they fail to kill the popular Biden agenda.


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