Obamacare’s loudest foes lower voices, expectations

Lack of grass-roots support makes road rougher for GOP

Members of Congress returning home for the July 4 recess last week were met with rallies, sitins and Independence Day demonstrators, as activists on the left intensified their push to defeat Republican legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

The groups on the right that once fueled the party’s anti-obamacare fervor might as well have been on vacation.

“Not too many are focused on health care currently,” said Levi Russell, a spokesman for Americans for Prosperity, a group founded and funded by the Koch brothers.

Instead of health care, he said, the organization’s state chapters were conducting town hallstyle meetings about veterans’ concerns during recess week. Two other major groups, Freedomworks and the Tea Party Patriots, said they were planning rallies in August and September that would push for an overhaul of the tax code; Americans for Prosperity was already running ads toward that.

The shift in priorities is remarkable. Since summer 2009, when Tea Party activists angrily confronted Democrats who were drafting the Affordable Care Act, the Republican Party has been driven and defined by outrage over it. But now, with the Republican health care legislation hanging in the balance, President Donald Trump and congressional leaders are getting little support from what were once the loudest anti-obamacare voices. The lack of grass-roots enthusiasm will make it even harder for the party’s Senate leaders to line up votes for their troubled bill this week.

Activists on the right said they felt betrayed by the Republicans they helped elect, who pledged that when they had a Republican president they would repeal the act “root and branch,” as Sen. Mitch Mcconnell, the majority leader, once declared.

“This is not anywhere close to that, and I think