FAST TAKES
From the right: Repeal and Replace . . . Eventually
Republicans might be able to repeal ObamaCare immediately. Senate Democrats could filibuster any full-repeal bill, so Republicans will have to use budget reconciliation — a process that allows for a simple majority vote for budget-related items. Explains Michael Warren at The Weekly Standard: “This process, however, also limits what Republicans can repeal. ObamaCare’s taxes and penalties (which are the muscle behind the individual and employer mandates), Medicaid expansion funds, subsidies for health-insurance exchange customers, and taxes on the health-care industry are all on the reconciliation chopping block.” Warren points out that removing these features immediately after new insurance plans go into effect Jan. 1 would be too chaotic. Thus, repeal would be only set in motion, not completed, right away.
Campaign scribe: Dems’ Laughable Bench
Hillary Clinton’s election loss made plain the Democratic Party’s shockingly shallow bench, writes Chris Cillizza at The Washington Post. At the federal level, he says, Dems “may be effectively locked out of power in all three branches of government for years. At the state level, after last month’s elections, they’ll control only 16 governorships and 13 legislatures.” Indeed, while the 17-candidate GOP primary field was mocked, Cillizza turns it around: “Democrats simply didn’t have the political talent to put forward 17 candidates (or even seven).” It’s partly because “[Nancy] Pelosi (Calif.) and Reps. Steny H. Hoyer (Md.) and James E. Clyburn (SC) have had a death grip on the party’s top congressional slots for a very long time.” And because Clinton’s own machine scared off potential challengers.
Think-tanker: 2016 and the Great-Man Theory
Donald Trump is a great man. So declares The Week’s Pascal-Emanuel Gobry, who clarifies that he doesn’t mean “great” as in “good,” but “great” as in a singular figure who moved historical events. Gobry admits that “Trump benefited from strong social forces.” But it “seems inconceivable that anyone but Donald Trump could have pulled off what he did.” And it’s not just Trump: “Great-man theory” holds in high value the choices of individuals. “At every step of the way, individuals could have made choices that might have left us with a Presidentelect Rubio, or Cruz, or Clinton, with significant historical consequences,” Gobry writes. “Meanwhile, those who confidently plotted out trends and concluded that Trump couldn’t win have been proven wrong.”
From the left: Liberal Bubbles Getting Worse
The disbelieving outrage on campuses across America at Donald Trump’s victory was both evidence of liberals’ ideological bubble and the fact that it’s poised to get worse, argues The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof. “To be fully educated, students should encounter not only Plato, but also Republicans,” he says. Yet they’re not — or not enough, and schools create such a “hostile” environment for conservatives that their mere existence on campus can be in doubt. Of course, students should “stand up to the bigots,” Kristof says. But he counsels caution: “Do we really want to caricature half of Americans, some of whom voted for President Obama twice, as racist bigots? Maybe if we knew more Trump voters we’d be less inclined to stereotype them.”
Foreign-affairs experts: Mideast’s Convenient Truths
If Donald Trump really does want to try to bring about Israeli-Palestinian peace, suggest Elliott Abrams and Uri Sadot in Foreign Policy, he can avoid the pitfalls of his immediate predecessor — especially President Obama’s obsession with Israeli settlements. “Outside the five major block townships, a total of 6,818 housing units were approved for construction in West Bank settlements between January 2009 and June 2016. That would suggest a population increase of up to 34,000 people.” In other words, Israel’s settlement population is growing mostly due to natural growth of families already there. Trump, then, could proceed without taking his eye off the ball: Trump “should discourage Israel from investing in and populating isolated settlements . . . But far more important would be to focus on the final status issues that actually matter most.”