A humiliating defeat for Trump, GOP
It was 1986, Game Six of the World Series, Mets Vs. Red Sox, 10th inning.
At stake: a championship that had eluded Boston since 1918 – the “Curse of the Bambino.”
The Red Sox were one strike from victory as the game-ending groundball approached first baseman Bill Buckner.
But the ball passed through Buckner’s legs, and the rest is history: The Mets won Game Six, and went on to become world champions.
Had Buckner blamed the Mets for his error, he would have been laughed off the planet. But he didn’t, because nobody would ever say something so removed from realit y, especially given that the world had just witnessed the event. Right?
Wrong. That is exactly what President Trump just did by blaming the Democrats for the failure to repeal Obamacare. That bears repeating. Mr. Trump faulted the Democrats – despite that party being in the minority by a substantial margin – for the Republicans’ humiliating defeat.
You seriously can’t make this up.
The president has clearly not learned that outrageous statements may drive ratings for reality television, but in politics, especially when one is com- mander-in-chief and leader of his own party, they don’t cut it. In fact, the opposite is true: they serve only to widen Mr. Trump’s credibility gap, and put a stake through the heart of his political, and personal, capital.
Here is a “carnage analysis” for Mr. Trump and the listing GOP:
The Vote: Or more aptly, the non-vote.
Perhaps no politic a l promise was ever made so often, in such absolute terms, and was so “guaranteed:” Obamacare would be “repealed and replaced” as soon as a Republican won the White House. Common sense, therefore, dictated that Republican leaders would have crafted a bill acceptable to both caucuses and the president. (After all, they had seven years). That way, they could hit the ground running with a guaranteed “tune up” victory.
Similarly, it’s why powerhouse Division 1 football teams schedule weak opponents at the start of each season: they tune up for the more significant challenges ahead by working out the kinks and building self-confidence.
But that’s not what the GOP did. Instead, they rushed a bad bill that was hastily cobbled together. And they can blather all day long, using inside-thebeltway jargon, about how it was necessary to pass this “budget reconciliation” bill as the first step in health-care reform, but that’s simply not true.
Fact is, they put the cart before the horse. Inexplicably, they didn’t run bills that actually would have passed – with bipartisan support, no less. As this column just discussed, ideas such as medical malpractice reform, allowing health-care purchases across state lines, reforming FSAs and HSAs, extending prescription drug patents, tackling the trillion-dollar obesity epidemic, and treating health insurance as we do life, auto and homeowners’. Not hard, guys. But obviously, common sense is not so common.
That said, they were right to shelve the bill, since a non-vote is infinitely better than a defeat. The politically naïve will disagree, stating that it would have put legislators on record, but that’s not how it works in real life.
Inexcusable as it was to have not done their homework, Republican leaders should have stated, “This is merely a temporary setback. We will regroup, start fresh, and develop a plan that better addresses how to fix health care.”
And next time, they should spend $100 million on a nationwide ad campaign outlining what they are advocating, instead of letting special interests’ ads run unopposed. But they won’t, because they never do.
But will there be a next time? Worst of all was the reaction that “Obamacare will be the law of the land for the foreseeable future,” as Speaker Paul Ryan said, along with the president saying he was “moving on” from health care. That’s what you do when you lose? You just skulk away, wallowing in self-pity and blaming everyone else for your self-induced mistakes?
Yet unfathomably, some Trump loyalists think that the president “won,” under the rationale that Obamacare will collapse under its own weight. Sorry, but that’s not a solution. Not even close. How much longer must Americans suffer higher premiums and decreased care until a better system is enacted? People did not elect Donald Trump and the Republicans to sit idle – any third grader can do that. They were elected to get things done. If they can’t, or won’t, they’ll face the consequences.
Some are casting full blame on Ryan for “pushing a bad bill on the White House.” That may not be the stupidest thing ever said, but it’s in the Top Three. Newsflash: the president is the leader of the party, and has more influence than anyone. If Mr. Trump didn’t like the bill, he could have, and should have, worked with them to craft something better. And by everyone’s account, including his own, he went to the wall in unprecedented fashion, leaving nothing behind. The tragedy is that this should never have been all-or-nothing, which is why White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s comment that “there is no Plan B” was imbecilic. It’s politics! There’s always a Plan B. And Plan C, D and E, if need be.
Make no mistake: the Republican Party’s failure is a political earthquake whose aftershocks will continue. The result is a party in shambles, and a president in desperate need of a win.
The answer is for them is to A) admit that the proctologist found their collective head, B) craft a bill containing common sense reforms, C) gain support from both the Freedom Caucus (who helped killed the bill) and Democrats, and D) pass a damn health care reform bill that actually reforms health care.
The Outlook: Some will say this fiasco has crippled the rest of the president’s agenda. Not true – at least not yet.
In truth, the failure was not Mr. Trump’s first big test. How he responds is. To that end, he’s not doing particularly well. First, he incomprehensibly blamed Democrats. Next, he lambasted the Freedom Caucus – not smart since he needs them for the rest of his agenda. Now he seems content to jettison health care altogether and move on to tax reform – arguably an even harder challenge.
Bottom line: the political and personal capital of the self-proclaimed “Art of the Deal” negotiator is on the line. The inarguable fact is that, as head of the party, the president always takes the brunt of criticism for failures, and most of the accolades for victories. Mr. Trump, despite his best efforts, can’t pick and choose when such accountability suits him.
Maybe now the president will finally stop talking about being wiretapped (especially since, almost a month later, he’s provided no evidence). Perhaps he has learned that talking about Deep State conspiracies and fake news hurts his credibility. And that tweeting about non-presidential things, from “Saturday Night Live” to feuding with Arnold Schwarzenegger, makes him look unfit. Appearing as a thin-skinned blowhard who spends more time on Twitter than learning how to govern – as the paltry results thus far attest – has resulted in a crashing approval rating and support tailing off from even his own base.
What the president and Congress needs are victories: immigration reform, a reinstated refugee ban, revamped trade policies, tax reform, energy independence, and yes, health-care reform.
As Michael Douglas’ character said in The American President: “We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them.”
Mr. President, it’s time to make that Hollywood line the political reality. It’s time to get serious. Leave your comments online Use hashtag at