The Republican Party’s “repeal and replace Obamacare” zombie is back, and it’s even more brain-dead than before.
The possibility that we might, as The New Republic’s editor Michael Tomasky put it, “sleepwalk” into a second Trump presidency is very real, which is all the more shocking given the mounting evidence that Trump Redux could well end America as we know it. The New Republic’s Matt Ford capably laid out how few guardrails remain in place, including, as Brian Beutler noted in his Off Message newsletter, “the likelihood that Trump will have carte blanche if not active participation from Congress.” The Atlantic, our doughty journal of ruling-class opinion, has even dedicated an entire upcoming issue to the topic.
Not unforced error on Trumps part– obsessive-compulsive. Trump must try to undo everything with Obama’s name on it, and he must shout about that at every opportunity. His hatred of Obama, caused by his puzzlement that not everybody acknowledges his greatness which is so self-evident to him as a narcissist, simply leaves him no choice.