As Trump’s problems mount, The Resistance strengthens
Short post today, because the family and I went up to Sonoma County for a few days of wine tasting. Yes, even a Trump basher is allowed to take time off for rest and recovery! We went to Matanzas Creek, where we had a fabulous wine-and-cheese pairing, to Longboard, the winery of my old buddy Oded Shakked, and to Verité, which makes red, Bordeaux-style wines that are among the best in the world. For the frosting on the cake, the weather finally changed: After three months of the coldest, rainiest weather in many years, it was around 80 degrees in wine country.
Even traveling, however, you can’t help but hear bits and snippets of the news. I heard that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that 24 million Americans will lose their healthcare insurance if Trumpcare passes.
Well, it’s nice that the experts now have weighed in on something many of us predicted months ago, but really, does anyone believe the Repuiblican Party gives a damn about healthcare insurance? They fought it for decades: fought Nixon and Carter, fought Hillary and Bill, fought Obama. They only discovered they cared about it when their enemy, Obama, actually did something about it.
In reply to the CBO analysis, Republicans will bluster their usual falsehoods. CBO is “fake news,” which is ridiculous, of course. The second is a lie that Trump has repeatedly told: that more Americans than ever will have healthcare, at lower cost, under the Republican plan. As lies go, this is even worse that “Obama tapped my phone” or “Hillary had millions of illegal votes” or “Obama was born in Kenya” or “I never groped anyone’s pussy” because the Republican plan to destroy the Affordable Care Act will cause the suffering and death of millions of people.
How the Republican Party gets away with this merde is unbelievable. I imagine some angry, white, laid-off assembly line worker in Indiana—let’s call him “Ned”–who voted for Trump. How is he feeling these days? He probably went to a rally where, when Trump yelled “Who’s gonna pay for the wall?”,” the crowd, including Ned, screamed “Mexico!” I could have told him a long time ago Mexico will never pay for the wall. Now it’s official, and we know that we, the taxpayers, are going to have to pay $2 billion, or $12 billion, or $20 billion, or whatever the hell the damned thing will cost. So what does Ned say? “Well, it’ll be worth it to keep all those rapists out.”
But now Ned’s mother-in-law, Sarah, is going to be thrown off her insurance. How does Ned feel about that? “Well, I didn’t think she would, but…but…” Actually, Ned isn’t sure what to think. He didn’t anticipate this: he just knows that he hated Obama, hence he hated Obamacare, and since he was rational enough—just barely—to realize he needed to justify his hatred on objective facts rather than racism, he believed Trump when he lied that Obamacare was “a disaster.” Now, Ned is faced with having to take care of Sarah. Ned isn’t made out of money; he barely is able to pay the bills; and he tithes ten percent of whatever income he has to the Liberty Baptist Church, where he was born again on August 17, 2005, the day he accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior. That was easy to do: now, paying for Sarah’s healthcare—she has heart disease and diabetes and painful varicose veins—is going to be awfully expensive. Ned: Was it worth getting rid of the Affordable Care Act in light of the fact that Sarah now is your problem? Ned: “Well, we’ll just do what we did before: take her to the emergency room.”
Sigh. There are so many Neds out there…so conflicted…so confused. It’s easy to vote to cut somebody else’s “free money” but when the gravy train extends to you, your family, your Social Security, your Medicare and Medicaid, your clean water, your clean air, your daughter who gets herself knocked up and can’t get a safe, legal abortion, your queer cousin Al who gets fired because his boss hates gay people and now Al has no recourse in the courts, things are somehow different.
Here’s what I hope and think the outcome will be. In the 2018 elections, the disastrous nature of this Trump regime will be apparent to all but the most benighted of tea party crazies. Americans turn out to vote in droves. Democrats regain the House and Senate. We won’t have the White House until 2020, but at least we’ll be able to properly investigate Trump’s probably treasonous ties to Russia. Until then, my message to Democratic Senators and congressmen is: Hold tight. Resist. We have your back. And do not, under any circumstances, vote for any Supreme Court nominee nominated by this illegitimate president. They wouldn’t let Obama’s man even have a vote: don’t let Trump’s. Tit for tat. The Resistance is succeeding. Do not tire. Do not doubt. We have to purge this current fever blister, Trump, from our collective body, in order to heal and rise to ever greater heights.
” The second is a lie that Trump has repeatedly told: that more Americans than ever will have healthcare, at lower cost, under the Republican plan.”
I think that’s what he said yesterday, although he went a little further. He said that there would also be more plans and more doctors to choose from.
Thank you! As always, well said.
Wish as many folks read your posts, as did your reviews.
Betsy: Me too! Thanks.
Your writting about the merde is humorous and uplifting, merci Alain.
Merci, Alain.
This is not the time I want to be saying, “Told you so,” to the people who voted for him. So I won’t, or maybe I just did, by bringing it up. I just saw a meme that stated it was Honey Booboo and those ruffian brothers (anarchists on TV, whoever they are) that are Trump’s audience, and voted for this. It boggles my mind that this is what the US has come to represent.