But they're powerful because they play the long game. Why impeach him, if they can use him to take the blame? It won't (look like) the Republicans who destroy health care, enrich the rich, and destroy the middle class... Trump was the president, and they are on record as being against him tooth and nail. A perfect scapegoat.
No matter that it's Congress that passes legislation. Even when people understand that, the President gets credit because he's the one big celebrity. The face of government.
That's a very risky game to play if that is their plan. If voters do decide that they are responsible for Trump, they lose badly. And if Trump crashes out in 2020, they lose state offices just when redistricting starts (granted, they are lucky that redistricting isn't in 2018 instead, because that would utterly crush them). And if that happens, they find themselves locked out of state offices for a decade or more.They could undo everything they gained in 2010 if this goes south. All that needs to happen is that the people who supported Trump get angry. It's quite an interesting situation frankly. A Trump-Republican war would sink the party electorally, because even if one side wins decisively it could make the losers deeply bitter.
I agree it'll be interesting. I didn't mean to imply they let him win the primary, they fought him tooth and nail there. And later, they can point to that and say "See? We tried to stop him! We tried to save you!" The fact that they gave him tacit support after he won is easily excused and swept aside, compared to the zeal with which they attacked him earlier.
In fact, all we really need to show how bad their situation is that Trump eventually decides to start taking out his frustration on his party. That's all we need. As soon as Trump decides that his problems (real or imagined) are the fault of Congressional Republicans, he is going to berate them, and publicly. If they let him do it they open themselves up to primary challenges, so they have to push back somehow. So as soon as the divide forms, Congressional Republicans are between a rock and a hard place. The fact is that the Republicans are going to have problems with Trump. Straight up. There are enough of them that revoked their support, and enough in swing districts, to consistently block the chamber. What will determine the next few years is "How will the leadership respond? Will they pressure the anti-Trump delegation, and how far are they willing to go to support someone who they don't like and who doesn't like them? And how will the rank-and-file respond? And how will Trump/Democrats/the media respond?"
Interesting, and maaaybe. But while he styles himself as a populist, he failed to get a popular mandate. By a lot, if you consider the pathetic turnout (Clinton, I'll admit, also had awful turnout).
Maybe it depends on his policies. Will he have already alienated his supporters in 2 years? Even if they're with him, they're only part of the Republican base. He did win a simple majority of the primary, but that's because most opponents dropped out. Playing the long game, party unity.
I think people who wanted Cruz or Giuliani, but voted the Republican ticket as always, aren't going to be impressed when Trump starts slinging mud at their local Republican candidates
Another thing I would be scared of as Trump is pissing off the media too much. The media can take an endless licking, but if he starts restricting them from things and cuts into their profit, he'll lose what goodwill he has left. That didn't matter much before, but Trump is President now: he will have far, far more things he'll want to keep quiet from now on, and having the media's cooperation is very important for that. Conversely, if he pisses them off too much and totally restricts them, they have nothing to lose by pissing him off further.
Eh, even I'll admit that media coverage of him was mostly negative - in intention, at least. By covering every juicy scandal, they bizarrely bolstered his campaign. They already hate him, generally, it's just that people love him when the "establishment" attacks him.
They'd have to stop covering him if they actually wanted to hurt him, and you can't really avoid covering the president.
The reason many of Trump's poorer supporters don't like Obamacare is because it made them choose between expensive & bad health insurance and paying for other things in their budget. And then, if they chose the latter, they got fined. Sure, it made it "easier" to buy health insurance, but it also screwed up lots of people's coverage and made things more expensive.
Well, the "good" news is we're soon going to be able to rebuild it from the ground up, because it looks like Trump's going to gut it from what I hear.
Wasn't there a provision for the poor in there, that waived the fine? *checks* Yeah:
http://obamacarefacts.com/obamacare-mandate-exemption-penalty/ (click through the intermediary page)
Basically, if you make under 10K a year or the healthcare would be 8% of your budget, you're exempt.
So it's not like people were going into debt from these fines...
But yeah, doesn't matter anymore. Just when I could actually use it, too, I'm at the whims of the megacorps. Not to mention all the protections regarding pre-existing conditions etc!
Bleh.
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Topic: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: T+0 (Read 1394064 times)