There is not a trace of doubt that last night’s shocking
defeat of the Senate Republicans’ so-called “Skinny Repeal” of Obamacare
represents a major defeat for the fractured Republican Party and the rapidly unraveling
Trump administration. However, it would be ignoring recent history to assume
that some kind of bipartisan cooperation is nigh.
It bears remembering that this toxic piece of legislation
failed only at the last second, and under some very unlikely circumstances. Even with the consistent and principled stand
of Republican senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan
Collins against the bill, the senate vote seemed headed for a post-midnight
50-50 tie, with Vice President Pence lurking about the senate floor ready to
play the role of tiebreaker. It is almost
unthinkable that 49 senators, most of them knowing full well that the
legislation was unconscionably cruel, voted “aye” anyway, particularly after
several of their own leaders publicly referred to it as a “joke” and a “fraud.”
It took a last minute “no” vote from a career Republican politician and former
Presidential candidate to foil Mitch McConnell’s underhanded plan.
Enter John McCain, a
paradox of a politician and lawmaker if there ever was one. One of the
strongest critics of Obamacare, he will nonetheless be remembered as a
self-described “Maverick” who was not afraid to disagree with his party on
principles he considered non-negotiable. He is also known as a cantankerous old
curmudgeon with a mean streak and a long memory. Don’t forget, this is the man
who gave you Sarah Palin, whose candidacy served as the perfect opening act for
Donald Trump. The same man who dressed down one of his own supporters at a town
hall meeting during the 2008 campaign. When a woman took the wireless mic and
proclaimed, "I can't trust Obama. I have read about
him and he's not, he's not uh — he's an Arab. He's not — ", McCain angrily took the mic back and replied, "No, ma'am. He's a decent family man
[and] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental
issues and that's what this campaign's all about. He's not [an Arab]." But McCain is also an unrepentant warmonger who once famously sang “Bomb, bomb, bomb…bomb, bomb Iran” on mic to the tune of the Beach Boys' Barbara Ann.
He is undeniably a
military hero, having endured years of degradation and torture in North
Vietnam. On the other hand, he was a demonstrably awful pilot who personally
crashed either three or four multi-million dollar aircraft, depending on who
you talk to. He also has a long history of mutual antagonism with Donald Trump,
with both men making little effort to hide their personal dislike for each
other. After the crucial “no” vote, McCain was asked his reasoning behind the
vote, to which he simply replied, “It was the right vote.” But why was it
right? Was it the final moral stand of a terminally ill but ultimately
principled man, or the final, decisive “fuck you” to Mr. Trump?
Don’t start pulling
corks just yet. Trump remains totally obsessed with all things Obama, and has
made no secret of his preference to “Let Obamacare fail.” Except it is doing no
such thing, and as Paul Krugman eloquently explains in the New York Times, “Or to put it a bit differently, when Trump
threatens to “let Obamacare fail,” what he’s really threatening is to make it
fail.” I wrote of the moral bankruptcy of the Republican “healthcare”
initiative in my previous post entitled Heartless Bastards. I think the
last few sentences bear repeating after the stunning events of the past few
weeks:
I ask you, the citizen, the potential
voter: Will you rise above your partisan politics and call this travesty of a
health care plan what it is? Will you admit that our congressmen care only
about their own monetary greed and political power, and not a whit about what
is right for you and our country? Will you tolerate living in an amoral society
where we allow the neediest of our fellow citizens, many of them innocent
children, to die? Because that is exactly what we are talking about here, the
death of our weakest. Will you look at these men and call them what they are?
They are heartless bastards.
Portland, Oregon
July 28, 2017
