Don't Pop the Corks Just Yet ...

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