Really, you can’t make this stuff up.
On Friday, after almost 17 days of part-time work, Trump got tired. Hey, two weeks is what, 20 months in Trump-years? He told the Republican party that the first draft of the Obamacare replacement bill — the one they’d cobbled together without any expertise or detail? — that was all they’d get. No fixes, no improvements, no filling in the dents, nothing. Vote by Friday or he’d take his ball and go home.
They sat quietly, and Trump eventually skulked off, muttering darkly about everyone who was ‘disloyal’. They don’t work for you, Donnie. Miss that part?
Jeeze. Trump’s bad enough to make me feel bad about Republicans!
Over the weekend, all the usual Republican proxies began blaming everyone they could think of for TrumpRyanCare’s failure. They blamed conservative republicans, they blamed moderate Republicans, they blamed “Washington”, and even the Democrats.
They blamed everyone except themselves. I mean, Jeeze! It wasn’t a surprise. It was a terrible bill! Badly constructed, in secret, far from anyone who knew what they were doing, and just as far from the people who would have to implement it. Everyone hated it. It disregarded experience, it had no core constituents, it allowed gigantic financial holes that Congress’s own experts said would disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans, and would have cost the economy billions. Trump didn’t care, and Republicans didn’t push back. Apparently, once they’d written enough of a law to give the richest one percent their big tax break, Trump and the Republicans were done. Everyone else could just pound sand.
So much for that noise about Republicans ‘caring for the poor and working-class Americans’. They ditched anything that would have helped them.
And Trump’s ability to negotiate? I didn’t see anything. He petulantly gave up his first, biggest, supposedly easiest goal after a couple of weeks of half-hearted support. “He’s the closer,” my butt.
What was it someone said?
I’ve watched the politicians. I’ve dealt with ’em all my life. If you can’t make a good deal with a politician, there’s something wrong with you, you’re certainly not very good.
— Donald J. Trump
The next time someone calls Trump a great businessman or a negotiator, remember this moment. It was bad business, bad politics, and terrible negotiation.
