Over the past few days, we have seen the Republican Party toss its ideological cookies. It has not been a pretty sight.
Exposed for all to see has been the profound myopia of a party dedicated to hate and religious tyranny, a party so determined to ignore facts and even science, as though something that exists only in their heads is more meaningful than our shared reality.
Just as an example, House Speaker John Boehner announced that the Marriage Equality decision “disregarded the democratically-enacted will of millions of Americans,” while ignoring the fact that it pleased more people than it outraged, with fully 60 percent of Americans now supporting Marriage Equality.
SIXTY PERCENT, John Boehner. What about their will?
Aren’t you Republicans telling us you represent the majority of Americans?
And look, the reason you lost now is the same reason you lost Proposition 8: you could make no legal argument against Marriage Equality. Because there is none.
It you flip to the Obamacare Decision, despite it being upheld twice by that court – the individual mandate in 2012, and subsidies just the other day, the Republican Party thinks it is still fitting to repeal the Affordable Care Act. They will fight “tooth and nail” to do this, says Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX).
Even though the ACA is very popular and very successful, and the American people want it, Cornyn is so immune to reality that he insists that “Today’s decision doesn’t change the fact that Obamacare has been a disaster for the millions of hardworking American families who have seen their health care costs skyrocket or lost their insurance entirely.”
Wait a second…what about those 86 percent of enrollees who are satisfied with their Obamacare? And let’s compare that 86 percent to the 16 percent of people who are satisfied with Congress.
I think it is pretty easy to see what has been the real disaster for American families.
If Cornyn were appealing to facts rather than ideological necessity, he might have something there, but Obamacare is far from being a disaster. And in fact, Obamacare has helped all Americans, not just enrollees. For example, by eliminating lifetime limits on care.
Facts are swirling all around us, available to all equally, but Mitch McConnell fared no better with reality, claiming that the ruling “won’t change Obamacare’s multitude of broken promises.”
One might wonder to what constituency Republicans think they are appealing when they say crazy things like this, things that are patently untrue. Both on legal and ethical grounds, they have nothing.
Republicans have no alternative to Obamacare, as they have admitted. The Supreme Court has spoken. It’s legal. The people have spoken in the polls and on the exchanges. Even in Red States, they want it.
It matters not how serious the GOP actually is about this crusade of stupidity. Certainly, they may realize they have no actual chance at this point and that Obamacare is here to stay, that all their words are empty rhetoric employed to appeal to their base (It could also be the world’s largest case of cognitive dissonance).
No matter the reasons, they are still wasting your money and mine by their repeated and pointless attempts to repeal what is, and has been, the law of the land. When before has so much time and effort been wasted trying to repeal a law once it is passed?
Republicans insist that moving forward means stripping people of their healthcare. That, somehow, is an improvement. The status quo “puts patients first,” insists Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah.
As a patient, and as the father of a patient, I would respectfully point out to Sen. Hatch that my son getting back his lifetime limits, thanks to the GOP – and that is what a repeal of the ACA would mean – does not put my son, the patient, first.
Putting the patient first means him continuing to receive the medication he needs to live. Putting lifetime limits in place once more, deprives him of that medication, which means he will die.
Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) even says he will “take every action possible in Congress, in the courts and in statehouses across our country” to repeal Obamacare. In other words, to condemn my son – and millions like him – to death.
As you can imagine, I am less than pleased with Sen. Barrasso. Or with Sen. Bill Cassidy, of Louisiana – another Republican of course – who says he remains “committed to replacing Obamacare with conservative, free market solutions that give you the power” to die through lack of insurance because your lifetime limits have been met.
We can wish these people would, as Harry Reid put it, stop banging their heads against the wall, but we know that is not going to happen. They would have to take cognizance of reality to realize there is a wall.
They won’t. We are way past that point. We have been past that point for years.
Boehner said the other day that “The Obama administration looks like they’re struggling to run the government,” but the real problem is the Republican Party is struggling to cope with reality.
And what are a few technical glitches compared to an obstinate refusal to stare facts in the face? Mistakes happen, and there is no bigger mistake than to decide ideology supersedes fact.
Wave your Confederate flags around all you want. Wear your KKK hoods in public or in private. You lost the Civil War and you lost the struggle for Marriage Equality, just as you lost the struggle against providing Americans with affordable healthcare.
I never thought, growing up, that I would see one our major political parties lose touch with reality like this. Now, as I get older, I begin to doubt that I will live long enough to see them rediscover it.
But my son will. Thanks to President Barack Obama. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act and the Democratic Party, which has, significantly, not lost touch with our shared reality. Whose cookies are right where they are supposed to be.
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