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Over the past few days, we have seen the Republican
cabal 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, 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 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 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 Republican cabal 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 Orrin Hatch of Utah.
As a patient, and as the father of a patient, I
would point out to Hatch that my son getting back his
lifetime limits, thanks to the Republican cabal – 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.
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 Barrasso. Or with Bill Cassidy, of Louisiana – another Republican
of course – who
says he
remains “committed to replacing Obamacare with wingnut, 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 cabal 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.
