You know, almost everybody loves a feel good, “there are no losers” type of movie. The uplifting kind, where there are no bad guys, just bad circumstances and heart, love, and teamwork rules the day, and all of the good guys win. Second most popular I would guess are the ones where’s there’s a real bad guy, and a good guy, preferably a heavily underdog good guy, and somehow or other he manages to come out on top, and the bad guy looks around dazed about taking it in the shorts.
But here I think we’re getting a good eyeful of the kind of plot line you almost never see, where there are no good guys, just bad guys, and they both end up taking it in the shorts. “Black Mass” which chronicles the rise and fall of James “Whitey” Bulger and his relationship with an FBI agent who ends up stepping to the dark side to further his career is the only one that immediately comes to mind.
I’m thinking of course of Donald Trump and pretty much the entire GOP. No good guys there. We all expected a national nightmare, and we may yet well still get it, if they can ever get their shit together, but so far it’s been kind of a bad dream. It’s Trump and the GOP, especially Ryan and McConnell who are having nightmares right now, every time they close their eyes.
The House GOP is a hot mess. Paul Ryan is finding out the hard way that there is a huge difference between trying to get a rambunctious caucus to all get together to say “No”, and getting all of them, or at least 216 of them to agree on something so they can pass it. Ryan has nobody but himself to blame for the Obamacare repeal debacle. They have had 7 long years to work out a an actual plan, to not only repeal Obamacare, but to find a way to cover the millions of people who would be adversely impacted. Did they think that nobody would notice when they could no longer afford their kids checkups and their own heart and blood pressure medications, much less cancer drugs. And Tax reform is going to be even worse. The Democrats only need to flip 24 seats to wrest control of the House back, and they already have a list of changed, or changing vulnerable districts to start with.
The natural desire would be to give the Senate a pass, simply because the House can’t get anything to them to debate and vote on. But not so. It was the Senate that exacerbated the split in the House over the Obamacare repeal by announcing it DOA before the House ever even got to debate it, much less vote on it. And the on thing they had to do, confirm Neil Gorsuch turned into a nightmare for them when McConnell had to give up one of his favorite toys, the filibuster for SCOTUS nominees to give Trump his sole victory. Not is McConnell’s dream of expanding the Senate edge slipping away, with trouble getting candidates to run against Democratic incumbents, but he still has a few shaky Senators like Dean Heller in Nevada to worry about, and he can only lose two if the Democrats hold serve. Need extra Tums when you see those reports about Manchin and Heitkamp getting heavy early fundraising in states you want to flip?
But it’s Da Man, Trump himself who is the linchpin. He has done everything in his now considerable power to fail, and take the entire GOP down with him. He has irritated and insulted every GOP faction there is. His strategy is an anathema to his own party. Starting off with Obamacare was a huge mistake. Better to have started out with an honest infrastructure bill, something enough Democrats could support, look bipartisan. By starting with the ACA he gave the Democrats an early, much needed win, and confidence not only for them, but the resistance as well. The upcoming tax reform is going to be another quagmire at least as bad as “Repeal and Replace”. Even his EO’s are a nightmare, with three of them now slapped down by the courts.
And then, the possible nail in the coffin, he is even turning Rush Limbaugh ever so slowly against him. Rush is the man who made Trump acceptable, when he followed the feedback he was getting from his fans to support Trump. If he continues to criticize Trump, that is about as good of an indicator you can find that the base is sour on Hair Furor. Rush doesn’t guide his listeners, he follows them, that’s where the ratings are, tell them what they want to hear.
So, as bleak as all may seem, there are still rays of sunshine peeking through the black clouds, and if enough of them get through, holes will eventually appear that will break the clouds up completely. Resist and educate, and do enough of it, and we’ll all reap the benefits down the road, and maybe quite a bit sooner than we had ever dared to hope.