Why are most of the Republicans in Congress so spineless?
Why indeed? Obamacare was passed in 2009 without a single Republican vote. Everyone who paid attention to its details knew that it was designed to fail, miserably. Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber bragged about how getting it passed depended on the stupidity of the American people. But people would not be able to keep their own doctors as promised. No one's premiums went down by $2,500. They all went up and up and up. Those who are paying for it cannot afford to use it because the deductibles are too high. It is a monstrosity of catastrophic proportions. The insurance companies were on board; they knew they would reap billions of taxpayer dollars, and they have. They have been subsidized with billions in government largesse and still have jacked up the cost of premiums each year. The insurance companies loved the plan despite the fact that it was built as well to be fraud-friendly, like Medicaid and Medicare. It was and remains a giant boondoggle. For eight years, Republicans have campaigned for office in order to repeal it. The House voted repeatedly to repeal it.
Now they have the House, the Senate, and the White House and suddenly cannot do what they have promised to do all these years despite having all the power to do it. The range of their fatuous excuses and infighting is too much to bear. Suddenly, all those Republicans who once held conservative ideals are conservative no longer. Medicaid, which provides little if any actual medical care, now must be expanded, not cut! Where does all that money go? Not to doctors. Not to care for the indigent. Susan Collins, for example, should admit she is a give-it-all-away Democrat. She does not advocate for personal responsibility or reducing government spending. Not one bit. Every word out of her mouth is a statist, big-government mantra.
Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania let the cat of the bag as to the Republicans' pathetic inaction at a recent town hall: "We did not expect Trump to win." So these Republicans who have been promising to repeal Obamacare once they achieved maximum power were just faking it. They had no plan to actually repeal Obamacare, and it appears now that they never had any intention to do it. They did not really want to wield the power they now have! They preferred being underdogs; they are, most of them, lazy.
The Democrats, statist scoundrels all, would never be so pathetically weak. They have no power but are still running the show because the establishment Republicans are so infuriatingly inept. Because Trump did win, the Republicans in Congress have been caught in a poisonous spider's web of their own making. Now we all know that they are weak, sycophantic do-nothings who would rather fight among themselves than solve a problem or actually legislate. They are like a clan of meerkats staring vacantly in the same, unfocused direction. Paul Ryan and McConnell, the alleged miracle workers of vote-whipping, are failures. On purpose? Who knows? Seems like it.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's idea that an Obamacare plan remain available to anyone who wants it is brilliant. But no, can't have that. Direct care, the most obvious solution, is a non-starter with our cowardly representatives in Congress. No, no, no. We cannot possibly advocate for personal responsibility and affordable health care that allows individual Americans to choose their own doctors or their own insurance plans, according to their own needs. There are so many ways to care for the truly needy, and for those with pre-existing conditions, without bankrupting the nation, but our wimpy Republicans are too scared to go there. It is cowardice that characterizes the party – cowardice and contempt for their own president because he is not one of them. To this day, they cannot accept that fact he won precisely because he is not one of them. But can they learn and embrace the man? No. They are trying to sabotage him. And for this they are earning the contempt of the voters who put them in office.
They are cowards, too, when it comes to defending their president. Like Toomey, none of them expected Trump to win, but he did. But so afraid of actually supporting the man who is now the leader of their party, nearly all of them are cowering in the corners of Congress. So afraid of the leftist media, they are trying to become a minority again themselves. Who among them has passionately called out the nonsense that is the media's obsession with "Trump colluded with Russia"? Not even Cruz or Gowdy or Rubio or Lee!
What is wrong with these people? What on Earth has become of the Republican party? If they do not begin to stand up to the vicious media and conspiratorial left, we will be left to the devices of shameless pols like Schumer, Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, etc., etc. There are too many Democrats who are non compos mentis, yet the Republicans are letting them have their way with us all.
By now, eight months into the Trump administration, conservatives have to admit that their elected representatives in Congress do not actually represent them. They are excellent at one thing: capitulation to the left. These yellow-bellies who are pretend conservatives need to either step up to the plate or resign and let new and legitimate conservatives take their places.