Ted Babbitt

For those of you who thought Donald Trump might grow into the presidency you can give that hope up.

Never before, and never again hopefully will there be a presidency like this.

It can all be summed up by Donald trumps own statement “who knew that healthcare could be so complicated?”

The answer of course, is, people who read, people who have experience, and people who have the least shred of knowledge. None of those describe Donald Trump

For seven years we have listened to the Republicans talk about how they are going to repeal the affordable care act. Never in those seven years have we heard anything about what was going to replace it. Replacing it only came into vogue when they actually had to think about it. They came up with a plan that was horrible. Not just horrible to people who actually understand the system but also horrible to the conservatives who found out people wouldn’t  stand for 25 million people being thrown off their insurance with no reasonable alternative

The resulting complete failure to create a coalition to abolish Obama care means a lot more than just healthcare. Trump and Ryan have found out what Boehner knew.  Republicans just can’t govern. They are a great opposition party but when it comes down to actually legislating they are a dismal failure

So now they turn their attention to getting their corporate bigwigs and rich friends a tax break. You would think that would be easy because they control the Government  but the loss in destroying Obamacare means they have a $1 trillion less to run the rest of the government. So where does the money come from to give rich people a tax break? It has to come from programs that directly affect the people who elected Donald Trump

That won’t bother the Republicans or Donald Trump because they never had any intention of helping the lower or middle class. The problem is that they have been blindsided by the momentum of people showing up at town halls and taking to the street. It’s not going to stop. We are going to see a grassroots reaction  that has never been seen since the Vietnam war.  Street protests to that war resulted in the politicians being forced to end it even if it meant surrendering  which is exactly what they did despite what it meant to the military-industrial complex that supported the war.

Large corporations and big donors control the Republican politicians but not completely. The politicians only care about one thing and that is being reelected. When something  happens like the 20 to 1 opposition  to the Trump healthcare bill as was reported by the right wing politicians those politicians run and hide. We can all be proud of that kind of explosion  of public action

What needs to happen now is the press has to start doing its job. We depend upon the press to educate people and never has the public been more poorly educated about the issues. Donald Trump was given billions  if not trillions of dollars of free airtime. Now the press is finally saying the magic words, that he is lying. But they still have a long way to go. Only with an educated populace  is democracy possible. The press simply can’t do as they have done and rely upon headlines with no substance.  When you hear a politician telling the press that people just need to buy insurance after they’re sick and the press doesn’t respond with a statement that that is idiotic they are not doing their job. Anyone who knows anything about  insurance or the Affordable Care Act knows that insurance cannot work if people only buy it after they have had a catastrophic illness. You have to be an idiot to believe that will work. Nevertheless  The Republicans pushing the Trump health care plan were saying exactly that. They got away with saying it and people believing it because the press did not do their job of calling them out and explaining that insurance only works when healthy people as well as sick people buy it.

I am encouraged by the public willingness to confront their senators and legislators but unless the press does it’s  job so that the public knows what’s going on we are doomed.  Only an educated voting population can salvage democracy and the press is our only hope that that happens.