Why Republicans Cannot Replace the ACA, or Accomplish Anything Else
This is a brilliant analysis of just how far the Republican Party has gone in its devotion to delusion and its contempt for reality. It also explains why it is useless to try to persuade them with facts. In this, they are an authentic echo of the antebellum south, where generations of nominally educated people destroyed their own sanity in their relentless effort to rationalize the institution of slavery.
Edgar Welch walked courageously into a DC pizza parlor on a mission to rescue abused children. Armed with an AR-15, he had driven from North Carolina to the restaurant, Comet Ping Pong, to break up a pedophile kidnapping ring. After a few confusing minutes in the restaurant and a couple of shots fired, Welch was baffled. There was no secret room in which Hillary Clinton and her aides tormented kidnapped children. It was just a pizza joint.
Welch surrendered to police and received a four-year prison sentence. Apparently, data he obtained online about the restaurant was inaccurate. As he explained to an interviewer, “the intel on this wasn’t 100 percent.”Republican Congressman, Lamar Smith, leads the House committee responsible for much of our nation’s science funding. He is convinced that climate change is a hoax perpetuated by scientists with the help of a corrupt news media. Smith was convinced at one point in 2009 that he’d found a “smoking gun” to support his fantasy narrative in a collection of stolen emails. His discovery quickly fell apart in the light of day, inspiring a rant against journalists and researchers, “We now know that prominent scientists were so determined to advance the idea of human-made global warming that they worked together to hide contradictory temperature data.” Despite Smith’s best intentions, the intel on this wasn’t 100%.
Only one difference between Edgar Welch and Lamar Smith really matters – Smith’s delusions are going to kill people. Forget about the Republican elephant. Welch is the new mascot for the Republican Party. Rifle slung over his shoulder, mind clouded by fantasies and fears, he rides like an American Don Quixote to vanquish imaginary foes. Republicans now control every branch of government. They have an opportunity to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with a new system on the strength of just 50 votes in the Senate. This week they failed. Again.Despite being handed overwhelming power, none of their signature policy priorities have been passed. A body that voted more than 50 times over the past seven years to repeal the ACA is now suddenly unable to act on almost anything. Why?
More: Why Republicans Cannot Replace the ACA, Or Accomplish Anything Else