Is Donald Trump's Healthcare Defeat Secretly More Proof Of His Superior Deal-Making Ability?
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Mitch McConnell has announced that despite opposition within his own party, he will hold a vote on a motion to proceed with the Senate’s version of the bill to repeal and replace Obamacare. However, enough Republican senators have publicly stated they will vote “no” on the motion to proceed to kill the bill in the Senate. It should come as no surprise that two of the opponents of the bill are Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and West Virginia’s Shelley Moore Capito, who have praised the ability of consumers to shop for plans on the Obamacare market. Women do be shoppin’. This is bittersweet news for Paul Ryan — on the one hand, the crowning achievement of his legislative career is dead in the water, on the other hand, the medications he needs for his limp dick syndrome would not be covered under the new bill.
The liberal media is already using the failure of this legislation to attack Trump, who had promised to repeal Obamacare on his first day in office. But while the media is playing checkers, Trump is playing 12th dimensional chess. For the past week, Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting at Trump Tower with Boris Badenov has been dominating headlines on every network, except for Fox News which has been hosting spirited panel discussions on the threat gypsies pose in America. But now, due to Trump’s ingenious maneuvering on healthcare, the liberal media has diverted its attention to the BCRA vote in the Senate and all but forgotten about Don Jr.’s infamous meeting.
Trump’s ability to manipulate the media into backing off of their negative coverage of his son should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to his political maneuvering since the campaign. His ability to play liberal reporters like a fiddle allowed him to escape close scrutiny of his policy proposals and go on the attack against his opponents. Just as national security experts began to examine the feasibility of defeating ISIS by saying “Islamic terrorism” three times into a mirror, Trump used the Republican debates to get everyone wondering just how big Marco Rubio’s dick was. And right when people began to question the feasibility of having Mexico fund a border wall, Trump got everyone in the country talking about just how ugly Rand Paul is, an issue that had been chronically under-covered throughout the campaign.
While liberals might mock Trump for failing to accomplish his promise on repealing Obamacare, the path Trump has taken on healthcare is likely to score him major relatability points with some of his most important demographics, mainly, older white men who hate their job and wife and live vicariously through SEC football players. Every husband who has ever promised to replace some drywall or repaint the garage can see exactly what Trump is doing on healthcare. Any task you half-heartedly promised to do can be put off until its more or less completely forgotten about. As long as Trump can put up with Mitch McConnell nagging him once every six months for the next couple years about the time he promised to restructure one-sixth of the American economy Trump is in the clear.
The beauty of Trump’s strategy is that he has no shortage of diversions he can use to trick the press into pivoting away from coverage of any issue that shines a negative light on his administration. When his infrastructure plan inevitably fails because the Freedom Caucus refuses to vote for any tax increase or increase to the deficit, Trump has a litany of issues he can raise that will induce CNN into 24/7 coverage. Should Donna Brazile get the death penalty for leaking debate questions to Hillary? Is John Podesta implicated in the JonBenét Ramsey disappearance? The possibilities are truly endless.