2018, Affordable Care Act, Donald Trump — March 23, 2017 at 4:29 pm

Trump scandals I had to ignore to focus on health care for two days

by

Just a snapshot of the insanity of about 40 hours in the Trump era

We constantly talk about how we have to exist on two tracks — one that pretends that we have a functioning democracy and another where rising authoritarian kleptocracy is doing its best to help excuse Russia’s meddling in our election.

So in the lead up to Paul Ryan’s attempt to pass the atrocious and deadly American Health Care Act (ACHA!) on the 7th anniversary of the ACA becoming law, I decided to focus all of my attention and tweets on convincing people to call their Members of Congress and scream for mercy.

(Believe it or not, your calls count and are counted. KEEP CALLING.)

I didn’t think I, personally could make a difference. But focusing on the “functioning democracy” part of my brain made me feel normal.

The bill kept getting worse and, miraculously, crueler and more offensive. And it wasn’t good enough for Ryan to get a vote.

Your efforts — along with a conveniently timed disastrous poll for the bill and the undeniable fact that the GOP has no fucking idea what to replace the ACA with — have helped delay this vote.

That’s good. As Topher Spiro, Vice President for Health Policy, Center for American Progress, has been saying for months, the GOP missed its best chance to repeal the ACA on January 20th, when no one was paying attention. Every second they go on without repealing it is a tiny victory. This doesn’t mean they won’t come back and do even worse tomorrow.

But I want to take a moment and look back at the tweets I collected instead of retweeting or commenting on for the last 40 some hours.

Obviously, not one day of the Trump Administration has been normal. But this turned out to be a particularly clusterfuck of a couple of days.

It started like this with Trump’s former campaign chairman admitting he worked for an Russian oligarch but denied he was working for Russia’s “political interests” then because he apparently only does that when he works for American oligarchs.

Here he is suddenly developing acid reflux when asked if Trump has any financial relationship with any Russian oligarchs.

And then there was this casual kleptocractic neoptism, which somehow upset people less than Chelsea Clinton getting an award from the cable channel Lifetime.

And the Trump staffer with ties to a Nazi-linked organization keeps changing his origin story.

And the guy — from Trump’s transition team — who is supposed to be investigating Trump dove headfirst into helping Trump doing PR.

Somehow Secretary of Energy Rick Perry had time for some stray homophobia.

Never forget this.

Meanwhile in Ukraine.

Then Trump decided to give an interview to Time, defending himself from the claim — from the Wall St. Journal! — that he clings to lies like a alcoholic clings to an empty gin bottle.

It went as expected.

Oh, yeah. This guy still exists.

Some necessary context.

But yeah. Sorry, this is never happening.

We need to win the House back to even get the GOP serious about investigating this insane clown show.

But first, call your Member of Congress again. Death to ACHA.

[Image by Gage Skidmore |Flickr]

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